Boulevard north parking lot, Miri - Phoenix R/C simulator - SupermotoXL Designs

Details: Published: 01 October 2022

About

I almost forgot this site but fate led me here on the day i drive passed this place this month after noticed abrupt changes. Its another one of our old 'after work hours' R/C site. This site is located north of 'Boulevard Hypermarket just across the road from where previously i've created virtual site 'Hypermarket parking lot' (South side) released in March 2021. Both empty lot located on a commercial district known as BOULEVARD commercial center in Miri township. The lot on northern side is where our R/C buddies used to hangout to race our R/C cars and also flying our 3D profile planes in 2012. Back then half of this site originally used for driving school while half remains empty for public parking space. The left over space enough to fly small park flyer size plane or just doing R/C car drag race after our working hours. Now in mid 2022 the area is vacant, the driving school is relocated to new location leaving behind traces of driving circuit on the tarmac. Both north and south side of the parking lot have similar characteristic in ambient, wind condition, surface terrain types and accessibility. The advantages having to fly at north side is that this area are less crowded with roaming people and parked cars, have better sheltering standing position from sun rays, better line of sight visibility all around, less hazardous to fly since its away from tall building and main highways unlike the south parking lot. Most start contrast is the horizontal length of usable runway is longer than south parking lot.

Currently at the time of writing this article this space is completely vacant but i predicted it will full again with business structure or expanded parking usage in the future leaving no space to fly soon. So i've decided to capture the area with my DJI MINI 2 drone to scan the surrounding scenery via 360 panoramic sphere capture and the compile it inside 'Phoenix R/C building tool' so i could produce a virtual R/C flying site that i could fly infinitely inside PHOENIC R/C simulator. At the time of capture it was around 7.00am in the clear sky morning, the surrounding ambient will be cooler color unlike blue afternoon skies on south version of parking lot (2021 - Hypermarket parking lot). So let's build a virtual site.

The build

Just like my previous build the process of creating the virtual Boulevard north parking lot for Phoenix R/C simulator is exactly the same like before but with extra photo editing work to remove visual obstacles such as nearby trees later on. I'm using my DJI MINI 2 drone for majority of complicated on the field work for sphere photography. DJI MINI 2 drone takes 26 photo shots of RAW (*.DNG) 360 degree sphere tiles which will be manually stitch inside MICROSOFT IMAGE COMPOSITE EDITOR. The output after the RAW adjustment will be tiles of *.JPG at 3992px x 2992px resolution. After stitching process it will produced a full panoramic 19968px x 7367px resolution high resolution *.PNG files which will then needed to be resize according to 2:1 ratio (where width is size is twice the height) at 14968px x 7484px resolution before turning into 'cube map' layout via 'Panorama to Cubemap' online generator tools (here) which required to fill the 'boxed' environment in PHOENIX R/C SIMULATOR. Before cube mapping process the stiched images have to go through intensive photo editing in COREL PHOTOPAINT to correct some 'mis-aligned' tiles that was stitched in composite editor program. The top skies ceiling also need some 'filler' since DJI MINI 2 drone's camera gimbal can't pitch upwards to capture the ceiling part of the skies. So there for i compensated by adding blank (morning white color) matching sky color from horizon. Then i have to remove two tall oversized trees behind the R/C pilot standing position because visually the top part of the tree canopy was blurred (almost missing) by DJI MINI 2 pano capture due to gimbal camera unable to tilt up to take snapshots, so it looked capped and blurry which is not aesthetically good for 360 viewing. Through photo editing work i used my skills to 'chop' the tree down and make it looked like old stumpy trunk chain sawed half way and it looks real! hehehehe!

Once done its ready to be cube map which will produce 6x tiles (Boxed) at 3742px x 3742px resolution in *.JPG format. Finally all the cube map tiles in *.JPG format are to be compiled into PHOENIX BUILDER tools rendered in 'box' where its then will be layout with solid base foundation, object collision, lightings, weather elements and other items required to make the flying site more realistic and functional to fly around. For collision elements the parking lot are simple to do since it more radial like collision perimeter with just commercial building, road divider, trees, few light poles and houses down the road. Overall it took me about 4 hours of work to compile the whole site into workable flying area inside the simulator.

Tools used to create these custom site:

Photography tool: DJI MINI 2 drone
RAW file editing tool: RAW Therapee
Photo editing program: Corel Photopaint
Sphere 360 panorama compiler: Microsoft Image Composite Editor
Cubemap tool: https://jaxry.github.io/panorama-to-cubemap/
Site builder tool: Phoenix Builder

Actual real life flying site in pano mode:

Sphere panoramic construction in Phoenix Builder tool:

Virtual flying site in Phoenix R/C simulator:

Flying site characteristic

This site have similar ambient and ground surface as the '2021 - Hypermarket parking lot' with an extra advantages having horizontally longer runway, less crowded the ground and less tall structure to worry about when flying low pass as long keep the flight radius approximately 166m x 147m within boxed area with (pilot view in front) above tree lines and before low buildings. Flying anything under 850 gram park flyer size models should be good enough. In real life i only flew under 200 gram 3D profile plane with LED light strips wholesome enough roam around the lot, but in simulator you can go all out with any models you'd see fit. The best scale plane i would fly would be my 860mm wingspan Hobby King Pitts Special for this place. The terrain surfaces is much smoother here than the south side because the area is less roam by motorist. Safe flying height should be between 20m to 30m for plane scale models. The area is less windy due to encapsulated by low trees and buildings which makes it easy to perform 'low pass' flight. By default should there be a windy breeze it should be coming from the east on pilot left side. Sun ray is also slightly on the 50 degree left top in the morning. Taking off is easy; you can start from either left or right side of the horizontal runway from pilot standing point of view. The runway is long enough to accommodate any park flyer size plane to roll safely to hit V1 and V2 flight speed. The safe usable runway length is 150 meters for plane model weight 850 gram and below including smaller EDF planes.

Once in the air its easy to navigate because by VLOS (Visual Line OF Sight) is easier to spot the plane from open sky back drop and doing low passes is less hassle with no worries hitting anything on ground level. From doing a simple figure '8' to aerobatic loops the flying space is big enough to execute such maneuvers. Ideally i flew a lot of 3D profile plane model since i could easily experiment some slow flying stunts/aerobatics almost ground proximity hovering from longer distance which is helpful for maneuvers such as 'Knife Edge', Harrier rolls (Hovering with rolls), F3A/F3P stunts and other slow but long straight line stunts while keeping the plane altitude low at torso level. Its also a best place to fly any models of helicopters from 3D to scaler models since the area to fly is wide open and totally flat to land anywhere on wheeled landing gear except behind the pilot. Definitely feels easier to maneuver and at this place because i don't feel distracted by 'noisy visual' of grasses or inconsistent ground patterns when taking off and landing on the spot. All R/C models looks contrast against any backdrop on ground level (Greyish tarmac color) which makes VLOS spotting much easier. Flying a fast park flyer size electric EDF jet can be challenging since it could easily cover 166m x 147m square size perimeter in few seconds but not impossible, the good news is long solid flat ground welcomes any style of landing approach from slow to hot landing as long the R/C pilot proficient enough to flare it (slow down at higher AOA) at touch down. For level of piloting at this location any pilot skill from Beginners, Intermediate to Advance level can easily fly at this site.

Flying site specification:

Area type: Commercial center parking lot
Safe VLOS airspace size:: Approximately 166m x 147m
R/C model flight suitability: Lightweight 'park flyer' size models (under 850g).
Runway surface length: 150m
Safe take-off & landing runway length (before hitting trees and building): 140m
Hazards & obstacles: Perimeters of buildings and trees.
Flight skills required: Intermediate

Summary

The Boulevard north parking lot bring nostalgic memories as a place where i spent playing R/C cars and planes especially 3D profiles planes back in early 2012, its a place i would stop by before heading home from work place during rush hour just to kill some time. I remember vividly had huge enthusiasm with 1/28 scale KYOSHO MINI-Z a SUBARU WRC car screaming down the flat tarmac drag racing just to tested my tuned motor, it was before the days i going deep into flying. Hahaha! back then i was still young and naive spending all my budgets with R/C models, hangout till late at night just to R/C racing around with buddies while my other cycling friend watching from distance from the main road hope me to return back behind 2 wheels on the road....lol! I was overwhelmed with too many hobbies. I can remember the last R/C plane i flew before i abandoned this place was flying an LED light strip decorated slow flyer HOBBY KING TRITANIA EPP 3D profile plane doing some after dark flying and stunts..then that was it. In present time year 2022 after i notice the place when vacant i started to recall those good days at that very spot and decided to replicate a this site by building a virtual version of Boulevard north parking lot so i could fly forever in Phoenix R/C simulator before the place starts to fade away by future property developer.

Overall flying virtually on this site in R/C simulator was a blast of nostalgia, everything i've experienced in the past exactly replicated in digital space. Without worries and risk i can fly much anything including some helicopters and etc. Its never to late to be youngsters again at this place. Awesome!