3D IGC Flight Replay using Google Earth Plugin
The tool IGC Flight Replay (http://ywtw.de/igcsim.html - MS Windows OS only!) offers the feature to load a IGC file and replay it in 3D using Google Earth visuals. Presently, this software is only available for Windows.
This stand-alone tool is great to look at flights, but has several draw-backs:
- platform dependent - MS Windows only
- Visualization and data separated in different tools (IGC Flight Replay, Skylines)
Can such a capability be integrated in Skylines? Google Earth can be embedded in web applications using the Google Earth API.
Different possibilities of Skyline integration:
- When looking at an individual flight, you can click on the track in the map and a menu pops up: Load nearby flights / get location info. In this menu a third option could be added: Render GE image of flight position
- When clicking in the barogram, render GE image of flight position
- Add a Replay button somewhere, which replays the entire flight (in seperate window?)
Here are some links, which may be of help, when considering this matter:
- https://developers.google.com/earth/documentation/demogallery (Google Earth API examples)
- http://www.barnabu.co.uk/geapi/flightsim/ (Flight sim using GE API)
Advantages of this feature:
- Extended flight analysis feature compared to OLC
- Familiarization with unknown terrain easier to achieve