The /environment subtree is designed to capture weather at a particular place and time rather than general weather trends, but even then, it's getting fairly crowded. There is already an /environment/clouds/ subtree that is not (yet)managed by the environment subsystem -- how would everyone feel about a reorg to add three more subtrees (for now; more to follow)?
1. /environment/atmosphere/ 2. /environment/visibility/ 3. /environment/wind/ With the separate subtrees, it would be easier to add metric (and Imperial) alternatives without crowding any one branch too much, so we could have (for example) /environment/atmosphere/temperature-degc /environment/atmosphere/temperature-degf /environment/atmosphere/temperature-degk /environment/atmosphere/temperature-degr I also think that it might be a good idea to add a ./base/ sub-subtree within each /environment/*/ subtree. This would contain configuration information or bounds for the weather *at this particular time* -- for example, if winds are 14kt gusting 20kt (as they are right now in Ottawa), then the current wind speed might be 17kt, but the limits apply to right now as well -- that's what you'd get from the ATIS. For the atmosphere, the base/ sub-subtree would contain the sea-level density, pressure, and temperature. Note that the base/ tree does not represent future or past weather trends, or weather that will appear at other locations; instead, it represents only the margin of variability at the particular moment. With this change, we'd end up with something like this: /environment/atmosphere/temperature-degc /environment/atmosphere/pressure-inhg /environment/atmosphere/density-slugft3 /environment/atmosphere/base/temperature-sea-level-degc /environment/atmosphere/base/pressure-sea-level-inhg /environment/atmosphere/base/density-sea-level-slugft3 /environment/visibility/visibility-m /environment/visibility/base/min-visibility-m /environment/visibility/base/max-visibility-m /environment/wind/wind-from-north-fps /environment/wind/wind-from-east-fps /environment/wind/wind-from-down-fps /environment/wind/wind-from-heading-deg /environment/wind/wind-speed-kt /environment/wind/turbulence-norm /environment/wind/base/min-wind-speed-kt /environment/wind/base/max-wind-speed-kt /environment/wind/base/min-wind-from-heading-deg /environment/wind/base/max-wind-from-heading-deg /environment/wind/base/min-downdraft-fps /environment/wind/base/max-downdraft-fps /environment/wind/base/min-turbulence-norm /environment/wind/base/max-turbulence-norm Later on, we'd fix up /environment/clouds/ and add /environment/precipitation/, etc., as we are able to support them. Longer-term trends (like storms, clearing or clouding weather, etc.) would be handled elsewhere. Comments? Everything in here except turbulence is already supported by FlightGear -- it's just a matter of renaming properties. I added turbulence because Jon is promising support RSN. Thanks, David -- David Megginson, [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://www.megginson.com/ _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
