I was wondering, since in some of the airspaces can get very cluttered, if it is possible to make the blue highlighted flights’ information always go over the traffic that is just overflying the area, the green aircraft.
Currently the blue (flights to and from the requested airport) and green (flights neither to or from the requested airport) are created in the same map layer, giving neither one priority and making the selection of which flights will show data blocks an essentially random affair governed by the physical space available in the map to show the data block. We can force the data blocks to be shown but it just becomes a mess.
(We now allow the data block to “float” when showing the track for a single aircraft, meaning it can be rendered to the left, right, top, bottom or any diagonal position from the flight, which I feel has worked out really well. This would be confusing when showing many flights, however.)
The solution is to split these flights into separate layers and have the blue flights’ layer’s priority set higher than the green flights’. It’s one of those not-too-easy, not-too-hard things that’s on the mapping team’s to-do list.
Give them a date or give them a feature but don’t give them a date and a feature is I think what Frederick Brooks said in the Mythical Man Month, but you can expect to see this within the next two-to-four weeks.
Karl
Thanks for the very thorough response.
I too would like be able to select priority blue over green. My understanding is the airport identifier is what makes the clutter or the “data overload” so could a user be able to toggle the airport ID? Would that allow for the blocks to show up or is it still based on total number of AC in the mapped area?
If one has put in the airport ID or bookmarked the page like I do with KIND coming up on a click of the shortcut, we would not need the ID shown or using that data space. The way it sounds though is you either have the all data blocks mess or the randomizer has to make the picks and the forcing the blocks is an admin only thing by necessity.
Please be advised computer doings ie the programming part, making things do things is way over my head as far as what can and cannot be done. My inflection is only inquisitive not “this sounds so simple to do”
CAVU to all.
Stu
In some cases, zooming in on the map may seperate the clutter by spreading out the traffic & data around big airports. Another reason I hope that zooming is on the horizon!
I’d like to see that, becuase my airbase of interest has traffic from LAX constantly flowing ove it…
Welcome to the forum, DC94! It’s so nice to see a “newbie” searching or browsing through older discussions to answer questions or address their concerns. (At times, it doesn’t seem too commonplace) Since you’ve technically been a member since September, you probably have already seen the responses that FA staff have to members’ requests. I’m waiting as eagerly as you are (and probably most of the members) for a way to clear up the clutter or pinpoint a specific a/c icon on the map to pull up its info.