Re: Advice needed: rwy dist rem sign installation

Chris,

I'm not intentionally ignoring you on this ... it sounds like a great 
addition.  But I've been running around like crazy between work 
projects, family from out of town, holidays, etc. etc.  My brain is 
running at max capacity + some. :-(  I think ideally, we should 
integrate this into airport generator some how so these are done 
automatically ... that opens up some potential tricky issues as to how 
best to handle where these objects are defined, LOD, etc. that really 
should be thought through carefully, and might take some effort to 
really impliment well.

Regards,

Curt.


Chris Metzler wrote:

>Hi.  David Luff and Melchior Franz both indicated that this more directly
>pertains to TerraGear than FlightGear at this point, so I'm posting this
>here.
>
>I recently got a chance to pick back up the work I'd done on automated
>generation of runway distance remaining signs.  In principle, everything
>is finished:  I have a set of signs which are designed as per the U.S.
>FAA regs (FAA AC-150-5340-18C, Standards for Airport Sign Systems, and
>FAA AC-150-5345-44G, Specification for Taxiway and Runway Signs).
>
>I also have a script for generating .stg file entries.  Features:
>
>- can read in airport data in either apt.dat or runways.dat format.
>- will generate sign placements either for a single airport, a list
>of airports (a list of ICAOs in a file), every airport in apt.dat
>or runways.dat (but not heliports or seaplane bases), or every
>airport in apt.dat that has the "has runway distance remaining signs"
>flag set.
>- can place signs using any of the three layout methods given by
>the FAA regs.
>- makes sure that there are no signs placed on top of intersecting or
>nearby runways or taxiways.  Specifically, it makes sure that no signs
>are placed within 50' of any other runway/taxiway at the airport.  It
>attempts to adjust the positioning of a sign to avoid such a conflict,
>omitting the sign entirely if it'd have to be moved by more than 50'
>along the runway length, as per the FAA regs.
>
>I'd like to contribute this to FlightGear/TerraGear -- I think they'd
>make a nice addition to the scenery at the airports where it'd be
>appropriate to have them.  However, I'm stuck on one thing that I'm
>hoping those who build scenery will advise:  what's the best way to
>write this stuff out?  Is the best option to:
>
>- have the script determine the tile numbers, go to the .stg files, and
>insert the sign entries directly?
>- have the script create an "installation" script, into which the sign
>entries are embedded (e.g. as a here document); such a script could also
>have a removal option, to take the signs back out?
>- do things monolithically (that is, create one massive installation
>script, or installing all at one time) or by airport (create lots of
>scripts or small files -- could be lots of files if doing all relevant
>airports)?
>
>To be of most use to the project, how should this script write its info?
>
>-c
>
>
>  
>
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-- 
Curtis Olson        http://www.flightgear.org/~curt 
HumanFIRST Program  http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/
FlightGear Project  http://www.flightgear.org
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