Hi, I just read your announcement on your upcoming projects-- thanks for that. But I have a concern, and a wish as far as Active Sky Advanced goes.First the concern: I assume "Advanced" is going to have some added cost for existing ASX customers? If so, I noticed one of Advanced's features is "wind-smoothing". Though I realize that this problem is much more of ACES issue than yours, I also don't think it is unfair to expect your $45 base wx product to address the issue as much as is possible. I'm prefectly fine with the rest of the features being restricted to a paid add-on, but I will be fairly disappointed if any wind-smoothing work that is done for Advanced isn't also made available to existing ASX customers as a free update.Now for the wish: it appears to me that virtual stations are more or less a pro-ration of the weather at the nearest real stations. Would it be possible to incorporate data from other sources to give more realisitic wx coverage between stations? ie, satillite, radar, and wx observations from non-aviation sources? I realize that none of these sources can provide accurate weather reconstruction on their own, but I think it could be used to provide better guesses at how to fill in the gaps between real stations.Finally, I'm guessing you would have explicitly stated it if you could, but does the comment about better intergration with 3rd party products mean there might be some hope for future re-integration with the "Environment" products?Thanks... I'm looking forward to these products!

Hi,Thanks for those. Can you please bundle them up and send them to [email protected]?Yes, Advanced will cost everyone a bit. But we are not done improving ASX either. In the mean time we need to take what Microsoft gives us to work with, and then try to incorporate that into an existing code called ASX.As we have all seen, integration requires so much negotiation that it is hard to say that, when the time comes, whom is going to be working with whom. You would not believe the politics involved, and then the technology.Thanks,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

>As we have all seen, integration requires so much negotiation>that it is hard to say that, when the time comes, whom is>going to be working with whom. You would not believe the>politics involved, and then the technology.Actually, there were some exchanges originating out of the FSX forum a while back that I think offered a good glimpse at the politics involved. I was just hopeful that the specific mention of 3rd party integration was a hint that progress may be being made on the political front...

HiThe integration aspect is a major factor in our future plans and we hope to lead the way by making it very open and easy for other developers to make use of the data we produce so that the user benefits all round no matter which product they purchase.The more developers of products that use our weather and other data we produce the more value users will get get from a variety of products.I think the main thing we need to get out there as we move forward is that the data is not 3rd party specific (unless we get special data requests) but open and in a standard format which will be all explained in our SDK when it is complete.Developers can contact us at developers(AT)hifisim.com if they have specific data or data format requests.As for ASX/ASA specific questions I will point Damian to your post so that he can help with those queries.I hope this helpsThanksCarl Hackmanhttp://www.hifisim.comhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-dev-sigbanner.jpg

Hi there,Wind (and other wx) smoothing techniques planned for ASA will go far beyond any kind of "little tweak" and will be a substantial development effort to get it where we want it. This all assumes that some critical technical issues are overcome effectively... something we're confident of but not certain yet until we are further along in development. With that said we are still working on ASX as well and improvements (free) are coming.Best,

Hope this is not a dumb question, but, is the ASA only for FSX or is this another FS9 product??? Dick Leonard

Only FSX I'm afraid :)http://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-beta-sigbanner.jpgPatrick/EBBR

That has not yet been decided.Best,