FGFS Photo Gallery (v0.8.0 - v0.9.8)

I will typically put the most recent images first. In general, the closer you get to the bottom, the older the code was when the image was captured.

January 2005

January 28, 2005 - Frederic Bouvier has created a very nice model of Alcatraz near San Francisco.

alcatraz-real

alcatraz-fgfs

January 18, 2005 - Coinciding with the official Airbus A380 roll out and unveiling of the new Airbus livery, here are a few screenshots of the FlightGear A380. Currently the model is in development and is not quite flyable.

A380-1

A380-2

A380-3

A380-5

A380-6

A380-7

A380-8

Syd Adams has built a nice deHavilland Beaver and a nice Citation-II. Frederic built a very detailed model of Alcatraz. Here are a few pictures:

Citation-II-3d-panel

alcatraz-flyover

alcatraz-pickup

Recent images from Erik Hofman:

3dcockpitview

4plane

glasscockpit

December 2003

Pictures of some of the San Francisco area. The buildings and bridges are modeled by Frederic Bouvier.

SFO-1

SFO-2

SFO-3

November 2003

Here is a 110 second movie of Lee's YF-23 doing some canyon flying south east of Mt. Ranier in Washington state. (19Mb)

fgfs-movie2

September 2003

Here is a 60 second movie of Lee's YF-23 cruising over some SRTM derived terrain. (12Mb)

fgfs-movie1

March 2003

A new terrain approximation algorithm has been implemented which yields much nicer results than the previous (really stupid) algorithm. Here are some samples from near the SFO bay area. The new algorithm does a much nicer job at preserving the important underlying terrain structure including ridges and valleys.

terrain1

terrain2

terrain3

terrain4

terrain5

terrain6

June 2002

Quite a bit of work has been done in support of 3d aircraft models and animation which can be viewed from tower or chase plane views. Also a few of our ground cover textures have been recently reworked. Here are a few images:

An A4 flying northwest out of Minneapolis.

Same A4 showing some of the new crop textures.

This is kind of neat. Zoom in on the cockpit from an external view and you can see a fully working, live instrument panel through the canopy. This is the same exact instrument panel you see when you are inside the cockpit. No illusions or tricks here, just a fully working 3d animated cockpit visible from inside or out.

April 2002

Here are a few new screen shots taken in the March/April 2002 time frame.

A Cessna 172 climbing out from KSFO. Note prop disk.

Cessna 172 on short final to KSFO 28R. Note instrument panel details and sample runway lights (not yet correctly placed ... runway lights are a work in progress.)

Detail of the Cessna 310 U3A panel.

Open Glass Cockpit Project

FlightGear now has an interface to the OpenGC glass cockpit displays.

OpenGC displays: Making a turn in the YASim 747.

OpenGC displays: Lining up an approach to KLAX in the YASim 747.

Taxiways

We have added taxiways to the major world airports. These are part of the airport and navaid database maintained by Robin Peel.

KSFO-Approach1

KSFO-Approach2

KSFO-Approach3

KSFO-Approach4

Photo-real airport environments

FlightGear has some initial support for chopping up aerial/satellite photos and using them for scenery. Here is an example from KSJC (San Jose, CA) showing what can be done with a 64Mb video card.

Overhead shot showing Terminal A, the air cargo area, the end of runway 12R, and the new runway construction.

Another overhead shot with a Tucano in the foreground. Mipmapping is turned on which is causing the bluriness in the distance.

A DC-3 departing KSJC. Note mipmapping is turned off which preserves much more of the image detail, but also introduces aliasing artifacts.

DC-3 shooting an ILS approach to runway 12R.

Here are a few screen shots from around the pattern. Note, these were used for a presentation on runway incursion issues. The final approach to Taxiway 'Y' is bad, bad, bad and will probably result in the loss of your ticket unless you have a really good excuse. Still, take offs and landings do mistakenly happen on this taxiway from time to time.

Departing runway 30L (view is from a tail mounted cam.)

Continuing the climb out.

Turning toward the down-wind leg of the pattern. Looking out the left window.

Heading down-wind (looking out the left window.)

Abeam the touchdown point.

Turning toward the base leg. This image is zoomed in a bit.

Final approach to taxiway "Y". Taxiway "Y" is the dark pavement straight ahead. The runway construction to the left is light. Taxiway "N" to the right is also light. Runway 30L even further to the left is dark. Runway 29 way to the left is easy to miss. You can almost see why taxiway "Y" can sucker in the less attentive pilots.

Continuing final approach to taxiway "Y".

There are no standard runway markings visible on taxiway "Y" which should be a tip off, but by now the pilot is (maybe?) noticing the commercial jet taxiing head on and has bigger problems to deal with. :-)

We have also created a method to easily place runway signs using an ascii text file, rather than having to do any 3d modeling. Here are some (sparse) examples.

Runway <- 30L - 12R ->

On taxiway F, about to intersect with taxiway Y.

On taxiway Y, about to intersect with taxiway C.

Zoomed in.

Multiple Display Synchronization

FlightGear has native support for synchronizing multiple displays via a network.

3panelFlightgear

Testing out some hardware ...

Flying up a river valley is *much* more exciting with the side views.

Land Use / Land Cover

David Megginson, recently added support for a global land cover/land use database. Here are some of the early results showing a variety of scenery types.

Approaching Boston, MA at night from the NNE. Note, the thumbnail here does not show much because the subtle point lighting in the full size image does not shrink down well. Go ahead and click, trust me, it will look cool. :-)

A satelite view, perched high above Miami, Florida. This is an actual screen shot taken from with the FlightGear program. It shows a variety of land cover and our extremely accurate coast lines.

Land of 10,000 lakes (Northern Minnesota, lakes, farmland, and forest)

50 miles SW of Las Vegas (desert, mountains, not much vegetation)

20 miles north of San Diego looking south back down the coast.

TuX patrols Woods Hole harbor (Elizabeth Islands, just north of Martha's Vinyard.)

Historical Images

Click here to see historical images chronicaling the development of Flightgear from 1996-2001.