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FSX GE View: Google Earth viewer for FSX thru P3D v3

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GE View

PLEASE GO TO THIS LINK TO DOWNLOAD LATEST VERSION OF GE VIEW

For an occasional and interesting diversion from usual Flight Sim VFR flights, take a look at GE View, a new release from Robbie McElrath. GE View produces an additional view of the external world via Google earth’s satellite imagery, displayed in a separate browser window as you fly.

Screen shots below show side-by-side comparisons. For purposes of the comparison, the main cockpit panel has been closed in the FS window on the left. In the bottom picture, note the 3D views of buildings in Sion, Switzerland, that can be seen thanks to low altitude aerial stereo imagery now available in Google earth over many cities across the world.

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In my opinion, the Google earth view is often spectacular in mountainous areas, but cities that have the low altitude stereo imagery are impressive as well.

GE View consists of two files, HttpX.dll that accesses pertinent A:Vars from Flight Sim and makes them readable to a web application, and earth.html, the web app that opens Google earth and uses the A:Vars to control Google earth’s camera view. Those files, plus an installation guide, are attached to this posting.

In the works:

Oculus VR view: Robbie has completed a beta version of GE View that uses the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headset (Development Kit 2 headset). It’s very cool to move your head around and see the Google earth 3D world around you as Flight Sim flies. Further work will await commercial release of the Oculus Rift VR headset and/or advancements in how the Google earth browser plug-in is implemented.

On the horizon:

Enhanced HttpX.dll: Expansion of functionality to read all types of Flight Sim variables and capability to write to L:Vars and fire events from html. This would facilitate development of a MFD on a tablet, for example. For a related product, please also check out http://websimconnect.webs.com/. Many will find that interesting as well. HttpX.dll does not use any websimconnect code, but I believe the underlying idea of joining Flight Sim with a web application is the same.

Moving Navigation Charts in browser: Linking Flight Sim to navigation charts available on the web. If copyright and permission issues could ever be agreed (unlikely) then it is possible to produce moving nav charts in a web browser. In the meantime, GE View could be enhanced to display Google maps in addition to Google earth, though it would be of limited interest to the FS community.

It’s important to gauge the level of interest in the FS Community for the enhanced HttpX.dll and Moving Nav Charts applications, so please provide feedback with your ideas. Thanks in advance.

Admittedly, none of these are mainstream Flight Simulator applications, just additional interesting things that can be done. But if you’ve never been to the Alps, let GE View give you an aerial tour!

Feedback is solicited and welcome.

Cheers,

Bob

Security Note: HttpX opens a TCP port (54321) on the machine running Flight Simulator. While every effort was made to ensure there are no vulnerabilities, as best practice you should restrict access to this port to your local machine or local network (for those behind home routers, most will only allow external access to whitelisted ports by default anyway). As such, use this software at your own risk.
 

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Once again, Thank You Bob & Robbie! Looking forward to the Enhanced HttpX.dll.

Happy Holidays!
Roman
 
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Thanks, Roman. I'll let you know when it's out.

BTW, if anyone reading this actually wants GE View for FS9, please let me know - the http.dll file is different for FS9.

Bob
 
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WebSimConnect

Resource contributor
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154
Hi Bob,

Thanks for putting my work in the context.

I remember reading your extremely useful guides for Fs9.dll. Great job. I wanted to include token variables in my websimconnect, however being busy with other components it is still in the pipeline.

You could add your earth.html to my WebSimGauge to have a gauge with 3D view as I did here:


it is based on different library (Cesium), however what I like in your example is the elevations of buildings. As google maps moved to WebGL recently, it will be possible to use Google Maps 3D without Google earth silverlight component.

For the nav charts, I did one example, however it is blocked due to lack of copyright agreements :(

Marcin
 

Luka

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serbia
BTW, if anyone reading this actually wants GE View for FS9, please let me know - the http.dll file is different for FS9.
It would be interesting to see FS9 version.:)
 
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Greetings Marcin,

I like your work. You have many interesting applications - including the PFD in your video - that should give people food for thought. Thanks for putting so much effort into the videos and user interfaces. Good stuff.

I agree that the web provides another degree of freedom to FS developers. It's not mainstream, as I said before, but there's room to grow.

I asked Robbie (my son) to throw together the http.dll so Google earth could be shown in real time as FS flies. I never flew FS in VFR much before, but I admit to being mesmerized by the Google earth view in the mountains. The earth.html is an easy way to see what GE looks like any time you're flying. I like it and I can imagine that some people will occasionally use it.

My goal isn't Google earth view, its really the enhanced http.dll that would facilitate two-way communication between browser and FS. I think that would be a useful contribution to the community but we will have to see if people ever make much use of it.

Bob
 
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ollyau

Resource contributor
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For the nav charts, I did one example, however it is blocked due to lack of copyright agreements :(
Was it SkyVector? Could you possibly use some slippy map like OpenLayers or Leaflet with ChartBundle's WMS instead? That's what I'm using in my moving map software. I think it'd be pretty cool to add things like airport diagrams, A/FD pages, and IFR charts as well, but if you've already made something no need to reinvent the wheel. :)
 

WebSimConnect

Resource contributor
Messages
154
My goal isn't Google earth view, its really the enhanced http.dll that would facilitate two-way communication between browser and FS. I think that would be a useful contribution to the community but we will have to see if people ever make much use of it.

there are people using websimconnect http server to build own gauges, maps to be used on tablets, smartphones etc, however it is not a mainstream as you said. I guess majority of the community preferes end products ready to use, rather than tools ... My soft is still not 100% wrapper around simconnect.dll though I did not invest more due to limited interest. No doubt I will come back to it and provide new features as well.

anyway, good luck "Bob and son", I do not mind a "competition" :D, both tools are for free, good for the community and simmers wanting to build something on their own. It boosts creativity ;)

Was it SkyVector?

Yep, They did not like the idea of the "moving map" and embedding it in FSX (even with the ads). For me, a planning/GPS like tool embedded in FSX plane using SkyVector resources would be of great value. I would pay myself licence fee for such a tool. In my WebSimChart example (I do not want to post it here as it's not my thread) it shows how nice such component can be .... Maybe I should make another attempt to SkyVector....

ChartBundle is nice as well, however limited to US only and I like flying in my neighberhood in Europe ...

BTW, nice work ollyau.

regards

Marcin
 

Luka

Resource contributor
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212
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serbia
No problem Bob. I thought that FS9 version already exists. Thanks anyway.
 
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newzealand
Hi all
I have downloaded and installed Ge View as instructed but when I go to run the earth html document and open it in google chrome it keeps asking me to downloaded the Google earth plugin which I have already done.
Not sure what to do

Regards

Rhys
 
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thailand
Hello Rhys,

Let me get back with you later this evening. In the meantime, can you kindly confirm .. Google earth itself is functioning properly on your pc? What version are you running and which web browser are you using (plus version number)?

And, would you also please copy and paste your entire dll.xml file here so I can take a look at it? What is the full file path for your dll.xml?

Finally, what version of Flight Simulator are you using?

Bob
 
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440
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us-wisconsin
Bob,

Almost all browsers except for QT_Browser & maybe 2 others have the Google Earth API turned off/removed and cannot be turned back on. Not only that, the Google Earth API will be turned off for good at the Google Servers December 12th of this year.

See pages 2 thru 3 of this topic at AVSIM for general bug description.
See reply #29 for for the deprecation / shutdown links by google.

Bummer...
 
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I Bob
Thanks for getting back to me, google earth is working fine and I am running FSX. looking at the post from spokes2112 that may be the reason its not working
will post my dll.xml tomorrow when I get home from work

Best Regards

Rhys
 
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1,564
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thailand
Bob,

Almost all browsers except for QT_Browser & maybe 2 others have the Google Earth API turned off/removed and cannot be turned back on. Not only that, the Google Earth API will be turned off for good at the Google Servers December 12th of this year.

See pages 2 thru 3 of this topic at AVSIM for general bug description.
See reply #29 for for the deprecation / shutdown links by google.

Bummer...

Hi Roman and Rhys,

I just tried GE View and all works perfectly. Another mesmerizing flight in the Alps departing Rwy7 from Sion Airport (LSGS) turning right to fly to the Matterhorn.

My Google Earth: version 7.1.5.1557, Build 5/20/2015. Running Firefox 39.0, FSX Acceleration, Windows 7 Ultimate.

So, Rhys, I don't know what problem you face but it will help if you can post those items I asked about earlier.

Bob
 
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As the AVSIM thread mentioned - IE 8.0 & 11.0 & Chrome do not / will not work. (I tested them too) Firefox, Opera & QT_Web work at least for now. Come December 12th none will work. I use QT_Web & Firefox for HttpX and they work just fine.

Bob, Robbie's first released version was using the VS2013 libraries then switched over to the possibly more common VS2010 libraries. If Rhys' dll.xml is good to go then the next step would be to see if he has the libraries - control panel/installed programs/"Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 xXX Redistributable". If not, download and install the VS2010 libraries and use one of the known working browsers.

x86 - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5555
x64 - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=14632
 
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