Found at: http://www.silentwings.no/article/articleprint/106/-1/1/

Silent Wings Viewer

Publishing date: 23.05.2006 11:29

The Silent Wings viewer is the ultimate tool for glider pilots who want to relive and share their greatest moments.

The Silent Wings Viewer also has the unique capability of visualizing real gliders in real time with live tracking devices.

Features

Re-live and share your best flights

By loading IGC log files into the viewer you can play back your flights and review every minute of it.

Control playback speed
Move forward and backwards in time
Instantly seek to a particular part of the flight.
Show several flights at the same time
Import task from the IGC file, or set up manually with the integrated task editor to show task progress and scoring

Real-time tracking

By connecting to the DSX or YellowBrick servers you can watch gliders in real-time, or play back previous flights stored on the servers.

These trakcking systems have already been used in several competitions and more are set to follow

Real-time scoring of tasks (Racing tasks, Grand Prix and AAT tasks supported).
Follow competitions live from your home or even from work if your boss allows it ;-)

Physics-based Simulation

The movements of the aircraft are determined by reverse-calculating the physics of the glider based on the flown path. This enables us to recreate the flight in a very life-like manner

Total energy calculations (including wind) gives realistic pull-ups and correct pitch when thermalling.
TE-compensated variometer display with averager.
Correct bank based on calculated G-forces
Animated wing flexing.

Full flexibility with virtual cameras

Place the camera wherever you want in relation to the gliders to get the optimal view of the situation.

Cockpit view with live instruments.
Overview camera with Google Earth-like mouse navigation.
Fly-by view
Different outside views of the aircraft
Automatic head-movements in cockpit-view

Aircraft

Incredibly detailed 3D models with dynamic shadows and animations.
Fully immersive 3D cockpit with clickable instruments and moving flight controls.
A wide selection of aircraft from the Open-class Antares, through 18m- and standard class to the club class Grob Twin II and oldtimers such as Ka8 and SG-38. All aircraft from the Silent Wings simulator can be used.
Metric or Imperial units selectable for all instruments.
Custom registration and competition numbers.

Scenery

The sceneries in Silent Wings are based on a breakthrough in level-of-detail (LOD) technology that integrates elevation models, digital maps, aerial photos and satellite images in a unified framework ideal for real time visualization. This technology scales almost perfectly with data sizes and allows in principle any resolution for real time rendering.

Currently covering over 800 000 sq km of detailed scenery from some of the most famous soaring sites in the world, including the complete European alps!
State of the art scenery rendering software gives an accurate representation of the area you're flying in.
Navigate after real landmarks and features such as roads, rivers and lakes.
Highly detailed 3D buildings and trees in selected areas
Familiarize yourself with a new soaring region before going there in real life!
High resolution ground textures based on aerial photos, satellite images and highly detailed digital maps.
Use the "Google Earth(TM)"-like navigation tools to roam freely in the 3D map and get a unique overview the landscape.
In-flight 2D map with plots of all aircraft, flown tracks, task, turnpoints, etc.

Natural graphics

Volumetric 3D Clouds
Realistic daylight effects with beautiful sunsets

Movie rendering

Render the 3D visualization as a movie file for use in presentations or home videos.

Supports various codecs such as MPEG1,2 and 4 (DivX) for maximum flexibility and compatibility.
Supports all common resolutions for both web and video production.

More Screenshots

Movie

This movie shows tracking of real flights from the 2006 World Gliding Championships in Eskilstuna, Sweden and from the 1st World Grand Prix in St. Auban, France.

System Requirements

Operating System: Windows XP/2000/Vista or Linux (kernel 2.4 or higher) or Mac OSX 10.4 or higher.
3D Graphics card required with a minimum of 32Mb graphics memory. 64 Mb or higher recommended.
800MHz Processor
256Mb RAM
0.5-4Gb available HD space, depending on how much scenery you choose to install

For Linux systems, we recommend NVIDIA graphics hardware.

Download

Go to the Download Page to download. Windows, Linux and Mac versions available. You can try the viewer for free for 14 days before buying.

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