On Wed, 5 Apr 2006 08:06:47 +0200
Melchior FRANZ wrote:
>
>
> Hey, I said "consider"! ... OK ... then, hmm ... I've started to make
> a font from the pictures in that *.pdf, and it will be easy to create
> all the signs from that. Then we'll see how to continue. (If somebody
> objects to the old OBJECT_{TAXI,RUN}WAY_SIGN feature being resurrected,
> please tell us now. Someone 'constructive' maybe?)
I have no idea whether this is a "constructive objection" or not -- but
I've already made most of these in Blender and the Gimp, as an adjunct
to the work I did a year and a half ago on the Runway Distance Remaining
Signs and the Python script that places them in an automated fashion. I
have taxiway identifiers and runway intersections, and a brief script that
places them next to each other so that they appear to be the same sign.
Some other things like runway approach boundary, ILS hold and approach
hold signs as well. I hadn't yet gotten around to arrow signs for taxiway
routings, or to nighttime versions. They're compliant with both
FAA AC-150-5340-18C and FAA AC-150-5345-44G.
My main holdup in making them available (other than the missing
characteristics named above) has been my being unsure of the best, uh,
"deployment method." As Ralf noted, placing all these in the FGFSDB
will result in a lot of objects in the DB, although I don't know that
the number count would cause a problem (hey Ralf, I think I'm already
the winner in that contest, since I think I'm responsible for about 90
or 95% of the U.S. objects!). Is that the best way to do them? Or
some other distribution method in which they come as a package deal by
airport?
Automated generation would be fine, except for the fact that fgfs
doesn't know about taxiway designations -- how would it know that
this taxiway is "A", this one is "B", etc., since that's not in the
apt.dat in any way? I have periodically worked on software to figure
out locations for intersection signs, much like the code I wrote for
the RDRS signs; but it's a really hard problem because of things like
the way we use multiple short taxiways to form a curved single taxiway,
the way in which we overlap taxiways to make odd shapes, etc. So I
was also playing around with the idea of trying to write some code
for David Luff so that these could get placed by someone using e.g
TaxiDraw, while looking at taxiway designations (e.g. through
FAA/airnav.com). Obviously that would require TaxiDraw to then write
some sort of second file containing that info, such as a patch to
an .stg file. I dunno whether that's ideal, or whether David Luff
would be interested in pursuing it.
-c
--
Chris Metzler [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(remove "snip-me." to email)
"As a child I understood how to give; I have forgotten this grace since I
have become civilized." - Chief Luther Standing Bear
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