As the PilotAware project has resurfaced and lots of units are in circulation now, would it be possible to address at some point the way Mode S returns are portrayed on SkyDemon by way of a suggestion rather than bearingless targets appear as a cluttered mess over my aircraft, a table in one of the corners with all direct traffic appearing in a series of colours according to signal level received. Rather like the way EasyVFR do it.......I don't like their software but I do like the way traffic is represented.
Thanks

Thanks, Lee. I can confirm that when SkyDemon saw the ! that I specified be used as a delimited for our protocol extension to feed callsigns through, it reset the "threat level" to unspecified because that ! also triggers our own internal collision detection code. Since that code doesn't run for bearingless targets, I have modified the Flarm parser to not reset the "threat level" you pass when it's a bearingless target. Incidentally, now that you are (presumably) running your own on-device collision detection code (to power your audible alerts) do you also send Flarm protocol alerts through too, and a meaningful "threat level" for positioned targets?

I have also modified the text rendering so it's the same size, and uses the same black-on-yellow glow, as the positioned targets. The position of the text remains unchanged, which is to draw it on the outside of the "circle of probability" in the direction that you are currently travelling.

Paul, we would consider adding a white background behind the traffic details if enough people asked, but my feeling is that it would obscure much more of the map if we did that. When it comes to rendering other traffic we are very mindful of what things will be like when everybody is broadcasting their location (what we ultimately want). I think to have such a solid background, when we get to that wonderful stage, would not be ideal.

A lot of people have asked, just on the PilotAware forum rather than here! :-) Not specifically for the white box but for some way of increasing the contrast, but others (in real life, not on a forum) have responded favourably when I've suggested the white box idea.

But it could be an option, in the same way as it's an option for the size and colour of your own aeroplane. I, along with many others, find the black on yellow is almost impossible to read at a glance without more detailed study of it, when you have any reasonable background map displayed. It's especially difficult if one's wearing sunglasses!

Hi Tim,

Great to hear you have (as anticipated) identified the problem with depiction of Lee's data. Hopefully Lee will now be able to give us the colour changing rings plus relative altitude and callsign/Tail Reg.

I note your concerns about adding the white background as suggested by Paul. I must admit I have not had any significant problem reading the yellow on black ADSB/P3i data personally, despite needing glasses to read my tablet in flight, so don't anticipate difficulty with the bearingless targets information either - especially now you have adjusted the text to be the same as the ADSB/P3i and indicated the protocol which dictates where this text will appear on the rings. Probably best to give this a try first, but bear Paul's concerns in mind in case people still have problems after the changes are released. An alternative might be a minor further increase in text size if found necessary later.

Regards and thanks once again

Peter

Hi Tim

Sorry for the late reply on this.
Actually I am not doing any collision detection (for reasons I know you are aware)
What we have done is set up entry/exit zones, the purpose is nothing more than
to draw your attention to the nav device, the goal is to avoid screen watching, and
I can say it works really well on test flights I have done with the audio to the headsets.

In fact we have 2 types of audio alert for positioned and non-positioned traffic.
There are a couple of good slides which explain this from a presentation done by
Keith Vinning, I can share these when back in the UK, I think this will give clarity

Thx
Lee