I'm trying to make some outlines on my own. Everything ok except when trying to change colours, etc. Tried some $Type settings, but I always get a white outline. Any help on this would be appreciated.
Regarding GPX overlays I know how to create a GPX file from a waypoint. But I fail again styling the different elements (airports, VOR, fixes, etc). Is there any good Planeplotter related GPX tutorial?
No one can drop a bit on this? Or maybe it's not possible to do what I want with PP?
1) Don't forget you can Ctrl + left click on a line in outline view to bring up the colour palette. Pick the colour you like for the various objects - backgrounds, airports final approach, TMA's etc etc.
2) I use a bespoke graphic for the 'points' in a gpx file. For VOR's I have created a 2px x 2 px lime green 'dot' it's called vor.bmp and lives in the main PP folder. I have edited my gpx file to contain this line <sym>vor</sym> that calls for the vor.bmp graphic to be used. I have different coloured dots for VOR's and airport labels and the 'default' waypointsymbol.bmp happens to be a red dot.
Works for me.
Any help?
Tim
Quote from: Triple7 on November 14, 2013, 07:28:45 AM
Any help?
Sure, you gave me some clues :)
Tried Ctrl-leftclick but it didn't work... except with the original coastline. So I looked for some format differences. $TYPE must be all in capital letters, not lowercase as I had it. Now it works fine. Just another question: is it possible to change line thickness? How?
Regarding GPX, do you mean if I use a <sym>fix</sym> tag, it will use a file named "fix.bmp" on the main PP folder to show up on the outline?
My modest progress here: http://ramonferreiro.dyndns.org/planeplotter/
I'm a bit surprised the ctrl left click didn't work, if you zoom right in until the lines become pixelated, you should be able to change them. It works that way for me, but if you have found an alternative method then that's good. I don't know of a way to change the line thickness - sorry.
Quote from: Breitling on November 14, 2013, 11:59:59 AM
Regarding GPX, do you mean if I use a <sym>fix</sym> tag, it will use a file named "fix.bmp" on the main PP folder to show up on the outline?
Yes, that is exactly what I am saying, here's a small section of my VOR.gpx file:
<wpt lat="51.49138889" lon="-1.21972222">
<time>2010-12-12T08:53:53.152Z</time>
<name>CPT</name>
<sym>vor</sym><type>Waypoint</type>
<extensions>
<label xmlns="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/gpx_overlay/0/3">
<label_text>Compton</label_text>
<text xmlns="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/gpx_style/0/2">
<font>
<family generic="sans-serif">
<face>Arial</face>
</family>
</font>
</text>
</label>
</extensions>
</wpt>
So if you change the 'vor' for 'fix' it should display your fix.bmp graphic. You probably don't need all the tags that are in my file but as it works I leave it alone ;D
Tim
Thanks a lot Tim, my outline looks much better now: http://192.168.0.20/planeplotter/
I've not been able to make waypoint bitmap image transparent. Tried RGB (255,200,200) as stated in PP help, but it shows pale pink, not transparency.
And now reading a bit more about GPX schema to control place and colour waypoint labels, etc.
Ref the 255,200,200, message from Bev on the COAA group:
"The existing functionality is still there, you can use a file called waypointsymbol.bmp and PP will use that and honour the transparency pixels.
The new feature using the <sym> tag overrides the default symbol or the waypointsymbol.bmp feature only if the <sym> tag is included in the waypoint GPX file.
I decided that it would be computationally too burdensome to incorporate the transparency feature in the <sym> tag implementation.
The reason is that the waypointsymbol.bmp file, if it exists, is processed once only when the program starts and the DIB and transparency mask are held in memory for use on all the symbols at every screen refresh with no further effort. The <sym> tags within a GPX file are handled differently and are read and processed for each waypoint at each screen refresh - remember that they could be dynamic - and so the extraction of the transparency mask and its application would have to be done for every waypoint at every screen refresh.
I concede that if it was a priority, it would be possible to code it so that some sort of dynamic buffer/array of DIBs and masks could be assembled as the program ran so that each new symbol BMP was processed only once and the DIB/masks were then pulled from the buffer if a repeat symbol name was found. However, you will agree that the effort involved in implementing that would be out of all proportion to the benefit given that the feature is of minority interest - witness the fact that I did not even document it for general use.
The surpise to me is that apparently, there are <sym> tags in users' GPX files that conspired to override the existing functionality based on the waypointsymbol.bmp feature - including transparency.
Regards
Bev
COAA"
11th May 2012
http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/planeplotter/conversations/messages/68100
So the transparency does not apply to any symbols used in the <sym></sym> tags it only works with a file called waypointsymbol.bmp.
Tim
Clear now, it sounds reasonable. So I would suggest to add some functionality in display options to choose what GPX files to show. That way you can have different GPX and BMP sets to show depending on your background outline or chart.
Thanks again Tim.
That functionality is already there - to some extent.
Have a look under Options>>Chart>>GPX Overlay. You can select the specific gpx file you want, enable toggling to turn it on or off and also display all gpx files.
If you create a series of different gpx files, you can then select the specific one you want to suit your background.
Tim
I was thinking about creating GPX files in this way:
- VOR file (dark background)
- Airport file (dark background)
- VOR file (light background)
- Airport file (light background)
- ...
So I can show up whatever element I want at the moment. Some kind of switch to view or not different map elements, selecting the specific GPX file.
I've been trying waypointsymbol.bmp, but it doesn't work either. See attached image and symbol file. If anyone want to try...
[Attachment deleted by Admin to save file space]
Worked OK-ish for me albeit the compass rose was pink!
This is part of the northern UK after a download of the sharer locations.gpx. Shut down PP and re-started, this was the result.
Tim
[Attachment deleted by Admin to save file space]
No way... I must be doing something wrong :(
[Attachment deleted by Admin to save file space]
Ok, solved. It works just with waypoints without the <sym> tag. Time now to know why it shows a pink compass rose.
See the note from Bev I posted earlier - "The surprise to me is that apparently, there are <sym> tags in users' GPX files that conspired to override the existing functionality based on the waypointsymbol.bmp feature - including transparency."
If you add the <sym> tag in a .gpx file to include a specific .bmp - including waypointsymbol.bmp, it overwrites the standard "pink = clear" option.
Glad you are getting there.
Tim
Ooops.. sorry, I misunderstood the last sentence.