SkyDemon Forums

Display of towns and villages - more needed.

http://23588_2017.hs2.instantasp.net/Topic131.aspx

By stevekr - 11/7/2009 12:32:14 AM

Hi, I may have missed earlier posts, so apologies if this is already covered elsewhere, but a couple of comments....

When I'm planning a flight, I find there's often not enough features displayed on the map to use as waypoints .  I know I can search for towns, but to plan a route in my neck of the woods (NE scotland), I have to use my CAA maps to identify features, that I then have to search for before I can identify them in skyangel.  I'd much rather be able to see any significant towns or villages on the software directly.  There are very few towns actually displayed, and those are not named nor for the most part can they be used directly as waypoints without adding a user waypoint (at least as far as I can see).  Even most of the larger towns are not displayed (huntly and keith for example).  Is it therefore possible to make these smaller towns and villages appear as zoom level is increased and for these to be usable directly as waypoints?  It would make planning much easier to just pick a point off the digital map than have to identify one first elsewhere.  Same comment for lakes/lochs (names would be useful too - perhaps only when a place is hovered over?)

Search function also returns some odd results or no results for towns that are significant as waypoints.  Ballater, reasonable sized town, gives a little village (i presume) called ballaterich or similar nearby.  Rhynie, small town or village west of Insch VRP is posted in a different place to that shown on the CAA maps.  Huntly - returns somewhere in England with a different (similar) name.  Keith returns dalkeith.  I know there are thousands and thousands of towns and villages to put in the database, but until they're there, the basic flight-planning is compromised.

I like the software, love the Notam plotting and weather features, but planning in sparsely populated areas would be made much easier if the few identifiable landmarks were posted as  matter of course and in exactly the right places. 

Anyone else have similar issues?

Steve

By Tim Dawson - 4/15/2010 11:28:26 PM

I'd love to be able to improve the visibility of smaller towns in Scotland. In the latest release we managed to do this on a country level; countries that are sparsely populated in general have different thresholds for when towns become visible, and so do densely-populated countries. However at present we have to specify an average for the entire UK which is why Scotland doesn't have as many towns presented. All I can say at the moment is that we hope to make this better in the future.

There is a little-known (and poorly documented) feature where if you hold down shift and click the map, it gives you a list of nearby entities including towns that aren't plotted on the map.