Nearest Airport

[Delvos]

Hi Peter, i have one question a little bit absent of FSUIPC (i think so) - i would like to retrieve the nearest airport from a given location (lat/lon). I think i have to read one or more bgl-files, isn't it? But which ones?

Best Regards

[vdkeybus]

I think you have 2 options for FS2004:

You can read:

(FS path) \Scenery\ (name, namw, eure, eurw, etc...) \Scenery\AP*.BGL

These contain most, if not all, airports, including the ones that are further detailed in dedicated BGL files like Amsterda.BGL, Paris.BGL, etc... You will need a disassembly tool like Alessandro Antonini's BGLXML to extract the facility data into XML.

Another option is to skip this step and just download the whole airport directory in database format. I encountered it a while ago on Flightsim.com but I don't know the name and I'm not sure if it contains the latitude and longitude of each airport.

In either case, you have to program something to 'find the nearest'.

J.

[Pete Dowson]

i have one question a little bit absent of FSUIPC (i think so) - i would like to retrieve the nearest airport from a given location (lat/lon).

Well, it's never been a function of FSUIPC, nor is it really a natural candidate for one, though it would be nice, if it were merely a matter of asking FS. Maybe there's a way of doing that by calling routines inside FS itself, but I'm afraid I've not found it. I would never consider a facility which would entail FSUIPC scanning files or even looking up a database. That is certainly an application job.

I think i have to read one or more bgl-files, isn't it? But which ones?

Well, I did write a program for FS98/FS2000/FS2002 which built up a complete airport and runway database from a user's scenery installation. It operated by scanning the SCENERY.CFG file and searching ALL of the enabled BGLs for the airport data. Took quite a while, but you only needed to re-run it after changing (installing/deinstalling) scenery.

The database it produced is included in my FStarRC package, and other variations are used in Radar Contact and, I believe, FS-Meteo.

Unfortunately, the formats are all changed in FS2004 and I've not yet had time to investigate, let alone re-write the program.

I suspect that most of the data you need is in the AFD files, not just any old BGL, but even they can be spread around. And I don't think they have to be in their own file. It is quite possible, I think, for an add-on scenery designer to make one BGL with all the bits in it including this data.

I also think that the "SCENERY.DAT files inserted into the scenery owner folders, may contain the results of FS's own scan and probably give a short-cut way into the data. There again, the format changed between FS2002 and FS2004 I think, but I don't know either of them in any case.

I know there are already a number of programs around which do need and use airport data from FS's installed BGLs, so someone should be able to help you further should you need it.

Regards,

Pete

[vdkeybus]

Found it again on Flightsim.com:

FS2004 Airport database by Mohammad Omar. Including ICAO, latitudes and longitudes.

J.