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Tim Dawson
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I do not believe we have ever received any such "list" because there is no official list. They are not aeronautical data. The problem is, it seems ATC in Switzerland often use the same ICAO chart, and have adopted the towns listed on that chart as unofficial VRPs.
There is an implication in the last two posts that we possess tools to pick and choose which towns are selected in our maps at individual zoom levels. We do not. Could we develop those tools? Sure, but at present, Switzerland is the only country in which this seems to be an issue, and even then, we do not hear about it very often. Do ensure you have contacted customer support to let them know about this, so we can ensure that we record your desire for our chart to include those towns.
I appreciate this is more likely to be a problem for new pilots who have probably trained with the ICAO chart and have not yet moved on to charts from other providers, with the inherent differences therein.
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paalia
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+xAs far as I can tell, you are talking about towns. Towns are not aeronautical data, and they are certainly not ICAO entities. If they were aeronautically-significant, they would be part of AIP Switzerland and we would include them, likely as VRPs.
Chart authors pick which towns they show in the scenery of a chart either cartographically or algorithmically. Because our charts are vector-based and zoomable to any scale, towns are selected algorithmically based on population size. They are not designed to match the town selections of any other chart.
Over the years we have indeed had a few people ask for the Swiss towns in our chart to match those in the Swiss ICAO chart. It's not clear what those people would expect to happen to the town selection upon zooming in and out, though. Thanks for your reply. I am not talking about towns per se, I am talking specifically about reference points on the official Swiss ICAO charts (which often happen to be towns).
If I understand you correctly, SkyDemon will display towns or (random?/non VRP) reference points dynamically based on zoom level.
What I fail to understand is why you couldn't cross reference the ICAO chart, and ensure that the towns/reference points documented there, are persistently displayed on SkyDemon, regardless of zoom level?
While I acknowledge that these points may not be AIP/REP points; fact is those base chart points are important and generally used in communication when flying VFR in Switzerland.
As others in this thread have noted, lists have been previously provided for that purpose, but it seems nothing was done with that data? I'm not sure how technically hard it is to implement what I suggested above, but I imagine you already have the tools to do so?
I do have to say, that for a new pilot such as myself, the lack of these points is a bit of a deal breaker..
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Adam Erchegyi
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+xOver the years we have indeed had a few people ask for the Swiss towns in our chart to match those in the Swiss ICAO chart. It's not clear what those people would expect to happen to the town selection upon zooming in and out, though. The difference is understandable, and the behaviour is accepted. On the other hand, you need to understand that these towns are regularly referenced by FIS as reporting points. I was asked countless times to report "Weesen" (town west of Walensee, usually used due to being on the edge of an - published! - radio/radar no-coverage zone), "Horw" (very distinct point next to Vierwaldstättersee, used to circumnavigate complex military CTR structure), and many more. The problem is: - These towns are not labeled in SkyDemon, even when zoomed in to the maximum possible level
- They turn up in search inconsistently
- You don't seem to care to add them, regardless of people sending you lists
So we are left with the usage of custom waypoints (make the map look like hell) or experience - so we know all these points by heart. None of them is really an option for visiting pilots. An optimal solution would be to maintain such a list as part of the SD database and prioritize displaying their label.
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Tim Dawson
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As far as I can tell, you are talking about towns. Towns are not aeronautical data, and they are certainly not ICAO entities. If they were aeronautically-significant, they would be part of AIP Switzerland and we would include them, likely as VRPs.
Chart authors pick which towns they show in the scenery of a chart either cartographically or algorithmically. Because our charts are vector-based and zoomable to any scale, towns are selected algorithmically based on population size. They are not designed to match the town selections of any other chart.
Over the years we have indeed had a few people ask for the Swiss towns in our chart to match those in the Swiss ICAO chart. It's not clear what those people would expect to happen to the town selection upon zooming in and out, though.
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paalia
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+xWhat is an example of a wrong point in our map? If there is anything incorrect in our maps, we fix it. I'm necroing this thread, because I found no more recent discussion of this topic. The chart for Switzerland is really pretty bad in comparison to our ICAO chart.
To give some examples: - If you look at Zurich area, you guys have 'Zurich (Kreis 9) on your chart. I have no idea where you got that from, but Bremgarten just west of that is missing from your charts. - If you look further south along the lake, north of LSPV, ICAO chart references Pfaeffikon, but your charts reference Freienbach. - West of that, near Unteraegeri, ICAO chart references Menzingen, which is completely missing from your charts - West of Unteraegeri, you find Zug. But Baar and Cham are totally missing, though they are ICAO reference points
To be frank, there's too many of these to list exhaustively. And it's very frustrating because I know certainly ICAO data is public information, and they are important references for communication in Switzerland. It also seems that since this discussion 1.5 years ago, nothing has been worked on here?
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Tim Dawson
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Group: Forum Members
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What is an example of a wrong point in our map? If there is anything incorrect in our maps, we fix it.
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landrus
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+x+x+xIn SkyDemon they're referred to as Airways Reporting Points, but that encompasses all five-letter designated points defined in ENR 4.4.
We do not have plans to include paper charts in SkyDemon. They are static and out of date for most of the year. The official 1:500.000 is updated once a year and it is not outdated most of the year. The issue with the reporting points is real in Switzerland. You could probably overlay it georeferenced, like you do for the VAC charts and airfield charts. I would pay money for this. Perhaps you could crowdsource a list of the user waypoints for all of the preferred towns and share that amongst the Swiss pilot community through your local organisations and clubs. Tim might have to develop a means of bulk importing waypoints, though.
Would it be possible to add a feature to remove an existing point in the basemap? That would solve my issue. It's manual, but I don't have an issue with doing that manually. Currently, I add all the missing points as user points and that works beautifully, as the web version of the swiss ICAO map allows you to find the WGS 84 location. The remaining issue is the "wrong" existing points from the basemap. If I would be able to remove them, that would be all I am asking for.
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grahamb
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+x+xIn SkyDemon they're referred to as Airways Reporting Points, but that encompasses all five-letter designated points defined in ENR 4.4.
We do not have plans to include paper charts in SkyDemon. They are static and out of date for most of the year. The official 1:500.000 is updated once a year and it is not outdated most of the year. The issue with the reporting points is real in Switzerland. You could probably overlay it georeferenced, like you do for the VAC charts and airfield charts. I would pay money for this. Perhaps you could crowdsource a list of the user waypoints for all of the preferred towns and share that amongst the Swiss pilot community through your local organisations and clubs. Tim might have to develop a means of bulk importing waypoints, though.
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landrus
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Group: Forum Members
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+xIn SkyDemon they're referred to as Airways Reporting Points, but that encompasses all five-letter designated points defined in ENR 4.4.
We do not have plans to include paper charts in SkyDemon. They are static and out of date for most of the year. The official 1:500.000 is updated once a year and it is not outdated most of the year. The issue with the reporting points is real in Switzerland. You could probably overlay it georeferenced, like you do for the VAC charts and airfield charts. I would pay money for this.
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Tim Dawson
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 8.2K,
Visits: 9.8K
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In SkyDemon they're referred to as Airways Reporting Points, but that encompasses all five-letter designated points defined in ENR 4.4.
We do not have plans to include paper charts in SkyDemon. They are static and out of date for most of the year.
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