A good way of using John Allard's great Airport Diagrams

[J G 927]

Last year I started collecting John's fantastic Airport Diagrams.

 

What I didn't have was a good way to quickly find the diagram I wanted and was having to sift through the literally thousands of diagrams for the one I wanted.

 

I resolved to find a way to manage this task by either finding a tool to do it or make my own.  Thankfully I haven't had to do the latter! 

 

Here is my solution:-

 

First I sorted the diagrams into folders - one for each country.  Next I sorted the countries into regions such that there is a directory for each region, inside which there is a directory for each country, inside which there are the diagrams. A bugger of a task but worth doing. However once it is done, keeping it up to date is easy as John supplies the country with each diagram, so each new one can be just dropped into its country directory, and your done.

 

Having thus arranged the diagrams it was a case of finding an image management system that would best display the hierarchy, and provide the best way of displaying the diagrams. I have found a freeware program that is just perfect. It is called Faststone Image Viewer. Here are some screenshots of my installation:

 

 

As you can see from the above. I have placed my countries into a directory called Airport Diagrams.  The software will see a networked drive and can have any path set to its root.  So I store my diagrams on a networked attached store (NAS) but you can put them anywhere on an PC or networked device as long as you map a drive to the storage area.  

 

I then set my remote drive's Airport Diagrams as the root for the software and the result is sen above. 

 

Expandable areas folders on the left hand side with country folders next to it and a display area to the right of that.

 

 

The above image shows the area Africa expanded and the country  Algeria selected.The selected diagram is highlighted in blue, and displayed in the window for that purpose.  Double click on the blue highlighted diagram and you get it full screen. Full screen also allows you to scroll through the countries diagrams using mouse positioned arrows and a right click on the full screen diagram provides a menu from which you can return to the windowed format among other things.

 

Good news.  I have zipped up my full set of diagram as of today (up to and including John's diagrams sent out on 20/2/2014) and can make it available to those who cant be bothered to sort out their own set. It is about half a Gig so it you want the organised set please PM me as I can set up an FTP address for its download.

 

FastStone Image Viewer can be downloaded from here: http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

 

 

J.

 

 

 

[allardjd 1,853]

John,

Thanks for your comments. High praise indeed, and an innovative way to display the diagrams. For my own use, I just use the Windows Explorer search feature and double click on the file when the search finds it to pop it up in the Windows Photo Viewer. Of course to do that I have to know the ICAO code I'm looking for, which is used for the file name. There's nothing else searchable in the image files. Your directory structure provides a geographical indexing capability.

Interesting that you'd post this on today of all days. At my request Mutley has just today added a sub-section to the Airport Diagrams section of the MH File Library, called "Country Bundles". I'll be posting zipped collections of the diagrams by country there so folks aren't stuck with downloading them one plate at a time.

To begin with, I'll take one day a month off from diagram production and update all the zips with any new diagrams produced during the prior month. I'll do that until some better way occurs to me.

It's something I've been thinking of for some time and doing so at this time is in preparation for my diagrams being able to be directly displayed from within a well-known flight planner in its next revision. I won't name it yet as I don't want to steal the publisher's thunder on this new feature.

John

[brett 2,310]

Great idea JohnA, hope they will be in a free flight planner.

 

Looks like a pretty impressive set up you worked up JohnG. I am not sure I understand the programs function though, except that you separated the diagrams by country and region.  I have a folder on my desktop of all the diagrams and I also use the Ctrl+F search function to find the plate I need. I always wished the airport names were included in the file title along with the ICAO code but no biggie, by the time I need the plate I usually know the code anyway. The regular folder they are in also looks like your pic above and I can set it up with a individual side view for scanning using the view button. I open the needed plate in windows viewer and then minimize it for when I need it during the flight. Can you help a PC ditz like me understand what the new program does for you, it kind of looks like a normal folder with an editor inside instead of using my MS picture viewer and editor.   

 

EDIT: I also use Paint.net for my resizing and editing needs but the more I read about the program so far it does sound like it might do a better job with resizing.

[allardjd 1,853]

Isn't it interesting how I managed to date that Algerian airport in the future? It looks from my data as if it should have been 2013 - fat-finger error, no doubt.

[J G 927]

@Brett.

 

The program takes care of all the re sizing you need without compromising on quality as it retains the image at its original size.  Full screen or in a window you can get the diagram to fit the space.  Try it out and then use the mouse wheel to make the image smaller or bigger in either full screen or in a window. You can zoom in to a part of the diagram as well using this method. When zoomed in, you can also use the mouse to drag the image around so that you can, say, work out your taxi instructions clearly.

 

It is a very simple tool to set up and its free!

 

J. 

[J G 927]

@ john A

 

Do you want my set as already sorted?  Might save you some work.

 

 

 

... preparation for my diagrams being able to be directly displayed from within a well-known flight planner in its next revision.

 

Will your contract with them prevent you from sharing them with us? 

 

As you may have guest, I am a big, big fan of yours and would hate to loose access to the diagrams in the way I do now.  

 

J. 

[mutley 4,495]

You'll be ok John-G, we are continuing with the plates, the country bundles are a new feature and can be downloaded too.

 

Happy flighting!

 

Joe