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#1
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US sectional charts online
I got an e-mailing from the FAA that said, among other things:
New editions of all FAA aeronautical charts are now available for pdf download every 56 days. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flig..._Products/vfr/ The previous editions of the sectionals are dated on that page at various dates in 2020, while all of the "next edition due" dates seem to be today (Feb. 25, 2021). New faster refresh cycle? Cool. But the files offered for download are still the old, well, sectionals, i.e., the sections of the country that were covered by the old paper sheets. And the file types offered are GEO-TIFF and PDF. Plain image files apparently not. Of course our gliderport is right near the seam between two sections. In the past few years I've been downloading the two sheets, converting to image files, reducing resolution, cropping to very carefully include the same longitude range on the seam, and then electronically glueing them together into one image file. (Which I then keep on my cellphone.) This is a lot of work, and the results are not perfect, there are anomalies along the seam. And all this seams/seems silly in 2021. So, is there any way I can download a seamless "sectional" for my chosen flying area (overlapping those antiquated sections)? I've asked this before, but so far I have no solution. There are some web sites that display sectionals on the screen seamlessly, but you can't download a chart, only what you can see on the screen (small area or low resolution). Alternatively is there easy to install and use software that can import the downloadable GEO-TIFFs and generate across-seams charts? Such software clearly lives inside those web sites that show seamless charts. People who use software such as ForeFlight have it inside their iPads. I want it in my PC so I can create plain image files that I can store on any device. |
#2
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US sectional charts online
On Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 3:10:55 PM UTC-5, Moshe Braner wrote:
I got an e-mailing from the FAA that said, among other things: New editions of all FAA aeronautical charts are now available for pdf download every 56 days. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flig..._Products/vfr/ The previous editions of the sectionals are dated on that page at various dates in 2020, while all of the "next edition due" dates seem to be today (Feb. 25, 2021). New faster refresh cycle? Cool. But the files offered for download are still the old, well, sectionals, i.e., the sections of the country that were covered by the old paper sheets. And the file types offered are GEO-TIFF and PDF. Plain image files apparently not. Of course our gliderport is right near the seam between two sections. In the past few years I've been downloading the two sheets, converting to image files, reducing resolution, cropping to very carefully include the same longitude range on the seam, and then electronically glueing them together into one image file. (Which I then keep on my cellphone.) This is a lot of work, and the results are not perfect, there are anomalies along the seam. And all this seams/seems silly in 2021. So, is there any way I can download a seamless "sectional" for my chosen flying area (overlapping those antiquated sections)? I've asked this before, but so far I have no solution. There are some web sites that display sectionals on the screen seamlessly, but you can't download a chart, only what you can see on the screen (small area or low resolution). Alternatively is there easy to install and use software that can import the downloadable GEO-TIFFs and generate across-seams charts? Such software clearly lives inside those web sites that show seamless charts. People who use software such as ForeFlight have it inside their iPads. I want it in my PC so I can create plain image files that I can store on any device. Get a custom chart at http://soaringdata.info/aviation/sectionalTab.html . They are .jpg files and also have reference nav info for GlidePlan if you need that. We had a custom chart made for a Canadian Regional (four Sectionals merge for us) and it's great... Courtesy of Lynn Alley "2KA". Highly recommended... I must remember to Donate for this year. |
#3
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US sectional charts online
On 2/25/2021 6:27 PM, Dan Daly wrote:
On Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 3:10:55 PM UTC-5, Moshe Braner wrote: I got an e-mailing from the FAA that said, among other things: New editions of all FAA aeronautical charts are now available for pdf download every 56 days. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flig..._Products/vfr/ The previous editions of the sectionals are dated on that page at various dates in 2020, while all of the "next edition due" dates seem to be today (Feb. 25, 2021). New faster refresh cycle? Cool. But the files offered for download are still the old, well, sectionals, i.e., the sections of the country that were covered by the old paper sheets. And the file types offered are GEO-TIFF and PDF. Plain image files apparently not. Of course our gliderport is right near the seam between two sections. In the past few years I've been downloading the two sheets, converting to image files, reducing resolution, cropping to very carefully include the same longitude range on the seam, and then electronically glueing them together into one image file. (Which I then keep on my cellphone.) This is a lot of work, and the results are not perfect, there are anomalies along the seam. And all this seams/seems silly in 2021. So, is there any way I can download a seamless "sectional" for my chosen flying area (overlapping those antiquated sections)? I've asked this before, but so far I have no solution. There are some web sites that display sectionals on the screen seamlessly, but you can't download a chart, only what you can see on the screen (small area or low resolution). Alternatively is there easy to install and use software that can import the downloadable GEO-TIFFs and generate across-seams charts? Such software clearly lives inside those web sites that show seamless charts. People who use software such as ForeFlight have it inside their iPads. I want it in my PC so I can create plain image files that I can store on any device. Get a custom chart at http://soaringdata.info/aviation/sectionalTab.html . They are .jpg files and also have reference nav info for GlidePlan if you need that. We had a custom chart made for a Canadian Regional (four Sectionals merge for us) and it's great... Courtesy of Lynn Alley "2KA". Highly recommended... I must remember to Donate for this year. I don't see "custom" charts there, in the sense of gluing together different sectionals. The image files offered for download there are distorted, "reprojected in latutude/longitude rectangular grids". That may be the cat's meow for some software on some devices, software that hopefully can also then combine the "tiles". But it doesn't get me what I'm looking for, which is an undistorted image of the original sectional maps, seamlessly combined. There are online sites such as https://skyvector.com/ that shows the sections combined into one big flat world you can pan across. That site does not have the anomalies that I see when I combine the individual charts myself, so their source data must be in a different format. |
#4
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US sectional charts online
On Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 7:24:43 PM UTC-5, Moshe Braner wrote:
On 2/25/2021 6:27 PM, Dan Daly wrote: On Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 3:10:55 PM UTC-5, Moshe Braner wrote: I got an e-mailing from the FAA that said, among other things: New editions of all FAA aeronautical charts are now available for pdf download every 56 days. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flig..._Products/vfr/ The previous editions of the sectionals are dated on that page at various dates in 2020, while all of the "next edition due" dates seem to be today (Feb. 25, 2021). New faster refresh cycle? Cool. But the files offered for download are still the old, well, sectionals, i.e., the sections of the country that were covered by the old paper sheets. And the file types offered are GEO-TIFF and PDF. Plain image files apparently not. Of course our gliderport is right near the seam between two sections. In the past few years I've been downloading the two sheets, converting to image files, reducing resolution, cropping to very carefully include the same longitude range on the seam, and then electronically glueing them together into one image file. (Which I then keep on my cellphone.) This is a lot of work, and the results are not perfect, there are anomalies along the seam. And all this seams/seems silly in 2021. So, is there any way I can download a seamless "sectional" for my chosen flying area (overlapping those antiquated sections)? I've asked this before, but so far I have no solution. There are some web sites that display sectionals on the screen seamlessly, but you can't download a chart, only what you can see on the screen (small area or low resolution). Alternatively is there easy to install and use software that can import the downloadable GEO-TIFFs and generate across-seams charts? Such software clearly lives inside those web sites that show seamless charts. People who use software such as ForeFlight have it inside their iPads. I want it in my PC so I can create plain image files that I can store on any device. Get a custom chart at http://soaringdata.info/aviation/sectionalTab.html . They are .jpg files and also have reference nav info for GlidePlan if you need that. We had a custom chart made for a Canadian Regional (four Sectionals merge for us) and it's great... Courtesy of Lynn Alley "2KA". Highly recommended... I must remember to Donate for this year. I don't see "custom" charts there, in the sense of gluing together different sectionals. The image files offered for download there are distorted, "reprojected in latutude/longitude rectangular grids". That may be the cat's meow for some software on some devices, software that hopefully can also then combine the "tiles". But it doesn't get me what I'm looking for, which is an undistorted image of the original sectional maps, seamlessly combined. There are online sites such as https://skyvector.com/ that shows the sections combined into one big flat world you can pan across. That site does not have the anomalies that I see when I combine the individual charts myself, so their source data must be in a different format. I had a program a while back on an old laptop that did exactly what you wanted. I could open multiple geotiff files and it would seam them together and let you print PDFs of whatever part of the merged files you wanted. Unfortunately I replaced the computer and lost track of the name of the software. Today, I fly with FltPlan Go an an iPad. No more paper charts. This app is totally free. It also runs on iPhones. A perfect solution. Use a kneeboard iPad mount if you don’t have space on your panel. Add an Ads-B receiver and get free weather radar, METARS, TAFs, and TFRs, along with traffic. |
#5
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US sectional charts online
Doesn't the OziExplorer's 'Map Merge' supplement software do what you need?
https://www.oziexplorer4.com/mapmerge/mapmerge.html On Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 2:10:55 PM UTC-6, Moshe Braner wrote: I got an e-mailing from the FAA that said, among other things: New editions of all FAA aeronautical charts are now available for pdf download every 56 days. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flig..._Products/vfr/ The previous editions of the sectionals are dated on that page at various dates in 2020, while all of the "next edition due" dates seem to be today (Feb. 25, 2021). New faster refresh cycle? Cool. But the files offered for download are still the old, well, sectionals, i.e., the sections of the country that were covered by the old paper sheets. And the file types offered are GEO-TIFF and PDF. Plain image files apparently not. Of course our gliderport is right near the seam between two sections. In the past few years I've been downloading the two sheets, converting to image files, reducing resolution, cropping to very carefully include the same longitude range on the seam, and then electronically glueing them together into one image file. (Which I then keep on my cellphone.) This is a lot of work, and the results are not perfect, there are anomalies along the seam. And all this seams/seems silly in 2021. So, is there any way I can download a seamless "sectional" for my chosen flying area (overlapping those antiquated sections)? I've asked this before, but so far I have no solution. There are some web sites that display sectionals on the screen seamlessly, but you can't download a chart, only what you can see on the screen (small area or low resolution). Alternatively is there easy to install and use software that can import the downloadable GEO-TIFFs and generate across-seams charts? Such software clearly lives inside those web sites that show seamless charts. People who use software such as ForeFlight have it inside their iPads. I want it in my PC so I can create plain image files that I can store on any device. |
#6
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US sectional charts online
Mike Schumann wrote on 2/25/2021 6:16 PM:
On Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 7:24:43 PM UTC-5, Moshe Braner wrote: On 2/25/2021 6:27 PM, Dan Daly wrote: On Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 3:10:55 PM UTC-5, Moshe Braner wrote: I got an e-mailing from the FAA that said, among other things: New editions of all FAA aeronautical charts are now available for pdf download every 56 days. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flig..._Products/vfr/ The previous editions of the sectionals are dated on that page at various dates in 2020, while all of the "next edition due" dates seem to be today (Feb. 25, 2021). New faster refresh cycle? Cool. But the files offered for download are still the old, well, sectionals, i.e., the sections of the country that were covered by the old paper sheets. And the file types offered are GEO-TIFF and PDF. Plain image files apparently not. Of course our gliderport is right near the seam between two sections. In the past few years I've been downloading the two sheets, converting to image files, reducing resolution, cropping to very carefully include the same longitude range on the seam, and then electronically glueing them together into one image file. (Which I then keep on my cellphone.) This is a lot of work, and the results are not perfect, there are anomalies along the seam. And all this seams/seems silly in 2021. So, is there any way I can download a seamless "sectional" for my chosen flying area (overlapping those antiquated sections)? I've asked this before, but so far I have no solution. There are some web sites that display sectionals on the screen seamlessly, but you can't download a chart, only what you can see on the screen (small area or low resolution). Alternatively is there easy to install and use software that can import the downloadable GEO-TIFFs and generate across-seams charts? Such software clearly lives inside those web sites that show seamless charts. People who use software such as ForeFlight have it inside their iPads. I want it in my PC so I can create plain image files that I can store on any device. Get a custom chart at http://soaringdata.info/aviation/sectionalTab.html . They are .jpg files and also have reference nav info for GlidePlan if you need that. We had a custom chart made for a Canadian Regional (four Sectionals merge for us) and it's great... Courtesy of Lynn Alley "2KA". Highly recommended... I must remember to Donate for this year. I don't see "custom" charts there, in the sense of gluing together different sectionals. The image files offered for download there are distorted, "reprojected in latutude/longitude rectangular grids". That may be the cat's meow for some software on some devices, software that hopefully can also then combine the "tiles". But it doesn't get me what I'm looking for, which is an undistorted image of the original sectional maps, seamlessly combined. There are online sites such as https://skyvector.com/ that shows the sections combined into one big flat world you can pan across. That site does not have the anomalies that I see when I combine the individual charts myself, so their source data must be in a different format. I had a program a while back on an old laptop that did exactly what you wanted. I could open multiple geotiff files and it would seam them together and let you print PDFs of whatever part of the merged files you wanted. Unfortunately I replaced the computer and lost track of the name of the software. Today, I fly with FltPlan Go an an iPad. No more paper charts. This app is totally free. It also runs on iPhones. A perfect solution. Use a kneeboard iPad mount if you don’t have space on your panel. Add an Ads-B receiver and get free weather radar, METARS, TAFs, and TFRs, along with traffic. Is there an ADS-B receiver using Bluetooth that works with it? My iPhone wifi is dedicated to Butterfly vario. -- Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me) - "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation" https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1 |
#7
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US sectional charts online
On 2/26/2021 1:30 AM, Tom BravoMike wrote:
Doesn't the OziExplorer's 'Map Merge' supplement software do what you need? https://www.oziexplorer4.com/mapmerge/mapmerge.html That might work, if you want to pay $124 for OziExplorer plus the Merge tool. At least the download files are small and system requirements modest. There are various free software packages that can interpret GEO-TIFF files, and some of them may be able to stitch them together. It appears that QGIS can do that. But it's it is a 390 Megabyte download, and it expands when you install it. And the hardware requirements are high. Either way you'd have to learn to use some complicated software (choose your map projection, for example). All good if you want to dabble in what is truly GIS software. But what I would expect for our tax money by now is to be able to get a map for the area of your choice directly from the FAA, instead of paper-map lookalikes. They could have several overlapping combined maps generated and stored, and when you specify your coordinate limits it would pick the right one and crop it, which would be quick. I can dream. But that's essentially what Skyvector.com already does, instantly. Lacking that, maybe the flying community can get together and create some merged maps and store them online somewhere. That would need to be repeated periodically, the cycle of the sectional updates is now 56 days. For most of us the area we want in one map won't be bigger than a traditional sectional, just needs to be shifted across the seams. Thus pre-merged pairs of adjacent sectionals, for example, might suffice. For the purpose, the resolution of the image can be reduced. E.g., my hand-stitched map image of my flying area is only about 7 megabytes (25 megapixels, covering about 20,000 square miles). Thus storage and download would be easy enough. I've found some example merged sectionals he http://www.glideplan.com/styled-5/downloads-3/files/ but those are from 2014 or earlier, and the whole point is to get up-to-date maps to electronically carry with you. The other approach is to use a live cellphone data connection to something like skyvector.com from the cockpit, but I would much prefer to have the data with me and not to count on a connection which may not work when you need it. |
#8
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US sectional charts online
I've heard that the Fltplan Go app is free and provides current sectionals. I'm a CFIG, so use WingX, which is free to anyone with a CFI.
5Z |
#9
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US sectional charts online
Hello Moshe,
My website will indeed do exactly what you want. The format you seem to be asking for is the same as what GlidePlan uses. On the Sectionals tab, go to the section titled "US Sectional Charts for GlidePlan" and follow the link to request a custom GlidePlan map. You will need to provide a decimal lat/lon for a reference point somewhere on the chart, and distances in nautical miles from the reference point to the north, south, east, and west edges. The chart area must be limited to 200,000 square nautical miles, but that is huge. My software will stitch together the required sectionals and make a JPG file you can download. You only need to make the request once, and after that, updated versions will appear in the custom GlidePlan charts folder on my website periodically. Lynn Alley "2KA" |
#10
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US sectional charts online
On 2/26/2021 11:01 AM, Lynn Alley wrote:
Hello Moshe, My website will indeed do exactly what you want. The format you seem to be asking for is the same as what GlidePlan uses. On the Sectionals tab, go to the section titled "US Sectional Charts for GlidePlan" and follow the link to request a custom GlidePlan map. You will need to provide a decimal lat/lon for a reference point somewhere on the chart, and distances in nautical miles from the reference point to the north, south, east, and west edges. The chart area must be limited to 200,000 square nautical miles, but that is huge. My software will stitch together the required sectionals and make a JPG file you can download. You only need to make the request once, and after that, updated versions will appear in the custom GlidePlan charts folder on my website periodically. Lynn Alley "2KA" Fantastic! I didn't realize that was were this was hiding. And I see it's not an automated system, it is instructions on sending you a request to do some manual setup (which will then re-run automatically in the future). I will try and submit a request as per the instructions, that will satisfy other glider pilots in New England. Thank you for this, and all the other great stuff you maintain on your web site, Lynn! |
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