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TIMELINE
05/15/2013 All four corners of the simulator are now functional; DBRITE, ASDE-X, Arrival Strip Bay and Departure Strip Bay. The next week will be concentrated on completing the 3d models of all aircraft both civilian and commercial.
05/01/2013 This has been a crazy month. The progress to date is: The arrival clearance form is fully functional. You can issue clearances for landing, altitude, speed, communication, and the pilots will verbally respond. Also, I am completing the ASDE-X display for the departure/ground traffic and should have that functional within the next week or so.
04/07/2013 This next week will be coding for the expansion of commands to control aircraft.
03/24/2013 Been a crazy month! Right now, all arrivals are flying their rudimentary STARS/IFR/RNAV/VOR routings. Once they reach the FAF, they will report "executing missed approach" and will fly a return pattern and will make another attempt. These reports are accomplished in both text onscreen, and with speech generation using the Windows built-in speech components. Flight strips are now updated as the flights progress their routes in realtime. The DBRITE system is now functional and depicts the airborne traffic during gameplay.
02/21/2013 Been very hectic. The Clearance Builder form is coming along nicely. All aircraft are flying their entry routings and the camera tracking mechanism is working great.
01/23/2013 Aircraft movement code is coming along nicely. The flight dispatcher program is 95% complete. The code that generates random arrival routes is complete. RNAV, DME, ILS and VFR routing as well as parked departures is working well. The aircraft movement code is nearly complete. The holiday season created a little set back due to filing orders and such, so no release date has yet been planned. This is just the nature of software development. Speech generation is in the early stages. I am utilizing the builtin speech synthesizer in the .NET framework.
12/30/2012 Working on route assignments after aircraft are generated and putting arrivals in motion.
12-21/2012 Just defined all of the VFR routes. There are 8 different directions of entry into the airport service area with 4 runways, and Go Around sequences. So there are entry routes, approach paths and then the go arounds for 32 different routing variations. I also created an index of airport direction listings to know what direction to enter/exit the airport service area for each aircraft.
12-17-2012 Just completed the STARS routing definitions, and will implement them in the sim today. Next are the SIDS routings for departures.
11-16-2012 Aircraft movement code is now complete. I've added a blimp that will fly over the main terminal area. A major NAV DATA update will be implemented in the next few days, to support multiplayer gaming with ATCsimulator2 as the TRACON controller. I need to make sure the data matches between the 2 programs. This update was triggered once I started looking at the STARS/SIDS for the airport.
11-4-2012 Aircraft can now be generated at each of the four parking areas. User has complete control over the amount of traffic in the sim using the Flight Dispatcher interface. Next on the agenda, is the projection of flight strips. The page marker system in each of the strip bays is now active and working.
There are 15 MP3 music tracks that can be selected as background music during gameplay. Users can replace the 15 tracks with their own if they desire to provide their own background music. The music can also be turned off if none is desired.
10-25-2012 The Flight Dispatcher has now been fully implemented in TOWER CAB. The entire project has also been moved to Visual Studio 2012 and will be compatible with Windows 8 straight out of the box.
10-9-2012 Created the Flight Dispatcher program that creates all of the traffic for gameplay. You will be able to specify which parking areas are involved in the airport traffic; commercial terminal, Dolphin Aviation, APP CENTER, or RECTRIX. Once you have randomly generated all of the traffic, the next 24 hours are created prior to starting the simulator. It will always be different and unique.
09-30-2012 Prepped all of the terminal gates, GA parking spots. Also have created all of the arrival/departure flight plans, and identified all of the aircraft models needed.
09-25-2012 Created a new DBRITE and ASDE-X display to more closely match real-world counterparts.
09-19-2012
Spent the past few days tweaking the game interface. The game will now resize itself to whatever screen resolution that is running. I also refined the way the camera control is used with both mouse and arrow keys. The airport antenna radar is now rotating on its own. You can also raise/lower your viewpoint from the tower. The onscreen dialog window is now active so you can see the pilot/controller dialog. I can also use that same window now as a debug window for myself for coding purposes. All function keys now alter the transparency of all 4 corners ( F1/F2 = DBRITE, F3/F4 Arrival Strip Bay, F5/F6 Departure Strip Bay, F7/F8 ASDE) Airport Lighting toggle is CTRL+L. Zoom In/Out (A/Z). "F" will cause the camera to follow the airport service van. During gameplay, clicking on a flightstrip will cause the camera to instantly focus/follow the selected aircraft

08-31-2012 All taxiway/runway signs have been modeled and placed into the scenery.
08-24-2012 With the help of the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport Authority, I have created all 179 taxiway/runway sign textures. Models coming next.
08-16-2012 Lighting objects have been defined for the entire airport.
08-09-2012 Scenery is just about complete. Real coding will begin soon. There is another video on facebook showing the loading screen.
07-22-2012 Just returned from a trip to SRQ where I took 318 additional airport photos for game development
06-28-2012 Posted a video on facebook - Started coding the actual program.
06-22-2012 Graphics creation continues. Posted new images and video on facebook
06-20-2012 Been so busy making graphics, haven't posted in a while. Coming along nicely though.
06-11-2012 Created lighting bloom effect for airport lighting (approach, taxiway, etc)
06-08-2012 Used Google Maps to capture photos at ground level for increased reference material
06-01-2012 Textured buildings 37-49.
Scaled the airport base 3d model to match the x/y pixel coordinates of the airport basemap image.
05-29-2012 Completed all "major" airport buildings via the "boxing" method. Next, onto texturing
05-28-2012 The goal this week is to complete 3d buildings, and texture them
05-26-2012 Added photos to the facebook page showing comparisons between reality and game design
04-27-2012 Will be in "3d modeler" mode for the next few weeks to create photorealistic airports.
04-25-2012 Created command buttons for arrival flightstrips
04-23-2012 Today I toyed around with NIMAMUSE to create maps using REAL-WORLD data sources
(this is the same product I used to create all terminal areas in ATCsimulator2 in 2000/2001)
04-19-2012 Created watermarks for flight strips indicating "VOR", "IFR" or "RNAV" flights.
04-18-2012 Researching NIMAMUSE for the creation of shoreline/navigation data.
04-16-2012 Completed defining the departure phase of button commands
04-12-2012 Creating PHASE elements, and design logic flow
04-11-2012 Creating Flight Strip Interface Elements (for all phases)
04-10-2012 Defining interface elements based upon features.
04-10-2012 Updated website with features indentified.
04-09-2012 Scripting of clearances instructions underway
04-07-2012 Design Document finalized
04-06-2012 Created website