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Shark Planner: waypoint entry into Ka-50 ABRIS and PVI-800 from F10

okopanja

By okopanja
in DCS Modding

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Dustoff

Dustoff

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This tool is great!

I have an odd problem. I can select waypoints and transfer them to the ABRIS and PVI, but if I click save, save as, or load, I don't get the pop-up window and after that, the only key strokes that are recognized are ctl+shft+space. No other keys are recognized in DCS and I have to close it with the task manager. I don't have any security software other than the windows baked in defender. I'm not running DCS as an admin. Anyway, it's still usable for me, but it would be awesome to have the full functionality and figure out what's causing this. Log attached in case it helps. Thank you!

SharkPlanner.log

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okopanja

okopanja

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39 minutes ago, Dustoff said:

This tool is great!

I have an odd problem. I can select waypoints and transfer them to the ABRIS and PVI, but if I click save, save as, or load, I don't get the pop-up window and after that, the only key strokes that are recognized are ctl+shft+space. No other keys are recognized in DCS and I have to close it with the task manager. I don't have any security software other than the windows baked in defender. I'm not running DCS as an admin. Anyway, it's still usable for me, but it would be awesome to have the full functionality and figure out what's causing this. Log attached in case it helps. Thank you!

SharkPlanner.log 268.47 kB · 0 downloads

Please attach the dcs.log as well. I suspect that after clicking save the error occurred. It should be shown in dcs.log.

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okopanja

okopanja

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SharkPlanner v1.1.0: selection of waypoint/fixpoint/targetpoint moves the map

What's Changed

  • Added features:
    • Selection of waypoint/fixpoint/targetpoint focuses crosshair on map location
  • Bugs:
    • When switching maps the coordinates of map local coordinate systems were not recalculated
    • User can not open load or save dialogs. Checkbox present on dialog did cause the SharkPlanner to fail to show dialog if the check mark was set to false. In addition, all keyboard inputs were left in disabled state.  Many tanks to @Dustofffor reporting and effort in troubleshooting the issue.

Full Changelog: v1.0.2...v1.1.0

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FupDuck

FupDuck

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This looks really cool, thanks for putting this together! Great idea with the elevation map! 

"...I just wanna fly; put your arms around me baby, put your arms around me baby" - Sugar Ray

RTX 3090, Ryzen 7 5800X3D, MSI MPG B550 Gaming mobo, 64 GB DDR4 RAM, 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB game install drive, Oculus Quest Pro via link cable, Standalone DCS beta.

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okopanja

okopanja

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25 minutes ago, FupDuck said:

This looks really cool, thanks for putting this together! Great idea with the elevation map! 

Presently for elevation map I am trying to figure out the way to optimally select vertical scale.

Things to consider are:

- 0m ALT line

- minimal terrain altitude along route line

- maximal terrain altitude along route line

In addition I could consider some features that might be overkill, so no warranty I will actually do it, since they may have CPU impact.

- Minimal safe altitude (e.g. terrain vs objects + measurement errors)

- "safe" terrain following altitude

- route corridor width (e.g. we can not expect perfect adherence to route plot, hence it would actually need to calculate several height profile in order to pick the maximal altitude on each distance).

 

 

 

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okopanja

okopanja

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Hi All,

As promised elevation profile has been implemented. Feedback in form of bugs/improvements/ideas is appreciated.

 

v1.2.0

What's Changed

  • Added elevation profile chart by @okopanja in #50
    • Shows elevation profile along lines connecting waypoints.
      • Green area represents ground, blue represents sea.
      • Elevations are sampled at 1m step
      • Averaged for display reasons with math.max function. we can not show each m of route, so for given minimal display interval the highest value is selected.
    • At least one waypoint must be added (or 2 in case CA JTAC)
    • Each waypoint is represented with vertical dashed white line with:
      • Ordinal number at top
      • Altitude (m) below top
      • Distance (km) at bottom
    • Automatically updates on add/remove reset waypoints. This process takes a second on my PC, please let me know if delays are to severe.
    • Displays maximum elevation line with altitude in meters (red line)
    • Displays minimal elevation line with elevation in meters (red line)
    • Displays thousands of meters up to the next above maximal elevation
    • Limitations:
      • Text may overlap if waypoints are placed to close, while having many times more remote waypoints
  • Made waypoint list more readable by adding shadow to the text #52
  • Made experimental button permanent, but concealed (not for end users) in #49

Full Changelog: v1.1.0...v1.2.0

image.png


Edited by okopanja
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okopanja

okopanja

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v1.3.0

Black shark is not alone in SharkPlanner anymore: support for SA-342 Gazelle was implemented. NADIR Navigation System allows entry of up to 9 waypoints. As reminder NADIR does not direct autopilot, so selection of entered waypoints and steering has to be done manually.

All 3 variants are supported.

Gazelle.png

What's Changed

  • New features
    • Added support for NADIR in SA-342 Gazelle
    • Added ControlWindow reference to experimental callback call
  • Bugfixes
    • Fixed issue with ABRIS and Ka-50 BS2
    • Fixed removal of targetpoints in target list
    • Fixed control button being disabled when switching slot
    • Corrected entry of 10th target into PVI-800
    • Corrected number of fixpoints (4) for Black Shark
    • Progressbar is now above elevation chart (will be moved in future)
    • Replaced the literal strings with constants

Full Changelog: v1.2.0...v1.3.0

 


Edited by okopanja
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okopanja

okopanja

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v1.4.0

After longer absence from DCS(6 weeks) I resumed work and are happy to announce a new release with some features that were missing from SharkPlanner. 😉

What's Changed

  • Implemented experimental entry of target points into ABRIS
  • Implemented configuration option panel
  • SharkPlanner has now it's own configuration file located here: %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Config\SharkPlanner.json  (the file will be generated on first run)
  • Improved Logging facilities. It is possible to change verbosity of SharkPlanner.log in runtime

Bugfixes

  • Fixed issue with ABRIS and Ka-50 BS2 by @okopanja in #69
  • Fixed issue where Logging would not filter out messages based on verbosity level

Entry of targets points

With 1.4.0 experimental entry of target points into ABRIS was added but is disabled by default.
The target entry into ABRIS has following limitations

  1. Since it is not possible to distinguish the targets from existing map objects, entry will be skipped if existing map object is very close to target. You can address this by using ABRIS itself to remove existing object.
  2. The entry of targets is not 100% reliable. In some cases the entry will switch ABRIS into wrong sub modes. It is not clear why this occurs and weather it's possible achieve 100% reliable entry. If you notice odd behavior you may need to reload mission or reslot. Configuration panel allows you to disable this feature, but I kindly ask you to test and report problems.

When reporting problems I kindly ask for following information:

  1. Short description of a problem
  2. If you are able please record a video and upload to e.g. youtube
  3. Attach configuration file: %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Config\SharkPlanner.json
  4. Attach log file: %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Logs\dcs.log
  5. Attach log file with DEBUG output enabled: %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Logs\SharkPlanner.log

Options dialog

Options dialog can be access in following way:

  1. Activate SharkPlanner with CTR+SHIFT+SPACE
    image
  2. Inside the control button area locate and click the following button image
  3. Options will appear. Use the buttons to navigated to each section where you can modify options
    image
  4. Each time you modify %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\SharkPlanner.json in Config folder will be saved

Full Changelog: v1.3.0...v1.4.0

image.png


Edited by okopanja
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MortalMando

MortalMando

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Hey buddy, 
I just found this post and damn man this is amazing. I will absolutely give this a shot, since we mostly fly with multiple sharks. 
As I wrote in a different thread, the ABRIS is showing a desync sometimes to a point that I cant use it for navigation anymore. I will let you know if your program ignores this. If so - damn that would be so cool!

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okopanja

okopanja

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Yes I noticed this myself. I did not clean the disk space yet, but plan to reproduce that problem. Since I was tinkering with entry in ABRIS, I think I recall that once upon a time there was no delay.

Bare in mind: ABRIS entry is based on dials, state of sub-menus (which can not be queried, but only assumed) and is timing sensitive. This means that it may not always work 100% correct. At the moment target point entry is not something I would call rock solid. In some cases it will make mistakes, and afterward entry will not work correctly.

 

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okopanja

okopanja

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v1.5.0

There are new module arrivals in SharkPlanner: F-16C and JF-17. I did not publicize the 1.4.1 release so all changes are merged together inside the single post.

jf-17_outside.jpg

What's Changed

1.5.0

  • Implemented F-16C module in #90
    • support for steer points and mark points
  • Implemented JF-17 in #92
    • support for waypoints, missile route points and pre-planned target points. Please see User Documentation - JF-17.
    • important: repeated entry in Southern/Western hemispheres results in inversion of hemisphere to East/North. The limitation comes from the module itself. Bugs were already filed at Deka❤️. You can find the forum links here.
  • Updated developer documentation in #94
  • Switched to actions/checkout@v4 with lfs in #96

1.4.1

  • Added configuration of number of waypoints into shark planner for CA in #79
  • Remove unused library inspect in #81
  • Incomplete waypoints handling  in #84
  • Recalculation of waypoints done only on first occurance in #84
  • Implement feet and more precise format in #87
  • Create development instructions in #89

Full Changelog: v1.4.0...v1.5.0


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okopanja

okopanja

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6 hours ago, Spetz said:

Love this! There is something really satisfying about watching the ABRIS and PVI-800 go crazy entering new flight plans. Thanks!!

Thanks.

Meanwhile:

- it turns out that on Rotorheads I can not reproduce target problem. So it works in some cases.

- I reworked conversion between decimal degrees into Degree/Minute.Decimal and Degree/Minute/Second.Decimal formats, and fixed the rounding error (you could get 60 minutes/seconds in waypoint list, and likely during module entry). It turned out that rounding in Lua is not the best covered area and it took me a while to implement a solution.  I promised myself to keep SharkPlanner a relaxed hoby and  not to write any unit tests, but this topic forced me to write them. This feature/fix is not yes released, and will be in 1.6.0

- I started writing basic user documentation, so far I did it with JF-17 and Ka-50, with Gazelle and F-16 to follow.

- At some point I got asked to add ability to add waypoints vie keyboard shortcut, e.g. SPACE. Adding keyboard interaction would mean I would need to freeze the input controls while SharkPlanner is visible. E.g. this is already the case if you focus on Waypoint list and use arrow keys. Does anyone see this as a problem if I restrict the keyboard input?

- In addition: I kept being asked to add Apache and some other modules. My policy is to implement only modules I own, but I welcome a help. I wrote some documentation on how to add the new module support here: https://github.com/okopanja/SharkPlanner/tree/main/Development . So anyone with some lua skills could implement the module support. I provided heavily commented template, but will likely continue correcting errors.

 

 

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okopanja

okopanja

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Small update on Ka-50 target point in ABRIS being offset-ed:

- affects only missions where the route is entered mission editor. I believe that ABRIS starts entry of targets with reference point set to the last waypoint. This in turn is causing the SharkPlanner to incorrectly set the target locations, since it makes assumption that starting point is co-located with airplane

- missions with no waypoints in ME are not affected: targets are properly entered even if you define waypoints with SharkPlanner before.

At this moment I am not sure how to distinguish between these 2 states.

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Spetz

Spetz

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On 11/2/2023 at 9:31 AM, Wostg said:

Nothing useful to note except I can see myself leaving the map with the overlay left on and getting increasingly confused and angry about why nothing works.

 

Have you closed the planner either before or after leaving the F10 map? Unless you close it physically (same keys to open/close), it will remain on the screen.


Edited by Spetz

 

 

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okopanja

okopanja

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On 11/2/2023 at 2:31 PM, Wostg said:

Nothing useful to note except I can see myself leaving the map with the overlay left on and getting increasingly confused and angry about why nothing works.

  1. Which version do you use?
  2. The interface did show up on LCTRL+:SHIFT+SPACE?
  3. Can you send me via PM the dcs.log and SharkPlanner.log, which can be found in: C:\Users\USER\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Logs  (replace USER with your username)
19 minutes ago, Spetz said:

Have to close the planner either before or leaving the F10 map? Unless you close it physically (same keys to open/close), it will remain on the screen.

For now, when you leave the F10 screen the SharkPlanner will be visible. This is intentional in order to allow you to click transfer and watch the show.
Note: while the entry takes place you can completely hide the SharkPlanner and it will still continue the entry.

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okopanja

okopanja

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v1.5.1

Another release bringing updates and keybindings, improved documentation for modules and very important bugfix: Shark Planner was rounding the DD MM SS format toward nearest for increased precision, however this rounding was not perfect and could have result with e.g. 60 minutes or 60 seconds without incrementing the overflow handling to next component. Comments on potential additional hotkeys are welcome.

What's Changed

Full Changelog: v1.5.0...v1.5.1

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