Beta testing feedback

[tarbat]

Up and running in three environments:

1. IE9.  Although on my low-spec PC it is unusable, lengthy delays, etc.  Not suprising given the low-spec of my PC.  I won't test any more on IE9 until the app is performance optimised.

2. Google Chrome on PC.  Works nice and smoothly.

3. Safari on iPad 3.  Probably the smoothest of all the environments.

Overall, very impressive.  Some specific feedback:

A.1. The Data Refresh Rate is stuck at 5 seconds, even if I change it to 30 seconds.

A.2. Remember Last View doesn't seem to work.  It always opens centred on the SW of England.

A.3. There's no obvious way to zoom the map in and out.  I use the mouse wheel (PC) or gestures (iPad), but a zoom bar would be useful to make zooming more obvious.

A.4. The Cloud Layer doesn't appear to work.

A.5. Turning on the VOR layer, and selecting the VOR at Inverness Airport, and it displays as "Indian Springs".  Probably a problem with lookup of duplicate VOR names.

A.6. On the Grid View, clicking on an aircraft should ideally centre the map on that aircraft.  Or make this a user option.

A.7. Safari on iPad only - aircraft photos don't appear.  Although clicking on where the photo should be does link to the photo on airliners.net.

I'll do more testing today.

[orkney]

Hello

From my first test I have found the following (Other than what has previously been reported)

1. A speed filter will always list the "NA" speed aircraft.

2. The previous selected aircraft always persists when a Filter is applied. Regardless if the aircraft meets the required conditions.

3 Scroll boxes always return to the top when the data is refreshed.

4. Blank lines appear in the "Grid"

5. An"other" filter in the Aircraft and Airline filters would be good to have.

That is all I have found yet but I will keep checking.

Thank you

Andrew

[tarbat]

A.8. Is the Pilot View meant to update as the aircraft moves, or is it meant to be a static view?

A.9. Some of the options don't get remembered between sessions:
    - Data refresh rate
    - Follow selected aircraft
    - Animate selected aircraft
    - The specified airport for the arrival/departure ticker
    - All the layer selections

A.10. Might be better to use a different colour for the aircraft trail and the Airways layer.

A.11. Using Safari on iPad, it's not possible to move the filter sliders - might be worth having the option to type in flight levels for the altitude filter.

A.12. Might be worth making either Road or Radar the default views.  The current Default view doesn't show airport runways.

[AirNav 3D Development]

A.8. Is the Pilot View meant to update as the aircraft moves, or is it meant to be a static view?

Yes--the pilot view should move with the aircraft. Also, other aircraft that are in your 2D map view should also show in the 3D pilot view. If this isn't working, could you let me know which browser/OS combination you are using?

[AirNav 3D Development]

A.4. The Cloud Layer doesn't appear to work.

A.5. Turning on the VOR layer, and selecting the VOR at Inverness Airport, and it displays as "Indian Springs".  Probably a problem with lookup of duplicate VOR names.

Layers are still "under construction" at the moment. The Cloud Layer however *should* be working. Can you try zooming out to different zoom levels and check if it shows up? There is a minimum zoom level that once it's reached, the cloud layer is hidden (it gets far too pixelated to be useful when zoomed in too far)

[tarbat]

Yes--the pilot view should move with the aircraft. Also, other aircraft that are in your 2D map view should also show in the 3D pilot view. If this isn't working, could you let me know which browser/OS combination you are using?

Definately not working.  I just put pilot view on BAW819 as it landed at Heathrow.  No other aircraft were visible in the 3D view, and even once BAW819 had landed, the 3D view still showed the aircraft on approach.

Browser is Google Chrome v19.0.1084.52 m.  OS is Windows 7 64-bit.  I guess this may be caused by my low-spec PC not being able to keep up!!

I can't test this on the iPad, as the GE plugin isn't supported.  And I can't test in IE9 because of performance problems.

Layers are still "under construction" at the moment. The Cloud Layer however *should* be working. Can you try zooming out to different zoom levels and check if it shows up? There is a minimum zoom level that once it's reached, the cloud layer is hidden (it gets far too pixelated to be useful when zoomed in too far)

Okay, cloud layer appears if I zoom right out to show UK and northern europe.  I guess that will catch a lot of users out when they don't see the cloud layer at a typical zoom level.

[AirNav 3D Development]

Pilot View freezing is a confirmed problem. I think I just found the problem... working to fix it now.

[AirNav 3D Development]

Can you try clearing your browser cache and try pilot view again. I think I fixed this one.

A couple of pilot view notes:
Firefox - sometimes the embedded pilot view crashes. detach it and it should work. Working on a fix for this.
Chrome - detached view doesn't work yet

[tarbat]

Can you try clearing your browser cache and try pilot view again. I think I fixed this one.

Confirmed, now working okay - tested in Chrome.

[tarbat]

Layers are still "under construction" at the moment.

Note that the airways layer is patchy in coverage.

Also note that aircraft on the ground appear to hover above the ground in 3D pilot view.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarbat/7155590739/sizes/o/in/photostream/

[AirNav 3D Development]

Note that the airways layer is patchy in coverage.

I believe the broken layer problem is within Google Maps. I'm trying to confirm this however. We see this very often (it happens with airways and ATC boundaries almost every time).

Also note that aircraft on the ground appear to hover above the ground in 3D pilot view.

Ah yes, this problem goes way back to RB3D. For RB3D, I added an "offset" field in the settings dialog to work around this problem. As I understand it, ADS-B is reporting the pressure altitude (not GPS altitude) and so depending on the conditions at the field, aircraft that are on the ground (or near the ground) are showing their altitude based on the standard pressure value and not the real pressure of the field. The correct way to fix this (I believe) is to determine the current field pressure, then calculate the aircraft altitude based on this. Does this sound correct? I believe I have an active database table (METAR) with the current pressure of all the airports, so this should be possible. It will however require time to implement. I will add this to my queue of items. If any of you enjoy math problems and wants to do the math for me in the meantime, that would be very helpful.

[Allocator]

I'm back!

Only just started looking at RadarBox24 and very much playing catch-up at the moment so bear with me if I'm repeating anything already covered.

Running an Intel iMac (2010 spec) with Safari browser V 5.1.7.

The pilot view works fine when displayed within the Safari browser window, but when I 'undock it' to show it outside Safari, I just get a zoomed out view of the Earth with no movement.

Should be an image below showing the Safari detached window details - not sure if it will show.

Same result using Chrome V 19.0.1084.54 - I get this address bar at the top of the detached Chrome window:

https://www.radarbox24.com/LATEST/pilot_view.php

However, detached Pilot View works fine in FireFox V 10.0.2 - same address bar showing:

https://www.radarbox24.com/LATEST/pilot_view.php

Regards

Gary

[Allocator]

Hang on, this looks better.  Safari detached pilot view window.

[AirNav 3D Development]

Gary, thank you for the feedback. I've confirmed that this is a bug in Safari and Chrome. I've added it to my list of items to fix. I'll let you know as soon as I fix this one.

[Allocator]

A few odds and ends here that aren't worth starting a new thread for:

Zoom Control

- Zoom works OK using iMac '-' and '=' keys (+ & -), but levels are quite coarse and needs finer zoom levels.

- Will zoom using magic mouse (scrolling using a finger on the mouse surface - like a scroll wheel), but very coarse and slow

- Display needs dedicated zoom buttons.

Aircraft Grid

- Would it be possible to introduce a sort option for the Grid list?  It looks pretty as it is, but as the order appears random, it's not very useful.

Pilot View

- The excellent Pilot View remains at a fixed minimum altitude when aircraft are on final approach (approx 1500ft?) rather than descending with the aircraft.  I realise that the 3D map become less useable as you get closer to the ground, but when and aircraft lands and then taxys in, the map just floats around at 1500ft.  See this effect at EGLL where there is excellent coverage even with aircraft on the ground.

ATC Boundaries

- The map pins are located at the edge of the ATC boundaries, so it is difficult to see which area they are referring to.  Is it possible to place the pins inside the boundary?

VOR/NDB/Fix Icons

- Is it possible to display icons other than the default Google Map pins?

- Selecting Overlay > Fix doesn't show any fixes as far as I can see.

Flight Trail Option

- I just love this option :-)  Some of those aircraft are making a lot of flights in one day!

- However, I think that the Flight Trails always show 'Previous 12 Hours' and that the 'Current Flight' option doesn't have any effect.

Edit: Just noticed the 'Load Extended Flight Trails' button.  I did have this selected, but when deselecting it, I can't see how this works in combination with the 'Previous 12 Hours' and the 'Current Flight' options.

Keep up the good work!