Idea Aviation mapping app plugin

Max-Q

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Does anyone have an interest in working with me on a plugin module to feed position and velocity data to aviation mapping apps such as ForeFlight or Garmin Pilot?

I have a fairly good grasp of the Orbiter API, but not enough for a project like this. I am fairly good at vessels, but have never made a plugin module.
Open-source code (Mostly C, I think) to drive these apps already exists, it would simply be a matter of interfacing to Orbiter (I think so, anyway... I have never touched C in my life.)

As I see it, this would require these functions:
- Collect the relevant data from Orbiter (Lat/Lon, Altitude, Velocity, etc.)
- Process it and convert to a format readable by ForeFlight
- Send the processed data over a LAN to the iPad running the app.

A few notes:
- Obviously, these apps are only designed to work on Earth, so my though is once the spacecraft is greater that an arbitrary distance from Earth, the plugin would simply disable itself.
- This capability exists by default in the X-Plane flight simulator series, so it is at least possible.
- This may be a lot harder than it sounds, I know next to nothing about coding for network stuff or how these apps receive and process data.

Anyway, I just thought I would throw this out there.
 

Urwumpe

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You mean supporting this?


That should be fairly easy to do, since it is UDP (AKA "send and forget"), we don't need to care much about it in a plugin.

The hardest part should be providing an even dataflow even during timewarp (I would recommend disabling communication in that time)

The maximum altitude it supports should be the same as for GPS, 3000 km.

The biggest problem for me would be testing the plugin without having the app.

I think it would be better to stay away from traffic messages, since I am not sure how the application reacts to fictional ICAO address codes.
 

Max-Q

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Yes, that is it exactly! As far as time warp, in X-Plane, the moving map just speeds up with time warp… I guess deal with that later. AFIK, ForeFlight is available as a 30 day free trial in the Apple app store.
 

Max-Q

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I have gone ahead and started this project. Don't know how to do the network stuff (the only thing I have ever done with networking is a bit of quick and dirty stuff in visual basic) but I guess I will deal with that when I get to it! Think I have figured out how to create a standalone (not a vessel) plugin module for orbiter but some advice in this department would be greatly appreciated!

If you want to help out with any part of this project, I would be happy to send a copy of my code.

EDIT: I have already made great progress on this! Collecting the data from orbiter and processing it at 1hz (even with timewarp)!
 
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Max-Q

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Update: It works! Driving the ForeFlight moving map and attitude indicator! Several user configurable options available via cfg file.
I would love to have it be configurable through the orbiter launchpad but my skills just aren’t up to this.
 

WingC3

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Update: It works! Driving the ForeFlight moving map and attitude indicator! Several user configurable options available via cfg file.
I would love to have it be configurable through the orbiter launchpad but my skills just aren’t up to this.
I'd say your skills are pretty darn good...
 
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