I put up cross at pmdg 737 model, because I strongly believe in one thing: the user has to decide he needed weather radar in the aircraft model or not! I firmly believe in this truth. Therefore, the model aircraft without weather radar is not for me. No pmdg in my MsFS2004! FT/Wilco 737CL-Welcome!(But after new visual model). I fly with these settings weather http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rPabcGRbP88, (and not need on XP10 now and after for me)and my old fs2004 pretty accurate (for me) create the turbulence and danger zones for flights. Note- pretty accurate, because... this is fs, and not more! . Buy the way, the program Active Sky weather radar have. PS- pmdg must create string for RealityXP in panel.cfg And it will be good alternative.

I'm afraid weather radar in the sim is a no no! It cannot be done!

All you'll see is a cleverly chosen bmp that approximates the cloud cover and precipitation report of the Metar. Sim weather radar will not and cannot map the clouds as you see them outside the a/c.

This topic has been beaten to death so many times in the forums I think avsim should have a huge sticky banner "Weather Radar cannot be modelled in the Sim!"

A blanket statement, but not always true. And of course cloud position itself is only the beginning. The Reality-XP WXR, for example, is not produced from a set of bitmaps selected based on METAR. It is a dynamic display, based on the ability to detect where FSX has positioned volumetric clouds and which ones it chose from the many variations included in FSX. If you can detect cloud positions and you know what shape they are you can use that information, along with METAR data, to make a believable graphic representation of where precipitation cells are most likely to be within storm clouds.

 

All that is missing is the representation of precipitation if you fly through an area drawn on the radar as having rain. But it's relatively easy to close that loop by comparing own ship position with the position of any storm cells portrayed on the display. If inside the storm cell create rain and or turbulence. In other words the WXR model has decided where the precip is and triggers the rain and turbulence effects accordingly. As long as these effects are presented consistently with the WXR graphics the user will be fooled into thinking the WXR was able to detect the rain, rather than the reverse (which is that the WXR simulation generated the rain).

 

FSX is a simulation, and you can use the information it does provide in creative ways. I'm amazed that otherwise intelligent people are blinded by the simplistic statement that no precipitation means no weather radar simulation. Since when was "it can't be done" ever accepted by the innovators of this world? Simulations are not necessarily analogues of real life. Lateral thinking, as described above, is needed to overcome lack of data. Various addon designers have produced pieces of this puzzle. They just need integrating to produce a convincing effect. Active Sky already does something like this with its XGauge, but it doesn't have the features of a WXR and I don't know whether they integrate weather effects if you fly though storm cells.

Edit: Obviously, it's ground-based radar and is not going to be a precise simulation of what you will see at altitude.

This is the main problem with using real world rain radar data for airborne WXR simulation. Then there's the amount of data you'd need to transfer in real time. To be of any wide use a WXR simulation needs to be related to the weather FSX is actually using. That might not be real world weather, it might be an FSX theme. See my post above for an alternative solution.

Kevin, I agree that your idea is one way to do it. In my opinion, my idea would only be used by simmers flying "realtime" wx, and once you started the sim, the wx would be "frozen" in place so that the radar data would be <mostly> acccurate with the cloud structures shown. Themes would not work with my idea; however, they would with yours.

 

Cheers.

 

Kev

Nobody's flying up to the minute weather anyway.

 

SURPRISE!!!

 

Take a look at the timestamp on the METAR that your weather engine just injected into the sim. It's not going to be the exact current time except in a really rare situation. You'd have to overfly a station at precisely its update time, the NWS server would have to update at exactly that time, and ASE/REX/whatever would have to query it exactly at that time.

 

I just hit the server at this minute and even I'm 2 min late (and I'm looking at the real ASOS from where I stand...okay...sit...in my car...because it's cold): KACY 280054Z 35010KT 10SM OVC006 03/02 A3019 RMK AO2 SLP222 T00330017

You do realize weather radar is not designed to show clouds, only precipitation?

Yes!

REal weather radar and sim weather radar are totally different!

 

A blanket statement, but not always true. And of course cloud position itself is only the beginning. The Reality-XP WXR, for example, is not produced from a set of bitmaps selected based on METAR. .

I have it installed on one of my a/c. It has 58 cloud bmps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Nobody's flying up to the minute weather anyway.

 

SURPRISE!!!

 

Take a look at the timestamp on the METAR that your weather engine just injected into the sim.

It depends from which source your weather engine gets its information. The one I use is always current.

METAR's are issued at regular intervals. Frequently hourly, but not always. Some weather stations report only a few times daily. And of course a new MATAR is issued if the weather changes meaning that it can update quite frequently in active weather.

It depends from which source your weather engine gets its information. The one I use is always current.

METAR's are issued at regular intervals. Frequently hourly, but not always. Some weather stations report only a few times daily. And of course a new MATAR is issued if the weather changes meaning that it can update quite frequently in active weather.

 

Not true. You can never have always current weather data. The METARs are issued regularly, but after that issuance they can become up to 00:59:59.9999- old. Is that current? Nope. Sure it's as close to up to date as you're going to get, but none of the weather sources any of use are using here are going to be what you're seeing outside, perfectly. They're the best we have, but it's not like there's a source out there that's going to keep your sim as up to date as everyone seems to think there is.

 

My main point was to address the "real time" issue. It wouldn't be too hard to force the weather to accumulate to get a complete weather picture (within an hour), and then inject it over a rolling period so that you could match the weather to the cached radar data as well.

I have it installed on one of my a/c. It has 58 cloud bmps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, just as FSX has a set of defined cloud shapes for the various cloud types. The sim weather radar knows what clouds FSX is using, and where they are, so uses those same cloud shapes to build up the WXR picture (for the clouds it decides have precipitation in them). It isn't a single bitmap that most closely matches the METAR information, which is what you implied.

Yes, just as FSX has a set of defined cloud shapes for the various cloud types. The sim weather radar knows what clouds FSX is using, and where they are, so uses those same cloud shapes to build up the WXR picture (for the clouds it decides have precipitation in them). It isn't a single bitmap that most closely matches the METAR information, which is what you implied.

 

You may say that, but every time I have checked only a single bmp was displayed.