I will look forward to meeting you on the Saturday. Feel free to get in touch by email first, then we can arrange a time (I won't be on the stand a lot of the time).

Hi Tim,
I plan to visit the AERO on saturday, so maybe we can meet there. I'm looking forward to see the new style.

I can understand that you (i.e. the SkyDemon team) like your own style most. However, I use German DFS not (primariliy) because I'm used to it from the paper map. I started using SkyDemon about 3 months ago with the style "SkyDemon 2", but I didn't like it.

The great thing about German DFS is the simplicity. It basically consists of three important colors: WHITE ground, BLUE C-airspace, and RED control zones. "Skydemon 2" also uses blue and red, but the ground is green. Especially the blue lines of C-airspace are hard to see on a green ground when in flight (and the sun is reflecting on the ipad).

I've noticed that "Skydemon 3" partly fixes this problem, we'll see how this works out for me.
But hey, since you're mimic styles are - as you say - mimic, why not improve it a litte bit. A paper map has no VR, so here's room for massive improvement.

Regards,
Johnny

Are you coming to Friedrichshafen next week? We could show you the new style.

I understand that it would be desirable, which is why we invented it in our own chart styles. However I'm not comfortable introducing graphical merging of airspaces on a chart style that is designed to simply mimic an existing paper chart style. One could argue that it's virtual radar we're talking about and not the main map, but the authors of the original DFS chart styles have obviously decided they don't want to perform any kind of graphical airspace merging on the main map. Making a special case in SkyDemon so we do it in virtual radar but not on the main map is a possibility, but one I don't like, given how few people use the DFS style. I think the SkyDemon 3 chart style will solve this particular problem.

I wish we had never introduced the "mimicking" chart styles; they (by design) do not offer the best experience of SkyDemon.

Hi Tim,
thank you for this detailed answer. I understand your arguments and do partly agree :-)
However, I would want to see the intelligent merging you do on "Skydemon 2" also on other styles.
Currently, it is a little bit consufing to see that overlapping C-airspaces are getting darker in the VR (for German DFS). Thats something that should be fixed.

Thanks and Regards,
Johnny

You will probably like the forthcoming SkyDemon 3 chart style, which has been written about here and previewed on our Facebook page.

It is not practical for us to selectively omit pieces of airspace from the What's Here menu in the way you describe, sorry. Your items 1 and 3 read as identical suggestions, to my mind. We do not show duplicate items, but where there are several layers of airspace defined in the AIP, one starting at 4000, one starting at FL65, both ending at FL100 (as an example) then they both exist at that point. I accept that we could detect this and show it as one entry, but I think that would be a worse experience for the user because they would lose the current ability to go in and explore the details of BOTH pieces of airspace, at which point each one is clearly highlighted on the map showing its exact lateral dimensions. If we merged them in the manner you describe, this ability would be gone.

It is not the goal of our high contrast chart style to merge airspaces; the goal of that chart style is to present them in a way that is clear in bright sunshine on dim devices where contrast is not so good.

Hi Tim,
I've checked this on my iPad, you're right, in "Skydemon 2" the blob is created.
However, even in "SkyDemon High Contrast" this isnt the case. Also, I must say that personally I find "German DFS" a much better style, because of the white ground. With Skydemon 2, I have a hard time reading it in flight.

Also, item 1 and 3 are not solved yet. In the Munich Area, when using "SkyDemon 2", the Class E drawn over the class C boundaries.
Also the "Whats Here"-Menu does show a lot of duplicate items.

Regards,
Johnny

You will find that if you switch to one of the SkyDemon chart styles, we do merge airspace similar to the way you are describing. Not in the What's Here menu (currently) but on the main map and virtual radar, the borders are intelligently drawn together so that only the boundary of class C is drawn thick and the boundaries between class C blobs are drawn much thinner.

Since you have selected to mimic the DFS paper chart, and that chart does not do this, we consider it correct that we do not do it either. There are many benefits to using the SkyDemon chart styles and this is just one of them.

Hi,
attached you will find a picture of the "upside-down wedding cake" around EDDM. There are several class C airspaces overlapping each other. They all go up to FL100 and have different lower boundaries (3500, 4500, FL65, FL85). Now, especially in Virtual Radar, they overlap each other making the VR view rather confusing. Where they overlap, the airspace has a deeper blue. So, the rule "1 color, 1 airspace" is not fulfilled.

Also, the whats here menu is filled up with lots of repeating information.

Suggestion: Intelligent filtering
1. Only show the strictest airspace (when theres E and C, only show C).
2. When airpaces are touching and have the same name ("München Class C"), make one big blob out of them.
3. Do the same for VR and Whats here menu.

Thanks and Regards,
Johnny