...we are developing a mode where the weather radar uses real world METARs (from Internet) to depict the weather passing a certain range.

 

If you do that for all ranges (from 0nm aka the aircraft's position), it will work with ASky's global weather.

 

But you do not need to do that. I think there is another way:

 

Anyway, Majestic make aircraft, not weather engines. Making a proprietary weather engine may lead to a conflict with other engines installed.

 

If you can get to Active Sky's weather data, that that it keeps (*) before doing the interpolations and injecting it to FSX, this will work.

 

(*) ASky for surely does have and keep this data, because:

 

a. It is the base for the interpolation and the injection to FSX

b. At any time, the user can go to the Active Sky window, enter a 4-letter ICAO code, and get the full, unedited, real-time METAR for that station.

 

I assume that the place where this data is kept is the following plain text (so you can parse it):

 

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\HiFi\AS2012\Weather\current_wx_snapshot.txt

 

Contact the Active Sky developers to verify this, and if I'm right, the solution is right there for you, and you do not need to develop any weather engine.

I can't guess which solution will be chosen by Oleksiy to implement the "real weather" radar mode. But I suppose he won't make our radar dependent on a particular weather engine. Fetching real world weather in metar format is no rocket science (parsing it is another affaire), it will be easier to fetch the data directly from internet than to make our product compliant with any other add-on's weather file whose path and format can change at any time.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand the argument against WXR in FSX because it's not measuring reflectivity in a cloud. FSX also isn't measuring how many molecules or air are above the wing versus below the wing to determine lift. Most, to all, of this data for FSX is in lookup tables using defined variables. X-Plane does a bit more math, but still isn't measuring the true behavior of the "fluid" we fly in...in fact even NASA and JPL are struggling to truly model this. This is a simulation and it is all an approximation of real life. If someone can make a reasonable approximation, commend them for it, not berrate. Sure, there will be downsides and those can be pointed out to help improve things. We need to take a first step though rather than saying "it's impossible because we can't measure the same real life variable."

ESZC, nobody is criticising or "berating" at all. It is just some flight simmers anticipating a possible issue with a 3rd party program while this one is still in development. Likely, some of the Majestic beta testers are bound to use Active Sky in global weather mode anyway, and if there actually is an issue, they probably already know about it. I, for one, am pretty enthusiastic about the possibility of finally getting a good weather radar for a plane like this.

OK, I see the point now. I'm not familiar with weather engines (remember, I just make visual models) but I've heard that there is a mode allowing to set all the stations to real weather, not only those situated around the aircraft.

 

Anyway, Majestic make aircraft, not weather engines. Making a proprietary weather engine may lead to a conflict with other engines installed. If actual weather engines cannot set weather stations to 240nm radius, well - they just have to learn to do that, I can't see any technical problem with that.

 

In PRO version, we are developing a mode where the weather radar uses real world METARs (from Internet) to depict the weather passing a certain range. It is not ready yet to be shown and compared to real weather maps.

 

This is the data I use for storm chasing that feeds a program I use called GR: http://www.allisonhouse.com/. The link to GR: http://www.grlevelx.com/ . You'll need more than METARS. What you have going is a great start, but you'll need a little 88D education I think. ALso this page might help you out: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/gis/ . From there you can also find the public data feeds for 88D integration, etc. Keeping in mind that radar in a/c are airborne and not ground based. If somehow you can merry the 2, in conjuction or coperation with the existing weather engines for FS, you might just be able to nail it down as good is can get.

 

Your Q looks fantastic, BTW!

Perhaps PMDG can also implement the weather radar we've all been waiting for in our NGX after we experience the Q400.