Note: I was not quite sure where to post this, so I asked Jim Young, Forums Director, who suggested that I post it here.
For an occasional and interesting diversion from usual Flight Sim VFR flights, take a look at GE View, a new FSX and P3D application written by Robbie McElrath. GE View produces an additional view of the external world using Google earth’s satellite imagery, displayed in a separate browser window as you fly. It can be freely downloaded from the link attached below.
Screen shots below show side-by-side comparisons. For purposes of the comparison, the main cockpit panel has been closed in the FS window on the left. In the bottom picture, note the 3D views of buildings in Sion, Switzerland, that can be seen thanks to low altitude aerial stereo imagery now available in Google earth over many cities across the world.
In my opinion, the Google earth view is often spectacular in mountainous areas, but cities that have the low altitude stereo imagery are impressive as well.
GE View consists of two files, HttpX.dll that accesses pertinent A:Vars from Flight Sim and makes them readable to a web application, and earth.html, the web app that opens Google earth and uses the A:Vars to control Google earth’s camera view. Those files, plus an installation guide, are attached to this posting.
In the works:
Oculus VR view: Robbie has completed a beta version of GE View that uses the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headset (Development Kit 2 headset). It’s very cool to move your head around and see the Google earth 3D world around you as Flight Sim flies. Further work will await commercial release of the Oculus Rift VR headset and/or advancements in how the Google earth browser plug-in is implemented.
On the horizon:Enhanced HttpX.dll: Expansion of functionality to read all types of Flight Sim variables and capability to write to L:Vars and fire events from html. This would facilitate development of a MFD on a tablet, for example. For a related product, please also check out http://websimconnect.webs.com/. Many will find that interesting as well. HttpX.dll does not use any websimconnect code, but I believe the underlying idea of joining Flight Sim with a web application is the same.
Admittedly, none of these are mainstream Flight Simulator applications, just additional interesting things that can be done. But if you’ve never been to the Alps, let GE View give you an aerial tour!
Regards,
Bob McElrath
FS9: If anyone wants GE View for FS9, please respond and an FS9 http.dll will be posted (FS9 requires a different http.dll than FSX / P3D).
Security Note: HttpX opens a TCP port (54321) on the machine running Flight Simulator. While every effort was made to ensure there are no vulnerabilities, as best practice you should restrict access to this port to your local machine or local network (for those behind home routers, most will allow external access only to whitelisted ports by default anyway). As such, use this software at your own risk.
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