3D Gone This Morning!

[GlynH]

Server does funny things when its not 100%. Rest assured once the maintenance is over it should be back online as normal.

You haven't answered my question.

If a 3D user wants to be able to see their own local traffic in 3D, why does that have to be dependent on the AirNav server at all, when there are other, more sensible ways that the application could have been configured to verify that it's authorised to run in 3D mode ?

Also as I have asked before why do we have to depend on the AirNav Server to deliver the email alert for example?

A simple SMTP setup within AN to generate and deliver logs, alerts etc. would be ultimately more resilient, easier to configure and give 100% availability...well depending upon your own ISP of course.


I have asked this question before in a reply to someone on here somewhere;

Quote (pjm ISTR);

----------snip----------
While we are on this topic, what is the rationale for all email alerts to go via the AirNav email server?

Wouldn't it make sense to allow the users to set their own, or their ISPs SMTP server like we do for all other emails we send?
----------snip----------


My Reply & question;

----------snip----------
Hallelujah.

I have been asking for this for a long time.

I do not understand why this even has to go anywhere near AirNav Servers...to me it is just one more unecessary link in the chain that is prone to errors.

A bit like playing Chinese Whispers as a kid...:-/

At best there is always a delay - at worst the email doesn't get through.

It would also reduce the load on AirNavs servers and be one less aspect for them to maintain...Win-Win all round if you ask me.

It has to be a simple task to be able to specify any email server the user prefers?

Many Add-Ins I have on WHS fpr example allow you to specify an email server of your choice along with sender, recipient, subject etc. etc.

That way you have control over who the email comes from by being able to specify the senders name & email address.

I mean I sent an Alert 15 minutes ago and it has not hit my ISP yet.

Can't even tell if Alerts are working properly for me if I don't receive the email to begin with...

An Aircraft can cover a lot of ground in 15 minutes and so it is not much of an Alert really is it...more of a history lesson!
----------snip----------

How about it AirNav?

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

[tarbat]

Glyn, I suspect Airnav may have other priorities.  You only have to look at the long list of 246 posts on the enhancement requests topic.  Surely that's the best place to ask (again) for this feature, not on a thread about 3D availability.

As with any software development, Airnav have to balance development priorities for what the market wants.  Asking for the same feature over and over again, on different threads, probably won't increase the priority of your particular requirement.

[GlynH]

Chris,

It wasn't my intention on turning this thread into a feature request list...I have after all just posted 20 Feature Requests in one post in the relevant thread...most of which I posted over a year ago and some of which were going to be included in v1.6 but of course I won't mention which one in this thread...

After reading Dave's question above it just seemed to me an appropriate place to give another example of where we could help and/or suggest AirNav relieve the load on their servers from which we might all benefit as users from increased uptime - one advantage if which would be increased 3D availability...in my mind it is all linked.

This included a cut & paste post to highlight my point and should be perceived as such not a half-hearted attempt to increase the priority of a request.

Taking it to its logical conclusion had I received a reply last time or the time before then maybe I wouldn't have had to ask the same question again?

I didn't want Dave's question to fall on deaf ears either so I thought I might take the opportunity to expand on what is after all a fundamental question IMHO.

[tarbat]

Okay, back on topic.  Maybe RB3D needs to handle a "failure to connect" to the Airnav server in a better way, rather than asking the user if they want to upgrade to 3D!!

But, AFAIK, you'd still need access to the Airnav server to get 3D working.  The 3D works by getting html from the Airnav server
http://www.airnavsystems.com/cgi-bin/ANRB_3D/google_earth.php
to do the Google Earth stuff, including the unique vendor key, etc.  So, without a connection to the Airnav server, it still won't work.

Maybe that's a restriction imposed by the GE licence conditions?  Or maybe Airnav need to keep central control over the GE html in case Google change how GE works in the future.

That's a very different problem to sending emails!!

[DaveReid]

So, without a connection to the Airnav server, it still won't work.

Maybe that's a restriction imposed by the GE licence conditions?  Or maybe Airnav need to keep central control over the GE html in case Google change how GE works in the future?

Or maybe AirNav simply haven't put enough thought into the robustness of the architecture ?

Is would be nice if we didn't all have to speculate.

[AirNav Development]

RadarBox 3D access the internet to download aircraft photos, flight data information, network flights (for network users), Google Earth terrain data and to confirm that for each serial number 3D is authorized or not.

>Maybe RB3D needs to handle a "failure to connect" to the AirNav server

By default the application checks if the user is authorized to have 3D. If not the application launches in 2D mode. We accept the suggestion and a better "failure to connect" message will be shown in a future version as some users might get confused when their internet connections have problems.

[DaveReid]

RadarBox 3D access the internet to download aircraft photos, flight data information, network flights (for network users), Google Earth terrain data and to confirm that for each serial number 3D is authorized or not.

I'm sorry, but that's a complete red herring, bordering on the disingenuous.

Of the items that you list, clearly users realise that if your server is down they aren't going to get network flights, or be able to download new photos or route details.  Everyone understands that.

But Google Earth terrain data comes (presumably) from GE, which will almost certainly still be up and running when your server is down, and the 3D authorisation could easily be handled with a licence file, without RadarBox needing to phone home.

So I'm still struggling to understand just what is so difficult about giving users a 3D service for flights that they are picking up locally that works whether or not the AirNav server is available.

By default the application checks if the user is authorized to have 3D. If not the application launches in 2D mode.

Nobody is disputing the necessity for that in order to protect your investment, just that there are alternative, more reliable, ways of doing this that aren't dependent on your server being up.

a better "failure to connect" message will be shown in a future version.

Something along the lines of "Error: Notwithstanding the fact that you have paid for 3D, and your Internet connection is OK, and the Google Earth server is happy to let you download all the terrain data you need, you're currently restricted to 2D"  :-)

[Allocator]

This seems to be a lot of fuss about nothing.  The 3D access is still very new, so I'm sure that there will be the odd glitch here and there as it evolves.  If there was to be an ongoing issue with 3D data, then I'd expect the process to be addressed.

I don't see any reason for a 'knee-jerk' change at present.  If the 3D data feed is as reliable as the normal Network data, then there is nothing to worry about.

[radarspotter10]

from DaveReid
"So I'm still struggling to understand just what is so difficult about giving users a 3D service for flights that they are picking up locally that works whether or not the AirNav server is available".

i agree,  anybody else agree?.
from pat.

[Brimon]

I seem to recall that Airnav publish up times for the server periodically.Again if I recall correctly the downtime is minimal. I agree regarding the wording of the message when 3D is not available, I paniced when I saw it I must admit. However considering the minimum downtime or the server & the fact that 2D is still available I won't lose any sleep.

[AirNav 3D Development]

Hello all,

I understand that this is an important topic for everyone, so I'll do my best to explain how the current system works, why it works the way it does, and how we intend to improve it as we continually update the 3D application.

1. The 3D plug-in works by simply embedding the Google Earth plug-in into an embedded web browser (an Internet Explorer process) inside of the ANRB interface. This webpage is nothing more than webpage located on www.airnavsystems.com (just like airnavlive.com - http://www.airnavlive.com/anexg.php). The ANRB application then communicates directly with the 3D plug-in using the Google API.

2. We tested several different concepts during the long development of ANRB3D before settling with Google Earth plug-in. We initially tried integrating the full stand-alone Google Earth application embedded into ANRB and it almost worked, but didn't work as well as we hoped. We even tried using NASA World Wind and it worked pretty well, but there were some issues that we haven't overcome yet with this. The Google Earth plug-in is quite a reliable plug-in and easily supports the 3D models and liveries that AirNav has spent so much time developing. For us to use the Google Earth plug-in, there are two key reasons why the application is dependent on AirNav servers: First, the container HTML page that displays the plug-in comes directly from AirNav servers. Second, to conform to the Google Maps terms of service, we are required to load the plug-in from our web-server with our server-assigned-API key which is tied to our server and our Google account.

Since the 3D container page loads from our servers, we authenticate using these same servers (currently, we're only using one server, but we're in the process of adding a second backup server in case the first goes offline). The reason that we have a server-side authentication for 3D is that we really would like to be sure that only those of you who have spent your hard-earned money on 3D get to use 3D. By authenticating at startup with our servers, only users who have valid 3D accounts can use 3D. We also have a limit of two different PCs per 3D user account. This allows each user to install on a desktop and a laptop using the same username/password. If the user upgrades their PC or there are any other special requests for a reset of these PCs, support will be able to help on a user-by-user basis. I understand that there are other methods of authenticating as mentioned in some previous posts, and perhaps we can take those ideas into account for future updates, but server-side authentication was decided as the approach we would take in our software design.

Because the 3D is dependent on our web servers being online, if our servers are offline or you do not have an internet connection, the 3D will not be able to startup and the application will default to 2D mode only. I know this is the main concern of most users here. We are working very hard to ensure that 3D starts up every time and our goal is excellent reliability.

3. Right now, we are already working on installing and configuring a completely isolated backup server to host the the 3D container page and provide the 3D authentication in case the main server goes offline or load gets too high. We designed ANRB3D to fall-back to this backup server when the first server does not respond timely, and this logic is already coded into your current .exe--we just need to finish deploying this backup server to take advantage of this additional reliability.

As some of you know, the development on ANRB3D was a long and challenging project. We spent lots of hours working on this project to make it both useful and entertaining for a wide range of aviation enthusiasts.  As with any software project, it's never 'finished'. We have some exciting new ideas and features to continually add to ANRB3D, and all of your suggestions and input are very important to us. We are very dedicated to continually improving ANRB3D and providing the best support we can for this product and we really hope that you will enjoy using it. If you have specific questions or comments, please feel free to contact me anytime - [email protected].

AirNav 3D Development

[DaveReid]

Thank you for the comprehensive explanation, which has allayed my earlier misgivings.

[Pinza]

Yes - thanks to AirNav for this very full reply.

I had a few hiccups getting started with 3D - but am now delighted.

We need to remember that we're in at the beginning of exciting new opportunities for ANRB, and there are bound to be teething troubles...

Will sign off now and go back to seeing the amazing 3D view of planes over the Midlands being received from the supplied aerial in a groundfloor flat!

[Marpleman]

from DaveReid
"So I'm still struggling to understand just what is so difficult about giving users a 3D service for flights that they are picking up locally that works whether or not the AirNav server is available".

i agree,  anybody else agree?.
from pat.

Yep - I do

At the moment I'm putting off purchasing purely as I spend a fair bit of time in situations where I'd have no web access, so it's a no-brainer?

Rich

[radarspotter10]

Thanks:
Airnav i will order my 3D soon
from pat