Revised:
09 January, 2008
A standard TN pack for personal use (or gliding club general use)
includes two licences (aka Activation codes). A 'National competitions
use' gliding club package is normally licenced for use on up to four PCs.
Windows Vista Install ..
On modern PCs running WindowsXP, the
TaskNAV and openGLIGCexplorer
installation CDs start up fairly quickly. However, for reasons unknown, ..
·
Windows Vista may not
accept the “Autoplay” option as configured in the “Autorun.inf” files on each
CD. If this happens, the quickest way
to get the install files (“… … … setup.exe”) running under Vista is to
use Windows Explorer to list "My Computer", and then to double click
on the CD player line in the Windows Explorer listing.
·
And (for reasons unknown)
both installation and TN graphics performance is slower under Vista than under
XP - sometimes much slower
Please check the TN/Vista compatibility
newsletter at.. http://www.tasknav.com/newsletters.htm In case of difficulty, please call David
Robertson on 01753 643534 or e-mail for advice to DJR@tasknav.com
TaskNAV User Guide ..
The TN user guide is formatted as a fully compiled, Microsoft format
(html) Help system, available from all TN Help menus, or by F1 key for context
sensitive topics. A shortcut icon
allowing offline access to the Help system, is installed on the Windows
Desktop. The Help file “TaskNAV.chm” can
also be found on the TN program CD in the “Help” folder, and on the TN web
site, downloads page.
The Activation procedure requires
you to run TaskNAV which will provide you with a 9 digit number, i.e. the
xxx-xxx-xxx ‘Registration Key’, unique to each PC. You must e-mail or
telephone the key to the TaskNAV authors or to your TaskNAV supplier (see
below) who will provide you with a complementary 9 digit ‘Activation
Code’. If you want to use TN on
another PC, repeat the install and unlock procedures.
Each PC generates an unique
Registration Key. Make a note of the Activation code which will
apply to all future revisions of Tn2007 for this PC.
If the PC hardware is changed (new disk, disk reformat or new Windows install,
etc), you may be prompted to obtain another 'Activation Code'. No
problem: send us the new registration key and we'll e-mail a
replacement code asap.
UK and RDAviation supplied
software .. contact DJR@tasknav.com ..
please do not contact RDAviation
Scandinavia .. contact Robert Danewid
Brazil .. contact Thomas Milko
South Africa .. contact DJR@tasknav.com
(Ms D. Lock - based in J'burg - is no longer able to support this service)
All other customers .. please contact the software authors at - DJR@tasknav.com ..
The 3D viewer - openGL
IGCexplorer© (O.G.I.E.) - is optional free software, written by Hannes
Krueger of University Innsbruck. It is supplied, self-contained on
a separate CD. Tn2007 has a "3D Control Panel"
which will run the O.G.I.E. application from the TN map window - check the
‘openGL IGCexplorer’ topic in the Tn2007 HELP system.
If you want to try the O.G.I.E. program, install the O.G.I.E. CD, else
you can discard it. It doesn't affect the installation of TN except that
if installed, the CD version requires around 2GB for terrain files.
Will O.G.I.E. run on your
PC?
There are two main graphics libraries in use today on PCs. Microsoft
DirectX, and openGL. O.G.I.E. requires the latter and for adequate
3D performance, openGL should be a feature of the PC graphics card (so-called
'hardware graphics acceleration').
As a rule-of-thumb, desktop PCs with processors of 1Ghz and faster should be
able to run O.G.I.E. while only the more expensive and the more recent laptops
will be able to do so with satisfactory 3D performance.
The main bottleneck is the PC graphics adapter or 'chipset'.
For many years, desktop PCs have been designed to support 3D graphics and games
and will normally have the prerequisite openGL hardware support. Laptop
computers are aimed mainly at the business and 'home/office' market and on
standard machines, the 3D graphics support may be implemented in MS Windows
software. Compared to hardware acceleration features, software solutions
are very slow, and for demanding 3D applications, the output may be unusable.
O.G.I.E. is free software, so if you have the disk space, there's
nothing to lose in giving it a test drive
Will TaskNAV + O.G.I.E. fit on your PC?
The full CD install (recommended)
requires around 3GB of free disk space.. i.e. about 2GB for O.G.I.E. + terrain
data, 400MB temporary space for the O.G.I.E. install and 220MB for
TaskNAV. A much smaller, more modular
O.G.I.E. install is available from the TN web site. If you want O.G.I.E. but don't have space for the
"WORLD.DEM" terrain file, then use the download version which is
around ~20MB, expanding to around 70MB after install. It has a built-in terrain file for Europe only. For other geographical areas, the terrain
data can be downloaded from several web sources, including the O.G.I.E. web site. The master dataset is named
"GTOPO30" and terrain file downloads are free from the US Government
Geological Survey web site. The
“GTOPO30” data was used to compile the O.G.I.E WORLD.DEM terrain file.
O.G.I.E. CD or web download
Installation
O.G.I.E. is supplied as a standard
windows setup.exe
Uninstall O.G.I.E.
To remove O.G.I.E., use the Windows ADD/REMOVE programs facility in the
Windows Control Panel, or check the Windows Programs menu for an “uninstall opeGLIGCexplorer”
entry
·
The TN CD set has example IGC flights for which the 3D vector map
‘drapes’ already exist, also the World.dem terrain file, and (in most cases)
airspace, all of which can be used to learn the capabilities and controls of
the OGIE 3D display package. The TN
Help system has an OGIE Help topic which contains instructions for control of
the common 3D operations using the keyboard and/or mouse
·
When running TaskNAV, the prepared example flights can be selected from
folder:
…\ Program Files \ TNWIN-V2 \ FLIGHTS \ Examples for 3D View
·
One of the flights - Hawaii.IGC - demonstrates use of a higher resolution Landsat image as a
terrain ‘drape’. (the Oahu island .jpg was supplied courtesy the Hawaii
Government web site). There is no
airspace file for Hawaii.
·
When using the Hawaii.igc flight:
o
before launch, switch OFF the ‘Lighting’ option in the TN
3D control panel – it isn’t necessary for the Landsat image and causes unwanted
colour changes around the island shoreline
o
you’ll want to slow down the 3D replay rate – aka ‘movie’ speed – either
before launch, via the TN 3D control panel, or after launch, during the
animation by using keyboard function keys (Shift + F2 .. slowdown) and (Shift +
F1 .. faster), while the flight animation is running.
It’s all in the Help topic.
·
NB: when
using standard maps, i.e. not Landsat images, switch ON the ‘Lighting’ function
at all times else there will be no 3D shading and the landscape will look flat
with low contrast and the 3D terrain effect will be absent.
The TaskNAV newsletter has been discontinued. For all news of TN developments, new downloads, fixes and new
features, check the TN web site each month at www.tasknav.com - perhaps more often at the start of a new
season when turnpoints, airspace and similar items are often updated.
Contact details ...
TN Author: David
Robertson
e-mail ID: DJR@tasknav.com
backup ID: robertson.DJ@btinternet.com
web: www.tasknav.com
Tel: (+44) 01753-643534 (answer-phone)
UK Mobile: (+44) 07855
213370 (don't leave messages - checks
are infrequent)