ATC-pie: Difference between revisions

| latestrelease          = June 5, 2015

'''ATC-pie''' is a radar [[air traffic control]] simulation program for the [[FlightGear]] multi-player network, initially released Febuary 2015. It is comparable to [[OpenRadar]], but essentially designed for realism. It simulates many features of real-life ATC tasks such as strip rack and sequence management, handovers to/from neighbouring controllers, transponder identification, flight plan filing, ATIS recording. It also provides a solo game mode for approach/departure vectoring and tower training.

It is free and open source, programmed in Python3 for Qt5 hence system-independant, only both must be installed as well as the python3-qt5 bindings. That done, it is meant to work straight away, with no other resource to install or make/compile command to run. No need to install or update FlightGear, download scenery or fetch any external resource before it can run.

Features listed below have been tested on various Linux versions and Windows. Still waiting for Mac users to report.

* ATC handovers: strip exchange with OpenRadar and other ATC-pie instances in range

* Mode-dependant behaviour (modes 0, A, C, S)

* Choice of simulated mode for the many FlightGear aircraft models still not equipped

* Variety of show/hide options for navigation points, aircraft info boxes, vectoring assignments...

* Custom text labels to annotate radar background (saved across sessions)

* Strips droppable on neighbouring ATCs for handovers

Routes and vectors:

* Route parsing, current leg and next waypoint display

* Geodesic calculations of headings and distances

* Directly assign headings, altitudes/FLs and speeds with click&drag on controlled radar contacts

* Conflicts between assigned and picked up routes and altitudes reported

* Preset message list management and automatic line completion

* Text aliases for context value replacements

* Message history recall

* Hardcore comm simulation possible by disabling unknown senders' callsigns

|ATC-pie-screenshot-backgroundHandDrawing.png|Custom line drawing at EKCH

|ATC-pie-screenshot-courseAndAssignmentsGraphics.png|All-in-one display of vectors and conflicts

You are the air traffic controller, and players will connect to the network with different types of aircraft and [[transponder]] equipment. As in real-life, the radar is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_surveillance_radar SSR], hence will show you only (unless you cheat) what you pick up from on-board ''transponders'' in your range. That means:

Your basic traffic flow and sequence working unit is the '''strip''', each representing a controlled (or soon expected) aircraft. Strips are created, filled with details and moved along and across ''racks'' until handed over to a different controller or discarded. Details written on strips include:

* details like aircraft type, airspeed, route... that can be specified by the pilots themselves when filing ''flight plans''; and

Double-clicking on a strip will open a strip detail sheet where those details can be manually edited, but each strip can also be '''linked''' to a flight plan and/or a visible radar contact on the scope screen—a strip can only be linked to one flight plan and to one radar contact. Linking to a strip will automatically:

* label the radar contact dot with the more informed linked details (e.g. assigned altitude).

To ''identify'' an aircraft and link the right radar contact to a strip, an ATC can rely on different things. He can read an aircraft's callsign straight away if it is visible (or cheated), tell from reported positions and altitudes, or use a transponder code. For instance, say a VFR traffic makes an initial radio contact giving his callsign and approximate position. ATC will typically pull out a new blank strip and give the pilot a unique transponder code to squawk, writing it on the strip alongside the announced callsign, then wait for it to appear on the radar. This allows for '''radar identification''' of aircraft–strip pairs such that:

This section is only poor standalone documentation. It helps one download and run ATC-pie, and lists a few tips on some of its features. Other sources to learn the program are:

* the in-app ''quick reference'' from the help menu (summary of mouse/keyboard gestures, etc.);

* the tutorial videos (to be announced).

Background drawings allow to decorate radar scopes with all sorts of maps and useful information about the airspace or procedures. For example, you can map out procedure routes with one image file per published chart, named with SID/STAR and associated runways to make in-game selection easy.

The best way is certainly to draw the images yourself with good enough resolution, e.g. with Gimp, superimposing a drawing layer on top of a real map background canvas, possibly your ATC-pie radar screenshot with pinned navaids for landmarks. If you have the real documentation, it is worth trying the command below (requires ''ImageMagick'') to simply turn the white background of a ready published chart into transparency, and check if the rendered images are acceptable and zoom-resistant enough.

Use the '''image positioning helper tool''' in the system menu if you want to adjust image corners visually rather than programmatically. All visible pixmap drawings are touched simultaneously, so you can work with several at a time if you need to. On dialog box close, a file is generated in the <code>output</code> folder for you to open and copy/edit, or use as a direct substitution.

==== Multi-player strip exchange and OpenRadar interoperability ====

The strip exchange feature in ATC-pie is based on OpenRadar's server to enable ATC coordination between users of both software programs. However, it is to note that their philosophies differ in several ways:

* a handover must be acknowledged by the receiver for the sender to lose ownership and all OpenRadar users to see the handover complete, whereas ATC-pie considers that a strip sent through the hand-over pipe is gone and should land directly on a receiver's rack at the other end.

For most interactions to work while still respecting both philosophies as much as possible, the following principle was chosen:

The '''''Options'' menu''' is divided in three sections, respectively and unless stated otherwise:

For more efficient text chat, '''text aliases''' (<code>$wind</code>, <code>$qnh</code>, <code>$icao</code>...) are available for both instant and preset chat messages. They automatically expand to the current value when the containing message is sent. Have a look at the quick reference available from the help menu.

A: There can be a variety of reasons, all of them to rule out before reporting a bug in the program. Start a single ATC-pie instance and try the echo test (system menu). If it works, you may skip directly to item 3 below.

#: Verify the "FGCom version" set in the system menu, which should name a subdirectory in <code>resources/fgcom</code> and suit your operating system (see <code>Notice</code> file). Four versions are initially packaged with ATC-pie: Linux64, Linux32, Mac, Win32. FGCom version should be 3.4 (January 2015).