X-Plane Ortho4XP Guide

For anyone wondering, @fearlessfrog’s guide still hold for the latest version of Ortho4XP (version 1.3.0), although there are a few differences.

For the rest of the post, I will document my minimalist attempt to get ‘better than default’ scenery into X-Plane with a minimum of effort :slight_smile:

For the Ortho4XP Python3 Script, you can find it here: Windows Binaries Dropbox Link. For updates, check the signature on the first post of this thread at the XPlane.org site;

I downloaded and installed according to the README.md text file. The Python3 install was easy and self explanatory, as were the steps to add the extra libraries. For this example I unzipped that archive in G:\Projects\Ortho4XP\bin;

Before yo go further, I recommend following this step from frog to get the HD/UDH Mesh tiles: X-Plane Ortho4XP Guide - #2 by BeachAV8R

I downloaded my tile zips to G:\Projects\Ortho4XP\Overlay\Earth_Nav_Data-zips:

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And extracted the contents to:G:\Projects\Ortho4XP\Overlay\Earth nav data

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On running the Ortho4XP app I was greeted with this screen:

And after futzing around, I found that clicking on the Globe icon was the place where I wanted to go to do the batch builds. Before you do that, click on the Tools icon (wrench and screwdriver) and set the path to your overlay tiles:

Note that you are putting the path to the location ‘above’ the ‘Earth nav data’ directory.

Now back to the Ortho4XP main window, click on that Globe icon and the Batch window looks like this:

Right click, hold and drag to move the map. Double click to select a single cell (Yellow box in the next picture, shift click to select multiple cells (the black boxes with the red dotted interior). Note the other places that I have already rendered. I have no idea why some of them show a denser dot pattern than the others. Select all the Batch build tiles options shown in the screenshot below to do all of the Step 1, Step 2, Step 2.5 and Step 3 parts that frog mentions in his main post above.

Click on that ‘Batch Build’ button and go back to the main Ortho4XP window to watch the output.

Once the process completes, you will have a series of tiles in your Orth4XP bin directory:

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Copy these to your

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Then get the overlays in there as well by copying the G:\Projects\Ortho4XP\bin\yOrtho4XP_Overlays to the X-Plane 11 Custom Scenery directory:

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That was pretty much all I had to do to get ‘much better than the default’ X-Plane scenery.


The above screen shot is of CYFC Fredericton Airport after the update (but also with X-Plane.org CYFC scenery on top). I recognize all of the roads and features.


And that is a shot to the north west showing Fredericton in the distance. All the roads and features are where they should be :slight_smile:

It is accurate enough to make out the glacier carved features of the landscape here. Awesome!

Also, while I am at it, once you get this scenery all created and added to X-Plane, it is a bit of a issue to remember what you have done. When you are adding new tiles, you do not want to re-render the old ones by mistake. I recommend the xOrgainizer app to help with that. It is easy to survey what X-Plane has installed. There is more functionality, but I have only started using it.

Here I have selected the scenery that I have rendered and added to X-Plane (the Canada folder which I enabled by making the red box turn green) and the OrbX Washington scenery.

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Good quick guide @Fridge

I am still using 1.2.0b. Works OK. Need to check what’s new in this latest version.

One thing regarding tiles folder. I don’t copy newly generated tiles subfolders into XP custom scenery. Instead I leave them where they are and just create shortcuts to them in XP custom scenery folder.

And to keep tiles subfolders organized, within that tiles folder, I create empty subfolder with short description before each different tile/group of tiles. Something like ‘zOrtho4xp_-33~151— Australia’.

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One question. This Python3 install with Ortho4XP v1.3.0 is still mystery to me. You obviously installed that Python3 but this is from Install_Instructions.txt file :

NOTICE 2 : Windows users: You do not need to read further than this
notice if you have installed the binary windows version !
In your case, the executable file is Binary/Ortho4XP_v130.exe, and the
only advisable action is to make a short-cut to it somewhere, e.g. in the
main Ortho4XP directory (but the executable needs to stay where it is).
If you end-up installing the python modules some day (to get more frequent
updates or bugs fixed), the Binary directory won’t be necessary anymore.

So I am wondering do one need the Python3 install to make the v1.3.0 work or not?

Technically, all versions of windows are binary…just say’n :slightly_smiling_face:

Yes, the Python3 installation is required. At least that was the only prerequisite on my system to run Ortho4XP.

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EDIT - I may have figured this out…will get back to you!

Necro-bump here - but I was wondering. There is a guy on the .ORG that posted up his Ortho4XP CFG files to build much of Alaska. I have never used downloaded CFG files to build the tiles…and I’m not sure what settings I need to use in Ortho4XP. If someone has a quick and dirty answer (or guidance on what I should check in the menus), I’d appreciate it. Basically I downloaded the zip file and I see a bunch of ZOrtho4XP tile folders…that just have the CFG files in them. So I’m assuming those are the instructions on how to build each tile?

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It worked. At least. I have Ortho. Next step to check out that package. Er…well…next step to plumb in a new power source for my computer as I go ahead with building…

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Then again, you won’t need to light the fire to keep the house warm for the next few days -you’ll be converting electricity to XP tiles and lots of toasty warmth :grin:

Just 4 years ago one tile was worth 0.02 cents - we used to give them away, buy pizza with them as a joke. Now, due to the decentralized ortho-ledger that same bit tile is worth over $66,300 on today’s market. You can actually convert the old tiles to Ortho2, where the proof of work is less pure hashrate based, but the grass looks a little washed out.

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I suspect my ortho tiles will be worth as much as my pre Gulf War Iraqi dinars are… :rofl:

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you were lucky with those two isles in Bering Sea, usually ortho goes directly through the middle of the thing you want :slight_smile:

curious what the final size will be. btw what zoom level you went for?

Hmm…I don’t know. Isn’t it reading that setting from the pre-generated CFG files? I’ve had my computer working day and night…

could be there in the cfg, never used those before to generate tiles