Jump to content

GeoApr from Flight1 and Mudpond Development


Recommended Posts

I saw this in an e-mailed ad from Flight1 today, something I wasn't aware of before. This looks like the kind of thing that floats my boat.

 

From the product page on their site...

 

http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=geoapr

 

GeoApr - Geo-Referenced Approach Plates for FSX

GeoApr is a utility program designed to display airport approach plates, and in conjunction with Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX), show your flight's actual location on the approach plate in real-time. The program can display PDF, JPG, or BMP format approach plates, and it can optionally convert PDF format approach plates to JPG format.

GeoApr includes a powerful Flight Record/Playback tool that will record user's aircraft position, attitude, and control settings during a flight. When flight data is played back, an AI aircraft is created and given the recorded aircraft position, attitude, and control settings. This will allow users to evaluate their performance visually within the sim to see if proper procedures were followed during an approach to an airport.

 

Most approach plates can be geo-referenced within minutes through a simple point-and-click interface, and once geo-referenced, the approach plate data files can be shared with other users.

 

GeoApr can also display the position of the user's aircraft on the vertical profile section of the approach

 

Program Features

  • - Real-time Approach Plate Display
  • - Real-time Vertical Profile Display
  • - Easy Point-and-Click Interface
  • - Works with FSX Navaid database (VORs, NDBs, Waypoints, etc.)
  • - Calibrate by Waypoint, Distance, Lat/Lon
  • - Program User Guide
  • - Plus much more

 

Remote Network Support

GeoApr can run on the same computer with FSX, or separately on a remote networked PC. Microsoft ESP and Lockheed Martin's Prepar3d are also supported.

 

Download Information

The E-Commerce enabled download executable is about 9.6 MB in size. The purchase screen will appear when you run the executable. The servers do support Resume, however we do not recommend certain download managers because they can sometimes corrupt large downloads.

 

Version 1.0 - Via direct download (9.6 MB)

Download Here!

 

System Requirements / FS Version Compatibility

MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR X or Microsoft ESP or Lockheed Martin's Prepar3d

Windows - Windows 7, Vista or XP

Processor - 2.8 GHz

Memory - 1 Gb RAM

Hard Drive - 2.7Gb

Video Card - 256 Mb

Link to post
Share on other sites

Looks like a good training aid but I couldn't see myself using it often enough to personally justify the purchase. It's a really great idea in general but it didn't look like it came with any kind of chart package which would have made it a better deal in my book. I can look at my breadcrumb trail on PlanG and tell the same thing, even without it being viewed on top of the actual charts. (Thanks Mr. Negativity-Ed. :D )  

Link to post
Share on other sites

Utilities like that are not everyone's cup of tea, Brett.  We all have different tastes and habits and preferences.  

 

As for approach plates, they're getting easier to find.  The US ones, of course, are 100% available from the FAA Digital Products web site, despite threats a while back that they were going to remove them and make them "for pay" through licensed vendors.  That hasn't happened yet.  

 

I'm finding more and more that real-world charts are slowly becoming more easily available on line, or maybe I'm just getting better at searching them out.  They're usually expired, but that's not much of an issue for us.  

 

Maybe my next project ought to be finding and geo-referencing approach plates on line.

 

John

Link to post
Share on other sites

It looks good to me.  If nothing else it is a good training tool to get used to making at least a reasonable looking approach, and not the type I usually use.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...

I bought GeoApr and have been struggling with it for about three days. So far I'm not too impressed and if the primary problem can't be solved I'll take advantage of Flight1's 30-day money back guarantee. I posted on the Flight1 support forum last night but haven't had an answer yet. I found an earlier post on their support forum (Septermber, 2013) describing the exact problem I'm having. A moderator responds on 9/13/13, "I can duplicate the problem with the vertical display on this particular plate. I'll have to investigate it and find a solution. but there is no further info in that thread.

 

I'll keep MH readers informed here as this progresses.

 

It turns out that this is not a new product, though I just recently noticed it. Apparently it was released in about 2011, but is still in version 1.0.

 

Problems:

1) No vertical track. I've read the manual and as far as I can tell I'm doing everything correctly. I get a horizontal track on the plan view of the plate but no vertical track at all. This is not plate-specific. I've tried it on several plates and at least three airports and have yet to see the first vertical track.

 

2) Screen resolution is poor. The plate displays full size. The window can be stretched vertically to the full screen height; horizontal size adjusts automatically to maintain a constant aspect ratio. Full size on a 1920 X 1080 display is barely readable and makes it difficult to accurately place the Geo-referencing marks or to closely examine the generated aircraft track. There is no capability to zoom and pan the plate - you see it all, all the time.

 

To be fair there are a couple of things I haven't tried yet to resolve this, namely converting the pdf plates to jpgs (the program has a utility for doing that) and also keeping the GeoApr window visible and in the main display; I've been putting it on a second display on the same PC.

 

Flight1 has always been a class act in my opinion and I hope they'll rise to the occasion this time.

 

John

Link to post
Share on other sites

I made a post in the old thread on their support forum. If no response by tomorrow morning I'll either open a trouble ticket or start a new thread. Their trouble ticket process seems to be mainly aimed at download, re-installs, order problems and the "business" end of things, not so much technical issues with the products.

 

John

Link to post
Share on other sites

The moderator of the board, who's apparently also the developer, just posted that version 1.01 is available for download at Flight1. Now that's responsiveness! Will download it later tonight and see if that fixes the problem.

 

John

Link to post
Share on other sites

The moderator, who appears to also be the developer is still trying to help me but I think he's about to give up on me.
 

I can't duplicate your problem, so I suspect it's a procedural issue.

 

 

That's a very polite way of saying the problem is the nut behind the wheel.  I'm certainly not bashing F1 over this - they're trying and having the developer put up new versions for you in a support forum is nothing to sneeze at.  You don't find that kind of support all up and down the block.

 

If anyone has any interest in that thread in their support forum it's here...

 

http://www.simforums.com/forums/topic47182_post309321.html#309321

 

John

Link to post
Share on other sites

It sounds like it is more trouble then it is worth. It will not even show you if you are off the glide slope to see where you are going wrong. It also sounds like you have to stop and calibrate it to a waypoint, which doesn't sound like fun. Correct me if I am wrong here.

Link to post
Share on other sites

You have to "geo-reference" each plate one time before using it. The program saves the geo-referencing data for future use of that plate.

 

Geo-referencing sounds a lot harder than it is. You just click on a minimum of two known points in the plan view and a minimum of two in the vertical view (the end of the runway is one of them, in each view). Doing that lets the program understand the location, scale and orientation of what's on the plate, vs. the flight simulator world. It takes about 2 or 3 minutes to geo-refernce a plate once you've done it a few times and gotten used to the process, so isn't a biggie.

 

It's supposed to show the vertical track too, and does for some users, including Rob who reviewed it here. That's the part I can't make work and they have not yet been able to help me figure out why. I piggy-backed on an earlier thread on their forum because the original poster was reporting the exact same problem I'm having.

 

GeoApr is a POTENTIALLY useful program for me if I can get the vertical track to work.

 

John

Link to post
Share on other sites

Ok, that's not too bad then, just would take some time at first.

 

Your problem could be as simple as "It must be your computer", I had trouble with the PFDKneeboard program when others didn't and could never figure it out. FSX can sure be a pain in the arse sometimes. I read about so many individual problems that can just not be duplicated on others machines. :gaah:  One can only hope, at least the author is trying to help a bit, good luck.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Some progress... on a whim I tried it with P3D version 2.3 and the vertical track does show properly there. I've posted at the support forum and will see what they say now.

 

Since it's into the weekend I suspect I won't hear anything until Monday.

 

John

Link to post
Share on other sites

I reviewed this when it came out a few years back, I did like it and it was good to see how my approaches looked. But over time the constant need to configure each plate prior to using it became a bit annoying. Not too bad for airports that I regularly flew into, but when I was off the beaten track it was

 

http://mutleyshangar.com/reviews/rob/geo/geo.htm

Link to post
Share on other sites

It appears that I've stumbled on a solution and the moderator/developer who's been engaged with me on their support forum is going to look into it.

 

When you load an approach plate in GeoApr it needs to be manually geo-referenced if that process hasn't been previously done and saved. It should work right away, but doesn't. When you exit GepApr, it offers the option to save the geo-referencing data. Because I hadn't had a satisfactory run with a working vertical profile I had always not bothered with saving, thinking that perhaps there was something wrong with what I was doing to geo-reference the plates.

 

Somehow, at some point, I must have saved when the message box popped up on exiting the program. The next time I tried the program, luckily using the same approach plate, lo and behold, I had a vertical trace. I've confirmed now that if I load a plate, geo-reference it, exit GeoApr and accept the save option on the way out, that plate will then work correctly on the next and subsequent runs of GeoApr.

 

The developer has noted my discovery and seems to have his teeth in it. He believes something "...is being used before it is initialized...".

 

So, as it stands, I've got a work around and I suspect there will be an updated version in a few days. This looks to be heading toward a happy ending.

 

John

Link to post
Share on other sites

Here's the latest from JerryB, Moderator and apparently, the developer too.

 

Quote

I have found what was causing the problem and updated the program to correct it. The Flight1 installer will be updated soon with the correction. I'll add a post to this thread as soon as it's up on the Flight1 website.

The difficulty in finding this error stems from the many ways the program can be used...

Regardless, once you explained how you were using the program, I could duplicate it and it was then relatively easy to find and correct the problem. So thanks again for sticking with it and providing the feedback.

 

This is good support and a good result as far as I'm concerned. Some may be disappointed that a payware product makes it into production with problems, but as the guy says, there are many ways to use the app and sometimes it's nearly impossible to identify and test all the permutations. He did a great job of supporting me and the fix is in.

 

I'm happy and I can now recommend GeoApr to other users. It's a useful tool for evaluating and challenging yourself. You may find, as I did, that your precision in flying the descent portion of non-precision approaches is not quite as good as you thought.

 

John

Link to post
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...