Re: Chart Data

["Curtis L. Olson" <curt@me.umn.edu>]

Bob Deep writes:
> Yea that was the idea actually... I was planning to use flight gear
> as the driver and validation enviroment before I actually went up
> and got lost in an airplane...  I figured, that if I could get the
> program smoth enough, you could incorparate it into flight gear as
> an add on too...

Bob,

Yes, if it ran under Unix, you wouldn't even really have to
incorporate it into FGFS directly.  It could just run as a separate
process in a separate window ... maybe hack in some simple socket
communication since serial communication doesn't make much sense if
the two processes are running on the same machine.

> Perhaps it would be easier to do the IFR end of things first? The
> charts are much simpler as they avoid all the landscape and visual
> landmarks you find on a sectional.

You could draw what you have data for, and build on that as your find
additional data sources ...

> I know the data exists somewhere as Jepson markets a product that is
> a moving map display.. (I think that is what I saw on their web site
> anyway..)

Yes, I've seen the jeppeson software running and have even tested
flightgear with it.  It's pretty slick, although sometimes I wonder
how they managed to make it so slow, innefficient, and buggy ... but
then I remember that it runs under windows and I am less surprised ... ;-)

I think jeppeson collects and markets their own data so it wouldn't
surprise me that they would have a software product that incorporates
their own proprietary data.

> I also figure that for the US, this data must somehow be obtained
> from the FAA or at least coordinated by them and thus should be
> available at a reasonable cost....  By now it has to be in
> electronic form of some kind... Well don't you think?

I think I've seen airport data on some FAA site someplace.  I was
pointing out some errors in Robin Peel's airport data base and he
said, "yup, straight from the FAA data" so I guess just because you
get the data from the FAA doesn't mean it will be without error.

> Oh.. And about flight gear...  What's the status of nav aids and
> their displays?

Currently nada, zilch.

I have a pretty complete database of worldwide nav aid data, but I
haven't made any attempt to read this into some efficient internal
data structure, nor has anyone worked on modeling the various nav
instruments.

> I see a lot of effort going into rendering the landscape but I don't
> see much on this front...

Yes, currently I am plowing away on overhauling the scenery.

> Blows M$ Flight away by a long shot though...

In a few respects yes, but they have a fairly complete sim, and we
don't ... yet ... :-)

> I might be interasted in helping out on that front....  Starting
> with VOR's and NDB's, then moving on to DME, localizers, glideslopes
> and markers..  If I get real good, we could add HSI's, monitor audio
> and stuff like that...

That's definitely a current area of need.  If it might be something
you are interested in working on, feel free to email me personally and
I can help you get up to speed with the source code.  We can hash out
the interface with the rest of the sim, directory structure,
makefiles, and things like that.

> As soon as I get my linux box back to a stable condition after my
> recient hardware upgrade, I plan to build a copy of flight gear and
> give it a try.  Right now, the hardware is not stable and the RMA
> process is taking way too long...

Good luck.  Flaky hardware is among life's most annoying things (along
with the vending machine being out of pop tarts and my dog peeing on
my bed.)

Curt.
-- 
Curtis Olson                        University of MN, ME Dept.
curt@me.umn.edu                     
http://www.menet.umn.edu/~curt      Try Linux!
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