Ground Radar plugin 1.5 beta 3

[Juha Holopainen]

Main changes from beta 2:

• Maps data file syntax updated (sctfiledata and sctfilepath added)
• Runway related settings such as Airport_Runway_FinalXTE added to provide means to fine-tune the area where an aircraft is seen as being on final to a specific runway

 

Edited May 13, 2022 by Juha Holopainen

[Hongye Rudi Zhang (1326158)]

Hi Juha,

I found that the region inside the GRpluginMaps will override the ES default things from this version. Like runway name, freetext even approach line from topsky. Shouldn't it be de-prioritized?

Edited February 26, 2022 by Hongye Rudi Zhang

[Juha Holopainen]

Any plugin drawings have always been drawn after (on top of) the EuroScope drawn items. It is not even possible to draw before the EuroScope background, the first time the plugin gets a chance to draw anything is after the EuroScope radar screen background has already been drawn. If you're seeing a change, it means you're drawing something on the radar screen that you weren't before.

[Hongye Rudi Zhang (1326158)]

10 hours ago, Juha Holopainen said:

Any plugin drawings have always been drawn after (on top of) the EuroScope drawn items. It is not even possible to draw before the EuroScope background, the first time the plugin gets a chance to draw anything is after the EuroScope radar screen background has already been drawn. If you're seeing a change, it means you're drawing something on the radar screen that you weren't before.

I found the reason, TSW layer overlay on radar, I found the solution, thanks

[Toni Monner (1206448)]

Hi, we had configured GRPmaps for the previous beta with taxiways and stands, after updating to the new beta 3 we found out that the taxiways and stands (freetext) that we had configured earlier disappear. We had configured them according to rwy in use and zoom. I don't know what's causing it but we cant update to the latest beta version due to this. Any idea of what could we possible doing wrong?

Thanks Juha for your work is much appreciated.

[Hongye Rudi Zhang (1326158)]

5 hours ago, Toni Monner said:

Hi, we had configured GRPmaps for the previous beta with taxiways and stands, after updating to the new beta 3 we found out that the taxiways and stands (freetext) that we had configured earlier disappear. We had configured them according to rwy in use and zoom. I don't know what's causing it but we cant update to the latest beta version due to this. Any idea of what could we possible doing wrong?

Thanks Juha for your work is much appreciated.

It was same for me yesterday. Check your MAP item in GRpluginMaps, if you have TSW set, don't let it override above the radar, i.e. ": 2". For freetext I use SCTDATA:FREETEXT\XXXX, maybe you can try it. Btw, the plugin's layers will overwrite the radar, so what I did was to configure GEO and REGIONS in ASR and use the plugin to display FREETEXT

Edited February 27, 2022 by Hongye Rudi Zhang

[Toni Monner (1206448)]

On 28/02/2022 at 02:48, Hongye Rudi Zhang said:

It was same for me yesterday. Check your MAP item in GRpluginMaps, if you have TSW set, don't let it override above the radar, i.e. ": 2". For freetext I use SCTDATA:FREETEXT\XXXX, maybe you can try it. Btw, the plugin's layers will overwrite the radar, so what I did was to configure GEO and REGIONS in ASR and use the plugin to display FREETEXT

What i see is that it works fine when the SCTDATA just contains group and folder (i.e. SCTDATA:GEO\STANDS) but we needed to create a map that shows just some items of one folder (i.e. SCTDATA:GEO\TAXIWAYS\E4) here is when the new beta doesn't show anything and it started working very laggish but the previous one could do it with almost no performance impact. Same as the TopSkyMaps can do it. Hope there is a way to fix it.

[Weiqi Yu (1496934)]

Hi, I'm just wondering if it would be possible to configure the Approach Path Windows to be automatically shown when opening the ASR file, just as using the "List_Inbound=id,state,x-pos,y-pos" setting to show the lists automatically in "3.4.2 Settings that must be airport-specific".

[Nicolas Ammann (867703)]

Hey Juha

We have defined some aircraft in a group like this in the GRpluginMaps.txt file:

GROUP:CodeF:A124:A225:A388:B748

Further down we defined taxiway restriction for example like this

//TWY A
COORDTYPE:TWYTYPE:NONE
RESTRICTION:NOTATYP:GROUP_CodeF
N047.27.25.330:E008.33.05.990
N047.27.20.360:E008.34.14.510
N047.27.18.670:E008.34.13.600
N047.27.23.310:E008.33.07.310

It works, however it also gave a taxiway warning for smaller heavies i.e. B77L, which I did not really understood.

We will change de restriction now to max wingspan < 65m, but wanted to provide you that observation.

Best regards Nicolas

[Jonas Kuster (1158939)]

In LSGG, we regularly get large aircraft (e.g. A346) assigned to the helicopter area with the following definition:

STAND:LSGG:HEL
USE:H
AREA
COORD:N046.14.15.276:E006.06.06.797
COORD:N046.14.14.852:E006.06.07.455
COORD:N046.14.17.957:E006.06.12.042
COORD:N046.14.18.380:E006.06.11.357

Of course these aircraft cannot park there. There is a number of other options for both airliners, cargo and even private aircraft, which I expect to be used in such a case.

STAND:LSGG:66A
USE:A
CODE:E
PRIORITY:-2
BLOCKS:65,66
COORD:N046.14.09.339:E006.06.35.940
COORD:N046.14.07.543:E006.06.38.406
COORD:N046.14.07.986:E006.06.39.109
COORD:N046.14.09.835:E006.06.36.460
 

STAND:LSGG:71:N046.14.16.825:E006.06.48.662:30
CODE:E
USE:C
 

STAND:LSGG:89A:N046.13.38.772:E006.05.52.887:22
CODE:E
USE:P
HEADING:90
BLOCKS:88,89B
PRIORITY:-2
 

However, even when using the auto function for gate assignment, code E aircraft get assigned HEL only. Anyone can explain why?

[Juha Holopainen]

With that information, the A346 would be assigned either 66A, 71 or 89A depending on if it was seen as an airline, cargo or private flight - or even HEL if it was seen as a helicopter as it is possible to force the use category via the operator info data file... If that one stand (or another suitable one not shown there) was not available - either blocked, occupied or already assigned to some other flight - the code would randomly pick any stand capable of physically handling the aircraft size and weight, first among those with a non-negative priority number, and if that still fails to result in an assignment, then among those with a negative priority number.

The next version will have some helicopter handling improvements - stands limited to helicopter use category only will not be assigned to non-helicopter traffic, and the operator info data file will no longer have the power to force airplanes to helicopter use category or vice versa. This should make it less crowded at HEL, but otherwise the assignment logic will remain the same - all other non-size/weight-related restrictions will be lifted if necessary to get an assignment made.

[Jonas Kuster (1158939)]

Hm, I've seen this multiple times, and the three stands mentioned are not to only suitable ones. However, these kind of aircraft get always assigned the HEL stand. I'll test it again with some scenarios and provide an exact case to reproduce it.

Meanwhile, may I ask what has the higher priority: USE or PRIORITY?

[Juha Holopainen]

USE, as it's a restriction the code checks to determine stand suitability. PRIORITY is there to put otherwise equally suitable stands into a priority order. 

The assignment code first drops out occupied, blocked and already assigned stands out and puts the remaining stands into the first possible of the following 5 categories:

1. meeting ALL specified conditions AND found in a STANDLIST item
2. meeting ALL specified conditions
3. meeting ALL specified conditions except callsign restrictions
4. meeting all aircraft size related conditions (wingspan, length, height, mtow, atyp, wtc) but failing some other
5. failing one or more aircraft related conditions -> these are discarded

1-3 are then further split into groups according to decreasing PRIORITY, and 4 into two groups (prio 0...+3 and prio -1...-3). The code then tries to assign a random stand in group 1 with priority +3. If not possible, it moves to group 1 priority +2 and so on. After group 1 priority -3 it's group 2 priority +3, all the way until group 4 stands with negative priority.

If the code gets through all that without an assignment possible, as a last effort the occupied stands are similarly sorted as follows:

1. meeting all aircraft related conditions (wingspan, length, height, mtow, atyp, wtc) AND callsign restrictions
2. meeting all aircraft size related conditions (wingspan, length, height, mtow, atyp, wtc)
3. failing one or more aircraft related conditions -> these are discarded

And a similar process is done (sorting only into prio 0...+3 and prio -1...-3 within both groups) until an assignment is possible or the code runs out of stands (then an empty string is returned).