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Depicting Parking Spaces in ADE

I prefer to leave them all Green but sizing is very important in repect to the radius value.

Some of us work with very very large airports such as KATL, EHAM, KORD, KMIA where as we have to deal with making 300-400 parking spaces. If every single parking spot was the same size from a visual reference this would not tell me one thing about what type plane is going to park where.

Back to color.

We start out with Green but eventually we can add the Color scheme that when we assign a Airline code to the Green Parking spot that turns it a different color.

DAL= dark BLUE
SWA= ORANGE
UAL=RED
BAW= lite BLUE
etc.

Many users of AFCAD edited the color chart and set the color to match the Airline Company color where applicable

Visually this again gives me a cue to what Airline is going into what spot first and what size Jet (small, medium, large)
 
OK Thanks Jim I will add that to this list of things needed in ADE :)
 
Parking spots

Hi, Jon, Jim and guys

1.
I agree with you that it´s important to see in the drawing the parking size in scale.
2.
Some people would like to see the tee (T) in the drawing. I don´t know if this could be well depicted since there could be more than one T position in the same parking.
3. In AFCAD there´s an option to hide the opaque parking spot, to allow seeing its orientation (T drawing). In ADE, too. I thing that means the author recognizes the opaque circle cover some information.

My suggestions are:

1. A boundary circle in scale (radius of the parking), but always transparent;

2. A cross inside that circle with two perpendiculars diameters. One of them is the parking heading;

3. A default size icon, color coded in according with parking/gate types (default colors, but configurable by the end user);

Kind regards,

José


scruffyduck said:
Am I understanding that there is a need to change the color of parking spots as a visual cue to the type rather than just leaving them Green? Maybe change the color of the boundary line?
Click to expand...
 
Hi All
Just to add, if its at all relevant,
we also need to remember what will be in front of a "Gate" ie: the push back tug and baggage cart, i finding i'm having to allow a lot more room than suggested here, at an airport where theres no jetbridges and have to crowd in 10 CRJ's together these are taking up the same area of 5 737's,

Ray
 
glottis said:
Hi All
Just to add, if its at all relevant,
we also need to remember what will be in front of a "Gate" ie: the push back tug and baggage cart, i finding i'm having to allow a lot more room than suggested here, at an airport where theres no jetbridges and have to crowd in 10 CRJ's together these are taking up the same area of 5 737's,

Ray
Click to expand...

I am finding this also in designing with FSX. I've gotten a few pushback tugs partly in terminal buildings. Had to move the parking spot back. Sometimes that puts space at a premium.
 
Testing need - can anyone take on and work out the distance factor of the pushback tugs for GATE and CARGO spots?

Hopefully this will be a set number of feet, or a proportion of the spot size - and they could be depicted by small rectangles in SDE.
 
rfields said:
Testing need - can anyone take on and work out the distance factor of the pushback tugs for GATE and CARGO spots?

Hopefully this will be a set number of feet, or a proportion of the spot size - and they could be depicted by small rectangles in SDE.
Click to expand...

How would a person measure an exact foot or meter value between two points in the sim? I have long wanted to be able to do this.
 
How would a person measure an exact foot or meter value between two points in the sim? I have long wanted to be able to do this
Click to expand...

Not quite sure what you mean. I have algortihms (as I guess do most other developers working on scenery apps) that calculate the distance between two points in FS. For example in LOM the Scenery Maker function can measure down to a centimeter accuracy.
 
I've got a couple measurement oriented templates for FS2004 - user 'aircraft' which are just flat rectangles with markings.

The Hama Gauge has aircraft outlines.

The English Crosshair Box has 1 ft, 10 ft, etc boxes.

I'll test them in FSX to see if they work.

I've also used 10ftx100ft helopad with different background textures to determine placement and distance on in the sim.
 
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@Reggie @scruff

I have been using a DC-3 wingspan to "measure" distances...roughly.

It's wingspan is mid-90's feet, so I just add a bit to get 100 feet. That way, I have a very rough reference as to distance in the sim. Why would I need to measure distance in the sim?

The situation R described, where he wanted to know how much distance the sim is making between a parking spot center and the center of a push-back tug....situations like that. As a designer, you sometimes want to know distances to know how to arrange things like parking spots.

That's what I'm getting at.

Reggie, I will look for these template "aircraft" for FS2004 that you speak of. I assume they are, for example, a 100 foot by 100 foot square or something similar...
 
You can use Afcad2. Just place a mark then move the cursor, the distance is shown in the status bar.

George
 
George

The last version of AFCAD that Lee released did not have the measurement listed in the property list (right click on grid) or show in the Lower title bar.


Version 2.0.4.0 dated 10/26/03
can measure


Version 2.1.1.0 dated 11/27/03
cannot measure but still shows the select measure distance in the right cick of the mouse

Version 2.2.1.0 dated 01/02/04
cannot measure and the last version released. The right click of the mouse does not show measure distance.

I keep the first version listed above for the measure ability in the lower title bar and will check using it to see what foot values are used.

EDIT ***********


George I am wrong

There is a measurement feature in the last version of AFCAD and I never realized how to turn it on.

You have to go to the top right upper menu and select the pink "+" symbol. Place that anywhere on the grid and then the movement of the mouse arrow will activate the measurement in ft or meter in the lower left of the status bar including angles.

Docs say

Measuring Tool Changed
Previous AFCAD versions had a measuring tool which was called from right-click pop up menu. This has been removed. In its place, the status bar will show the distance from the last marker placed on the screen to the current mouse position, and the angle between the last two markers and the mouse will also be shown.
Click to expand...
 
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Using the AFCAD measurement tool now after all the years I see how to activate it (thanks George) I did the measurements for distance of Pushback Tugs.

FSX is a very simple formula because they used meters for distance same as parking radius meters. I will use the 10M gate radius as the smallest value and then show the multiple of 10's value.

The measurement is from the center of the parking spot radius to the back of the Tug because that is what ends up inside a Terminal.

10M = 18.5M or 32.8083 ft from center of the parking spot to the back of the Tug
20M = 28.5M
30M = 38.5M
40M = 48.5M
50M = 58.5M

You can see that starting at 10M each pushback tug moves back by 1M based on a increase of 1M parking spot radius.

18M = 26.5M or 86.942 ft from the center of the parking spot to the back of the Tug

The actual Tug is 9.0M long if you measure the total length (drawbar locking wheel mechnism to the hitch on the very back) so where the drawbar attaches to the front of the tug is center of the tug which is 1/2 the length (4.5M)

Maybe Jon can attach a small type pink (+) to each parking spot such as the GATE and CARGO to illustrate where the back of the tug is postioned. This way when placing Gate parking spots or Cargo spots we have a visual in respect to the building wall when adding/moving the parking spot around and aligning with the Jetway (topdown view).
 
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Nice one Jim
Would be nice to have an approx visual where the tug and Baggage cart will be
perhaps we need an oval :duck:
and its not just the buildings and JetBridges, also any aircraft/scenery objects in the Immediate vicinity when looking for a space

Ray
 
Hello,

I am presently busy with an effort to translate Lee Swordy's "User Manual for AFCAD 2" in the "Readme.html"-file into German. I find it is extremely well written, with a very clear layout and a logical structure. (I won't judge the program itself, since I am not (yet) an AFCAD expert).

The only parts, where I have to struggle, are the sections about Parking.

Reading and following this thread here, tells me why this is so!

Still, Reggie's contribution of 28.04.07 gave me further insight and I'll think about, whether I could use its information to render the Parking section more "transparent".

Permit me one remark to this discussion here. I think, José was trying further down to express a very important point when he used the word "cover" in:

Well, I suppose Jon can use a symbol (or icon) of the same size, to not congest the drawing covering others important informations, and, also, represent the parking area with a well centered transparent color circle, with the real dimensions (radius) of the parking area.
Click to expand...

I think, "obscure" or "obliterate" would describe better the conflicting issues of Parking spot size and visibility of underlying information.
But I have high hopes for Jon's ability to incorporate all these ideas here into his project and I will follow it (and this thread here) very closely.

Many thanks to all of you

Helli
 
I find it is extremely well written, with a very clear layout and a logical structure.
Click to expand...

Personally, I find Lee's file one of, possible THE, very best example of how to document an application - in the entire world / history of computers!!!!

However, we have learned a lot since Lee last updated his work, which makes some of his information inaccurate.
 
Okay Jim

The back of the pushback tug is 8.5M + the the parking spot radius from the parking spot center point?

With the tug being 9M long - the drawbar and hitch extends 0.5M into the actual parking spot.

Did I get that right?
 
Reggie

Yes you got it right and that is another way to say it.

If you visually look at any size parking space circle the drawbar fork sits just inside the parking circle by a measurement of .5M.

Actually it is .4M do to the Pushback tug being just shy of 9.0M long and AFCAD only being able to read the tenth position in the measurement.

If you zoom AFCAD out it appears the fork is on the parking spot circle line. Zooming in close reveals the end of the fork is actually .4M inside the circle.

This standard holds true for every single parking size do to the 1M increase in Parking size pushes the Tug back by 1M.
 
jvile said:
There is a measurement feature in the last version of AFCAD and I never realized how to turn it on.

You have to go to the top right upper menu and select the pink "+" symbol. Place that anywhere on the grid and then the movement of the mouse arrow will activate the measurement in ft or meter in the lower left of the status bar including angles.
Click to expand...

That's what I said, "Just place a mark ..."

I am amazed that I could tell Jim anything he didn't know about Afcad2 :)

George
 
The attached AFCAD picture shows 2 Gate sizes. One is 50M and one is 20M.

The pink lines illustrate the 3 pieces of equipment in the proper place and length.

Notice that there is a spacing proportion that also applies to the size of the parking circle.

A 20M radius circle and the euipment are very close together. a 50M and they are spaced on the ramp much wider from one other. Anything in between 10 to 50M spaces proportionally.
 
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