Convert BGL to GLS

Understanding BGL and GLS file formats

BGL files are commonly associated with Microsoft Flight Simulator and represent scenery or geographical data used to render landscapes and airports within the simulator. These files are in a proprietary binary format and are not directly editable or viewable outside of specialized tools.

GLS files, on the other hand, are typically Glossary files used by LaTeX document preparation system, generated by the makeglossaries tool. They contain formatted glossary entries for academic or technical documents.

Can you convert BGL to GLS?

Direct conversion from BGL to GLS is not standard or typical because these formats serve entirely different purposes: one is for flight simulation scenery, the other for document glossaries. However, if your goal is to extract information from a BGL file (such as airport names or locations) and create a glossary for documentation, you would need to extract data from BGL and then format it into a GLS file.

How to extract data from BGL files

To extract data from a BGL file, you can use specialized tools such as:

• Airport Design Editor (ADE) – Allows you to open and view BGL files, extract airport and scenery data.
• BGL2XML – Converts BGL files to XML, making the data readable and exportable.

After extracting the relevant information (such as airport codes, names, or locations), you can prepare this data for glossary creation.

Creating a GLS file from extracted data

Once you have the data, you can create a LaTeX glossary by formatting the entries in a .tex file using the \newglossaryentry command. Then, compile your LaTeX document with the makeglossaries tool to generate the GLS file.

Example LaTeX entry:

\newglossaryentry{icao}{name={ICAO}, description={International Civil Aviation Organization}}

After compiling, the GLS file will be generated automatically.

Recommended software for the process

• Airport Design Editor (ADE) – For extracting data from BGL files.
• TeX Live or MikTeX – For compiling LaTeX documents and generating GLS files.
• makeglossaries – Command-line tool for creating GLS files from LaTeX glossaries.

Summary

While there is no direct BGL to GLS converter, you can extract data from BGL files using ADE or BGL2XML, then format the data for a LaTeX glossary and generate a GLS file using LaTeX tools. This process is manual but effective for creating documentation glossaries from flight simulator data.