Presagis

I seem to recall a discussion a while back in which someone requested that little poles be added under edge lighting as an option in the runway wizard.

I recently received a request to add support poles under the approach lighting systems.  I was wondering if this was something you’d consider adding to the wizard in the future. 

I know that the z value of all lights is 0.0 with no option for an offset.  A desriable addition would be a z-offset for each individual light type, we like to raise our edge lights and taxiway lights up off the runway, and our approach lighting systems are raised by a different amount to simulate being on poles (we also angle them up slightly).

This tool is getting more and more robust, and we now rely on it so heavily that these additions are crucial.  Which is ironic considering that a couple of years ago we were using the path tool and cutting and pasting centerline marks ....

Kent,
Depending on your version of Creator, there is a z offset under the create create point light string.  I do not know what version of 3.X, but at the top of the create point light string there are two offset values, “Offset Z:”  (for height) and “Offset: {amount} {Center left, and right}” (horizontal distance from entry point).  It is not in the runway wizard, but there is a separate function to enter point lights.  I have used it mainly for entering taxiway light with both vertical and horizontal offset.  The only real problem with the z offset was if you used a middle button on the mouse for locking on to a template point after the first string, the light were moved up again by the amount of the offset.  I would not count on any change to the wizard because a simple request for creating variable length (half the length or in between length) threshold landing marks was deemed too much of a change to the wizard.  More than likely you will get the same answer to your more complex 3-D addition.
You may be stuck with using the point light creator and adding the 3-D posts yourself.
Robert Swaney

Thanks Robert - I seem to recall chiming in on the Z-offset being cummulative in another thread.

I can always go back after running the wizard and select the parent of all the lights and transform .4m up.  Not a big deal, but again one more thing to do (and remember to do).

I don’t have a lot of hope for supports in the near future, I can see where it could be a very complicated addition.

One good thing i might like to see added is the ability to have the edge lights and center line come out as single omni light points (except for the bi-dir yellow/white ones at the end of an ILS runway) instead of separate strings for opposing runways.  I have to go back and do this by hand too, and for most of the runways. Coupled with the need to split and recode the lights on crossing runway surfaces to be the flush-mounted narrow FOV lights as in the real world, and there’s a lot of hand-editing to do after the wizard.  The wizard still rocks compared to the old method of making polys by hand, though!