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Flight Simulator X modding project sounds interesting?


LN400

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I just thought I'd ask here as well seeing this community has some pretty amazing modders around as well as people with a general interest in computers. If this is the wrong place to post, let me know. Alright, onwards to the point.

I'm doing some small scale, simple modding for Flight Simulator X (FSX) like adding/altering panels, gauges, windows and such like. Most who have played FSX have probably noticed the lack of maps, charts, diagrams that are useful for a more complete sim experience. I did find _a_ way to fix it, but it is far from optimal. Here's what I did:

- Got a large collection of charts as pdf for various airports, including approach charts, taxiway charts etc.

-For each chart I made a bmp image to be used in a custom made window in the sim's 2d/3d environment for whatever aircraft I choose to edit the panels.cfg.

This works and I can bring up charts in flight. Problems are

-To have all the available charts for a given airport, I would need more menu items than FSX supports in the toolbar View tab (9 in total iirc, including neccessary stock windows).

-To have all charts for all airports in the sim, and sectionals for every region would leave this in an unholy mess if it was possible in the first place

-Right now, the charts available in the cockpit are set once FSX has started and can not be changed mid flight.

-When FSX is starting up, it loads all the bits and pieces, custom made charts included, and too many charts would wreck havoc on the computer memory (one single regional chart I found was more than 14,000 pixels wide! and several 10's of MB in size).

Before I continue, there is an addon (APCharts) that shows airport diagrams but many, me included can't get it to work on a Win 8.1 system. Also, it only includes airport charts and nothing else.

So, I was thinking it would be nice to have a custom made gadget in the sim world environment where one can load a single chart or a few selected charts when needed.

Here is a screenshot of poor quality (in actual gameplay they are crisp and of the same quality as the original pdf images)

ay7ps9.jpg

 

Would anyone with the know-how be interested in joining in on making such a gadget? This includes finding solutions to how one can circumvent the "apparent" limitation that is all the bits and pieces are loaded once and for all when FSX starts. I am in no way experienced enough to undertake this on my own. There is an FSX SDK that allows external software to communicate with FSX but I haven't had the opportunity yet to look into it. If someone would be interested in joining, I would find the opportunity.

 

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