Tacview 2.0, a glimpse into the future of flight analysis

[Vyrtuoz]

Hello everyone!

After years of iterations and improvements listening to your feedback, it is time to put an end at this good old Tacview 1.x!

Tacview 2.0 is on its way and its goal it to provide you unprecedented flight and battlefield analysis capabilities.

Please have a look at the official FAQ and post here any remark and suggestions. I’m working hard on this version to make it your favorite tool for flight review.

http://lomac.strasoftware.com/tacview-future.php

UPDATED

2015-01-29

• Added Online Debriefing question
• Added Real-time Flight Analysis question

[Rich_EXF]

TacView is already my favourite tool for flight review, even if it does have it’s limitations. This new version sounds great though. Thanks!

[Vyrtuoz]

Thank you Rich!

Please, feel free to mention here anything you would like to see improved and anything which is missing. I’m currently working on prototypes and the conception of many systems, so this is the best moment to do so.

[Icarus]

I have Home version. If I want Professional do I have to buy it at full price or is their a discount for Home version customers?

[jcenzano]

HI VYRTUOZ:

thank you very much for your work and the info.

One question, I have noticed that there is nothing mentioned about the online debrief for TACVIEW 2.0. I read about the real-time debrief, but not about the online synchronized debrief.

IMHO it would be THE GREATEST IMPROVEMENT you could get from one version to another.

Better graphics and a more friendly GUI are greatly welcome but after you introduced the strategic view (Two thumbs up on that), the ONLINE DEBRIEF is the only feature that we are missing to fully

I know, different persons, different opinions, needs and requests, and, after all, you are the developer and you have to set the priorities.

But as I said before, we already can see(quite nicely) whats happened during the flight, but being able to debreif online synchronized would be AWESOME. We want it, and we want it NOW!!!.

[Rich_EXF]

OK for example certain AG ordnance doesn’t seem to show up properly or doesn’t record impact time. Fixed ground targets like buildings don’t appear/show as destroyed.

[uri_ba]

@Rich_EXF:

OK for example certain AG ordnance doesn’t seem to show up properly or doesn’t record impact time. Fixed ground targets like buildings don’t appear/show as destroyed.

Fixed ground objects in falcon (and I assume in DCS too) are directly pulled from the DB/terrain/mission, and are not recorded or updated into the recording. so TACcannot convert data that isn’t there.
importing all the objects into TAC is not applicable due to the sheer number of objects. both games use Deaggregation of data in a radius around the player (objects that are further then the set limit for that object type will show up as a single point, or not show up at all) - and still, not recorded anywhere.

[Vyrtuoz]

@Icarus:

I have Home version. If I want Professional do I have to buy it at full price or is their a discount for Home version customers?

Just send me an email with a reference to your previous license order, and I will send you back a link to buy the upgrade for the difference of the price.

[Vyrtuoz]

Indeed, you are right! I completely forgot to mention the online debriefing. Don’t worry, it is planned too! I’m going to publish some little but useful tools during the incoming intermediate releases. Eventually, when put all together, they are going to be used to build the famous online debriefing you are waiting for.

I’m going to add an entry to the FAQ as soon as possible.

@jcenzano:

HI VYRTUOZ:

thank you very much for your work and the info.

One question, I have noticed that there is nothing mentioned about the online debrief for TACVIEW 2.0. I read about the real-time debrief, but not about the online synchronized debrief.

IMHO it would be THE GREATEST IMPROVEMENT you could get from one version to another.

Better graphics and a more friendly GUI are greatly welcome but after you introduced the strategic view (Two thumbs up on that), the ONLINE DEBRIEF is the only feature that we are missing to fully

I know, different persons, different opinions, needs and requests, and, after all, you are the developer and you have to set the priorities.

But as I said before, we already can see(quite nicely) whats happened during the flight, but being able to debreif online synchronized would be AWESOME. We want it, and we want it NOW!!!.

[Sixpack]

Hi,

Thanks for this excellent tool - I use it for every flight to find where the MiG on my 6 came from and identify other opportunities for improvement.

I followed a link from https://www.tacview.net/documentation/future/en/ to submit a feature request -

In the last year or so there have been a lot of new theaters released, but these don’t appear in the Falcon 4.0 Theater list in Tacview. Is there a plan to add new theaters like Taiwan, Nevada, etc?

Maybe a default “Vanilla” theater terrain may come in handy - just a plain grid might be a useful option.

[hoover]

“vanilla” would be a great idea!

Cheers, Uwe

[Jackal]

Agree, dear Uwe.

And not only this.

Dear Vyrtuoz, in case that embedding pre-added 4.35.1 Falcon theaters wouldn’t be possible (very odd to me), may I ask at least a semplified and fast procedure to add them manually, please?
I purchase your utility many years ago and still am very fond of it, but using it currently without the recent many theaters released is a pain, believe me on that.

Thanks for your attention and with best regards.

[oakdesign]

@Jackal:

Agree, dear Uwe.

And not only this.

Dear Vyrtuoz, in case that embedding pre-added 4.35.1 Falcon theaters wouldn’t be possible (very odd to me), may I ask at least a semplified and fast procedure to add them manually, please?
I purchase your utility many years ago and still am very fond of it, but using it currently without the recent many theaters released is a pain, believe me on that.

Thanks for your attention and with best regards.

If you have tacview installed you already have a step by step instruction how to add addidional BMS theaters

go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Tacview\Data\Xml\Data-Falcon4Theaters.xml open the file with a text Editor as this is the one where you add a theater and find the instructions on the very beginning of the file

This file contains declaration of Falcon 4.0 theaters and object databases supported by Tacview.

Tacview can natively load Falcon 4.0 theaters and their database. You don’t need to convert them anymore.

You can find below optional theaters which are already declared and are currently disabled (not visible)
to avoid any conflict with other theaters.

Find more information about Falcon 4 and Tacview on the official website: http://tacview.net

---

HOW TO DISPLAY ANY OPTIONAL THEATER IN TACVIEW?

STEP #1 - ACTIVATE YOUR FAVORITE THEATER

• Make it visible <visible>1 <visible>STEP #2 - DISABLE ANY CONFLICTING THEATER

• Hide any conflicting theater <visible>0 <visible>________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

HOW TO IMPORT MY OWN THEATER IN TACVIEW?

STEP #1 - MAKE SURE THIS XML FILE IS PROPERLY INSTALLED

• Knowing that Tacview application is installed as [%Tacview%\Tacview.exe]
• This file should be in [%Tacview%\Data\Xml\Data-Falcon4Theaters.xml]

STEP #2 - DECLARE YOUR THEATER

• Copy/Paste one of the following <theater>node

• Hide any conflicting theater node (any theater which covers part of the same area) by setting it to <visible>0 <visible>- Specify in the <terrain>node the path of the THEATER.MAP file (do not include the name of the map file, just the folder name ended by )
  You don’t need to copy Falcon 4 files in Tacview’s folder
  You can directly reference any Falcon 4 even if they are not active in Falcon
  Declare any external path like this: <terrain>C:\Games\Falcon BMS 4.32\Data\Add-On REDFLAG\Terrdata\korea\terrain</terrain>

• Specify in the <database>node the path of the FALCON4.ct file (do not include the name of the ct file, just the folder name ended by )
  You don’t need to copy Falcon 4 files in Tacview’s folder
  You can directly reference any Falcon 4 even if they are not active in Falcon
  Declare any external path like this: <database>C:\Games\Falcon BMS 4.32\Data\Add-On REDFLAG\Terrdata\objects</database>

• Specify the tileset if relevant
  Remove the <tileset>node if there is no specific tileset to load
  BMS 4.33 U1 default Korean tileset: <tileset>POLAK</tileset>

• Specify the map size if it is not the usual 4096x4096 for LOD#0:
  <width>8192</width>
  <height>8192</height>
  The size must be specified in samples
  The size must be a power of two (typically 4096 or 8192)

• Specify which Level Of Detail must be displayed in the <lod>node.
  Should be typically set to 2.
  LOD #0 should be the most detailed terrain level. However, for most Falcon 4.0 terrains,
  LOD #0 is a simple bilinear interpolation of LOD #2.
  Which makes it useless for most maps since both Falcon and Tacview and interpolating terrains.

• Specify the boundaries (longitudes and latitudes) of your theater in pure degrees
  They are the same coordinates as the ones you can get while displaying your theater in Google Earth as an Image Overlay
  Rotation is not supported, only translation and scale on independent axes

• Specify the time zone, which is the time offset in hours relative to UTC time.
  For example, for [GMT-03:30] use <timezone>-3.5</timezone>

• BaseCellCount is an optional fix when meta-data are invalid like for the Ostsee theater which declares cell count twice the size it should be
  (twice the amount which is really in the files)
  In that case, set BaseCellCount to the correct cell count for the LOD #0, for instance
  <basecellcount>256</basecellcount>

• <largetextureindex>true</largetextureindex> can be set to force large texture index for the theaters which are not properly
  declaring their metadata like Nordic.</lod></tileset></database></terrain></visible></visible></theater></visible></visible></visible></visible>

[Sixpack]

Thanks Oak!

[Sixpack]

Hi All,

I followed (most of) the import procedure and got pretty close, but still a couple ground units appear over water and sea units on land. Is there more information on how to use Google Earth to determine boundary lats and longs? Or perhaps someone has their theater dialed in and can share accurate values?

Through trial and error, I got this -

<theater id=“Taiwan”><terrain>E:\Falcon BMS 4.35\Data\Add-On Taiwan\TerrData\terrain</terrain>
<database>E:\Falcon BMS 4.35\Data\Add-On Taiwan\TerrData\Objects</database>

<tileset>POLAK</tileset>
<width>4096</width>
<height>4096</height>
<lod>2</lod>
<west>115.0</west>
<east>125.1</east>
<south>20.4</south>
<north>29.7</north>
<visible>1</visible>
<timezone>+8</timezone></theater>

Thanks for any help you can offer

[oakdesign]

Other than taking the BMS flat world map into Google Earth and try to match it as close as possible no other solution.
You won’t get a 100% accuracy just due to the fact that BMS lives in a flat unprotected world

Gesendet von meinem SM-G930F mit Tapatalk

[BuzyBee]

Taiwan theatre is now included in Tacview 1.8.7 beta 3: https://tacview.net/download/beta/

Below is the declaration I made which is almost identical to yours.

It’s just impossible to get it perfect, as oakdesign explained.

Time Zone is 0 because no time zone correction seems to be needed on this theatre.

<lod>2</lod>
<west>114.93</west>
<east>125.05</east>
<south>20.4</south>
<north>29.61</north>
<visible>1</visible>
<timezone>+0</timezone>