Ireland's air traffic in Virtual Reality

CorkRebell · 13-10-2019 1:41am #1

Hi All.
I made a college project that shows Ireland's real time air traffic in 3D/WebVR, It works on every browser bar Internet Explorer and Edge. It works best in VR if you have a headset. To navigate use WASD keys and the mouse or the thumbstick in VR. Let me know what you think?

https://sky3d.cf/demo/

bigar · 13-10-2019 9:45am

Very interesting. It gives a completely new view of things.

What do the different colours mean?

CorkRebell · 13-10-2019 10:05am

The colours represent altitude on a rainbow spectrum. It's to show altitude as a visual cue without having to look at a text description.

Red (low altitude) - Blue (high altitude) 0-12000 metres

Cylinder 4km Horizontal / 300m Vertical separation
Cone height and Radius Relative to speed
Text Overlay values Red (port turn) Green (starboard turn)

Super hoop · 13-10-2019 10:47am

Really cool. Well done

faoiarvok · 13-10-2019 12:20pm

Very interesting view.

Can I ask, why use metres rather than feet?
And why 4km cylinders?

SaltyJohn · 13-10-2019 12:58pm

That's very cool! It would be nice if the smaller airports were marked in - Knock & Kerry at least. For example I can see a plane on the ground at Knock but no airport is marked in. Lots of potential for future development here though, keep at it if you have the time!

CorkRebell · 13-10-2019 12:58pm

The data source provides altitude in metres. It could be converted to feet but I left it at metres. Separation rules vary by flight level but I wanted to show a fixed value of 4km radius that would serve as a visual cue. For aircraft in the distance the cylinder is more visible than the aircraft model so it should help the viewer gauge how far away an aircraft is.

13-10-2019 1:07pm

Looks good well done.

Vertical in feet and lateral in nautical miles if possible. rate of change should be in feet per minute as well.

faoiarvok · 13-10-2019 2:23pm

CorkRebell wrote: »

The data source provides altitude in metres. It could be converted to feet but I left it at metres. Separation rules vary by flight level but I wanted to show a fixed value of 4km radius that would serve as a visual cue. For aircraft in the distance the cylinder is more visible than the aircraft model so it should help the viewer gauge how far away an aircraft is.

If you continue to work on it, I think converting them would make sense as that’s what the aircraft are using.

Smallest radar separation in Irish airspace is 3 nautical miles (~5.5km) in the Dublin CTA, so that could be a figure to use if you’re trying to depict separation.

Psychlops · 13-10-2019 7:40pm

Not working on Firefox, all I get is a blank white screen.

CorkRebell · 13-10-2019 7:44pm

Psychlops wrote: »

Not working on Firefox, all I get is a blank white screen.

Check if you have any browser plugins like noscript enabled in firefox. The site runs on Javascript so that needs to be allowed for it to function. If that doesn't work try Chrome and let me know if you get a blank page on that also.

dingding · 13-10-2019 8:18pm

Works fine for me on Chrome, great app, well done.

Comhrá · 13-10-2019 9:03pm

Psychlops wrote: »

Not working on Firefox, all I get is a blank white screen.

I'm using Firefox and it's working grand.

icom · 13-10-2019 9:47pm

Comhra wrote: »

I'm using Firefox and it's working grand.

Working fine in Firefox.

Victor · 13-10-2019 10:29pm

Using Chrome on Win 10. Older machine, so it's a bit slow.

WASD not working.

Can one reverse mouse?

You could use https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=12/53.3596/-6.2852 for background mapping - you can limit the amount of things shown so as to manage data volume.

A few radio buttons to change settings might be useful.

Sky should be black after dark, it's still showing the sun.

Where's the 'Fire' button?

Enduro · 14-10-2019 12:13am

CorkRebell wrote: »

Hi All.
I made a college project that shows Ireland's real time air traffic in 3D/WebVR, It works on every browser bar Internet Explorer and Edge. It works best in VR if you have a headset. To navigate use WASD keys and the mouse or the thumbstick in VR. Let me know what you think?

https://sky3d.cf/demo/

You're bringing a tear to my eye! About 30 years ago I was starting a masters in CS. Being both a Computer Graphics and Aviation nerd I had an idea about building a 3D ATC system being fed from radar data. You've basically built what I had in mind. It's fantastic. Well done.

(My supervisor actually had an Aeronautical engineering degree, so there were two CG/Aviation nerds in it. Unfortunately 30 years ago it would have taken a bit more budget and manpower to pull off something like that, and the ATC lads in Cork reckoned it was a solution without a problem, even if it could have been done).

Popoutman · 18-10-2019 1:40pm

Is there an ability to change viewpoint altitude?

CorkRebell · 25-10-2019 1:21pm

Popoutman wrote: »

Is there an ability to change viewpoint altitude?

Yes and no. I can enable movement on the vertical or Y axis and this does look better however it causes problems with navigation. I use a 2D navigation mesh to restrict viewer movement to within the boundary of the map. If I enable 3D movement the mesh no longer works meaning the viewer can move to infinity in all directions which breaks the immersion if they move too far. I need to write some custom code to support a 3D navigation mesh but haven't got around to it yet unfortunately.

Ireland's air traffic in Virtual Reality

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