Hi! I've heard that there is need for ability to toggle certain runway lights on or off, depending on which runways are in use.
I've done some tests with obj.cxx and GroundLightManager to group lights together and turn them on or off, and I think I have figured it out so that I could make the system work. BUT we need to have the information about which light belongs to which runway, so this would need some changes. I propose following: - Add 3 new property types to btg file format (http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/BTG_File_Format): 3: Grandparent node name (in light's case, this would be the ICAO code of the airport) 4: Parent node name (with lights this would be the runway code) 5: Direction, vector (could be used with directional runway and taxiway lights, if missing, assume point light) 3 and 4 would be strings of arbitrary length, and 5 could be 3 doubles, x, y and z. This way we could easily bind the lights to certain airport code and runway code, so they could be toggled on or off via easy properties. I also think that one light could have multiple parents, so opposite ends of runway would light up the same lights. I don't think this breaks compatibility with older versions of FG, since the .btg reader just discards unknown properties. I also have some questions about lighting in general: - Does the runway have same kind of lighting if it's used for takeoffs or landings? What about which end of the runway is used? - Can one runway have different sets of lights (simple, CATI, CATII, whatever they are?) - Are taxiway lights always on or do they depend on the runways being used? I also saw something interesting here, like the blinking runway guard lights, stop bar lights and lead-on lights. They should probably be taken into account for future versions. Link: http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP637.PDF And an image from the forums showing current situation which may or may not be realistic: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_UQs70Ldx8uc/S2BAlMoiKqI/AAAAAAAABEY/eWQaD5JufaI/fgfs-screen-007.png I'm glad to take any comments about this proposition, and if there are some things about the lights that should be taken into consideration. Sincerely, Lauri (Zan) -- Lauri Peltonen lauri.pelto...@gmail.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
