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PSXAloft II : new upper wind and turbulence simulation for PSX

Started by JP59, Wed, 14 Oct 2015 14:27

Ivo de Colfmaker

Hi Jean -Phillipe
Thank you very much for this great add on,
Beta 4 works fine for me, beta7 does not .
It connects fine and loads the active sky weather file, but then nothing happens,
Did I missed something?
Ivo
A day at this forum is a day learned!

JP59

Quote from: Ivo de Colfmaker on Wed, 28 Oct 2015 08:31
It connects fine and loads the active sky weather file, but then nothing happens,
Did I missed something?
Ivo

Hello Ivo,

What do you mean by "nothing happens" ? From Beta 6 I disabled the debug window output, so it is normal you do not see any message printed. I let the window for now because I still use it for development.

If the application is "alive" (buttons alive, no error message from windows) everything is ok.

Regards,

Ivo de Colfmaker

hi Jean Phillipe,

sorry, my mistake.
looked at the debug window and since there was no text, made the wrong conclusion.
it works like a dream.
ivo
A day at this forum is a day learned!

JP59

Hello,

Version 1.0 is now released.

A big thank you dear Beta testers  ;)

Cheers,


evaamo

Good job Jean Philipe! Thank you for your contribution. It's been working great so far ! :-)

cheers
-E
Enrique Vaamonde

tango4

Thanks a lot Jean-Philipe !
I don't have much time at the moment, but will try your latest release when I can.
This was really THE missing feature for us "hobby" users, that is really great !

Charles

JP59

Quote from: Hardy Heinlin on Mon, 19 Oct 2015 18:34
Just a thought ...

There is a difference between the true altitude from the PSX server and the altitude on the PFD/AFDS/FMC which varies with the local zone's QNH if STD/FL is used (i.e. if the local QNH is not set on the instruments).

If the add-on doesn't gradually interpolate between data layers, there may be a jump at the border of the layers, and there may be even the wrong layer in use if the QNH/STD difference is large.


Cheers,

|-|ardy

Hello Hardy,

Still have a problem of altitude "drifting" when flying STD outside weather zones. I do not understand because PSXAloft  doesn't modify any QNH at all. I need to manually set the QNH in the weather window for "Outside weather zone" global QNH. When coming back in a focused weather zone, altitude is right. Could you please detail a little bit more about how to interpolate QNH ? I do not understand the notion of difference between PSX server global QNH and clients local QNH. Note that I still use the smoothing feature injecting "Qi243=2000\r\n" before every weather injection.

Best regards,

Hardy Heinlin

Hi Jean-philippe,

QNH is not to be interpolated. The focussed zone sets the QNH. If no zone is focussed, the planet sets the QNH.

PSX internally performs a slow transition from the old value to the new, injected value if a METAR text is injected, or if Qi243 is injected shortly before the actual data injection. Qi243 is described here:

http://aerowinx.com/board/index.php?topic=2971.msg30006#msg30006


Cheers,

|-|ardy

JP59

Thanks. This is what PSXAloft do, but I noticed an altitude drift when no local weather is focused (planet QNH in use). I do not see where it comes from.

Will continue investigating.

Cheers,

JP59

Hello,

PSXAloft is still under development. Thanks again to everybody for your kind words, and always constructive remarks and sugestions. I post here again to announce some future important improvements to come with probably a version 2.0 of PSXAloft.

Version 2.0 will introduce a new bridge to simconnect. ASN flight plan wx file will not be used anymore for wind aloft and OAT injections. Injections will be done every 5 seconds according to P3D (and maybe FSX) aloft current wind and OAT. Those values can come from anywhere (ASN, P3D internal WX, OPUS, REX, ...)

Tests are done with P3D and everything is working very fine ! I am working on a compatibility with FSX. For now, datalink is still fed with ASN wx file, but I am working to implement a direct feed from simconnect also (not yet tested if it will be technically possible).

One question : do you use PSXAloft turbulence generation feature ? If yes, what is your feeling ? Personally, I think it can be improved. I would like to introduce a "live" turbulence generation, still through simconnect.

Still a lot of work, but I wanted to share my enthousiasm with you.

Stay tuned  ;)
Cheers,

cagarini

Jean-phillipe,

congratulations for your project and what appears to bet a promising future.

As a member of the ASN beta team I would be glad to feed any questions to the beta forum.

ASN is already modeling internally such things as geopotential height, and while presently and in FSX / P3D pressure gradient is still "standard", I believe future updates will give FSX / P3D users the chance to experiment the effects of flying in cold, dense air...


evaamo

Hello Jean-Phillipe, first of all thank you for your continuous improvement to your great PSXAloft utility. Enhancements for 2.0 sound very promising.

I have a request for you, though. Please don't disable the ASN wx file functionality in PSXAloft 2.0. For example, I use ASN and PFPX and then PSXAloft to feed the winds/oat into PSX. But many times I don't use FSX, just PSX stand-alone. By reading your post, It seems that PSXAloft 2.0 will make running FSX/P3D a requirement. I understand I could just keep using PSXAloft 1.0 instead of 2.0, but then again I don't know if you have fixed any bugs or added new features that could be back-ported to 1.0 ?

On the other hand, I haven't used the turbulence feature. Not because I don't find it interesting, it's just that I'm lazy ;-)

Cheers and thanks again JP!
-E

   
Enrique Vaamonde

JP59

Quote from: evaamo on Sun, 22 Nov 2015 17:46
By reading your post, It seems that PSXAloft 2.0 will make running FSX/P3D a requirement. I understand I could just keep using PSXAloft 1.0 instead of 2.0, but then again I don't know if you have fixed any bugs or added new features that could be back-ported to 1.0 ?

Hello,

To be honest, I would like to make PSXAloft independent of the ASN WX file (if possible) by retrieving all the data directly from simconnect. Mixing the two solutions is technically possible but I had to make a choice. The code in version 2.0 was totally redesigned. Working with simconnect every 5 seconds and with a static file at every waypoint is not the same thing. I had many requests to make the wind update more "dynamic". This is what version 2.0 will do because updates will be done every 5 seconds. Again, I had to make a choice. Not easy to satisfy everybody  :)

Quote from: evaamo on Sun, 22 Nov 2015 17:46
...but then again I don't know if you have fixed any bugs...

If you see any bug within version 1.0 do not hesitate to feed-back.

Best regards,

evaamo

Hello Jean Phillipe, thanks for the reply. I perfectly understand the choice you had to make and I believe the path you're following is the correct one, simconnect is the way to go.

Since you have redesigned the code, have you considered uploading the source code of version 1.0 to github?.

Cheers!
-E
 
Enrique Vaamonde

Pierre Theillere

Hi Jean Philippe,

I purchased and installed ActiveSkyNext, unzipped PSx_Aloft, and also installed the VC++ 2012 x86 library... but Windows XP SP3 tells me that PSx_Aloft isn't a valid Win32 executable file. Are there any other libraries that need to be installed prior to running your program?
I noticed that the .exe is very small, only 130560 bytes: I re-downloaded it (just in case it got corrupted) but same result.
Pierre, LFPG

JP59

Hello Pierre,

Looks like I compiled the .exe without XP compatibility option. Please download PSXAloft again and report. It should work.

Regards,

Pierre Theillere

Hi Jean-Philippe!

Amazing "customer support" for your great free software: it now works! Now I have to wait till a long rainy winter day comes, to fly a realistically planned longhaul.
Thanks a lot for your great efficient work!
Pierre, LFPG

JP59

Some informations about PSXAloft 2.0 tests and development:

- I can confirm it will be compatible with FSX and P3D (tested).
- It will still need ASN flight plan file for the datalink feature. Retrieving WX informations through SimConnect for "far away" waypoints is not technically possible.
- I am still thinking about how to make the turbulence simulation better. Not an easy job. Again, it looks like very difficult to retrieve those data through SimConnect.

Thanks again for your patience and support. I have to manage both my personal 1:1 scale simulator development, and software development, and my simulator gave me a lot of work those last weeks.

Best regards,

cavaricooper

Jean-Phillipe-

C'est très bon, merci beaucoup!

I have made PSXAloft part of each flight, and had superb results... brilliant!

C
Carl Avari-Cooper, KTPA