B21 19 Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 I've written a total-energy vario as a gauge in pure XML. You might find it interesting to either use, or as an example of XML gauge programming. The hard part was to work out the formula for total energy compensation given airspeed and vertical speed as inputs...Download a Total-Enery vario here And if you're considering FSX soaring mission development, I've collected all the known wisdom about creating lift in FSX:Check this tutorial info first.If you're completely new, here's a taster image of the kind of thing you can do (relax, the ridgelift visualisation images are just a development aid):Feel free to contribute additional info here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Lürkens 30 Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 I read your tutorial on your web page.The depiction of the ridge lift structure was very revealing. It may explain why I missed the slope lift in the Austrian mission between WP8 and 9. Because of the simplification in the geometry, I was probably too _close_ to te ridge. Turning to luv-side direction probably might have brought me back again in the lift area. Always know your systems! A bit confusing though, compared with what I've learned from my instructors, from experience and last not least from CCS.However, if properly aligned, it is in interesting concept, producing also the lee-side continuation of the slope lift, that was not available in CCS.What confuses me now is how the boundary between the lift and the sink area changes when wind direction turns.Does ist change also ? Apparently, there is no seamless way how to change over. It seems that it has to flip, when wind is at 90 rsp. 270° to the orientation, which might be smoothed by the fact that at 90/270° te slope lift is ineffective.It should be possible to use the CCS-databases for generating slope lift scenery automatically, by leaving the altitude information after scanning. A readback of the DEM-mesh directly might by quicker, though.Cheers,Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smith 0 Posted January 11, 2007 Share Posted January 11, 2007 This is very exciting stuff Forster! It is great to see talented individuals working on soaring missions for FSX (and also developing things like compensated varios). Is it okay if I mention what you're up to, on a couple of FS-related forums I'm a member of (Sim-Outhouse and Voz)?FSX first turned me on to virtual soaring and while that road took me quickly to Condor (which is excellent), I still really like FSX's soaring. While it's got its problems (I had the devil of a time in the Swedish soaring mission, with no thermal indicators, looking for thermals parked under clouds, only to later find the thermals aren't placed like they are in nature), it's graphics are much better that Condor's and I can soar in recognisable places in my part of the world in Australia and NZ. Plus FSX has a nice feel and flow to it.So more power to your right arm in developing soaring missions. I looked at your site and its discussion about the SDK, but I noticed you talked mostly about ridge and normal thermals. What about wave? How is that handled in FSX - is it set up just like ridge, but placed downwind?Another thought I had about the inclusion of lift in normal free flight is about the third-party weather generation programs, particularly Active Sky. I read somewhere that Active Sky 6.0 will generate thermals - does anyone have experience with that and does it provide a full suite of "natural" thermals?smith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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