TaxiDraw
TaxiDraw is a taxiway editor for FlightGear and X-Plane.
- It is Free software, licensed under the GNU GPL.
- It is cross-platform, known to work on Windows, GNU/Linux, MacOS X, IRIX and FreeBSD.
Screenshots
Instructions
Tutorial
Key Commands
Download
CVS
Acknowlegments
Links
Contact
TaxiDraw is hosted by:
News
January 20, 2010 - Mac binary of latest CVS development available.
A MacOS X v10.5 or later (Intel only) binary snapshot of the CVS tree as of August 2009 is now available in the download section, thanks to Tatsuhiro Nishioka.
November 25, 2005 - Mac package of v0.3.2 available.
A MacOS X package of version 0.3.2 is now available in the download section, thanks to James Turner. Please note that this will only work on Tiger, NOT Panther.
August 16, 2005 - TaxiDraw 0.3.2 released.
Version 0.3.2 adds support for X-Plane v810 data format, and a few other minor feature enhancements and bug-fixes.
Changes from 0.3.1:
- Airport->Load Raw Airport (Ctrl+A) is depreciated - use File->New (Ctrl+N) instead. They both did exactly the same thing, so I decided to remove one!
- X-Plane v810 format is now supported. Additional notes on this can be found here.
- A bug where calibrated images were not reloaded with a project is now fixed (hopefully).
- Turf runways are now coloured dark green.
- An edit->select all option has been added, to allow an entire airport to be moved at once. You'll need to unlock runways first though to move everything!
- TaxiDraw has been put in CVS with a source code directory re-organisation.
- An autotools system has been added instead of the hand-written makefile for the source build.
August 16 2005 - TaxiDraw is now hosted by SourceForge.
TaxiDraw has now moved over to SourceForge. Currently the web site has moved - CVS and mailing lists will follow shortly.
March 24, 2005 - TaxiDraw 0.3.1 released.
Version 0.3.1 is primarily a bug-fix release. Several serious bugs in the X-Plane format exporter have been fixed - all users should upgrade.
Changes from 0.3.0:
- Runway shoulders are now preserved when exporting to X-Plane format.
- Several helipad runway codes that were not previously recognised are now recognised and preserved on export correctly.
- A spurious warning when importing airports containing lakebed surface is fixed (eg. KEDW).
- Airports that span UTM zone boundaries can now be displayed using UTM projection.
- UTM zone can be manually changed by 1 when attempting to fetch USGS photography, since when a block of colour photography spans a UTM zone it is often projected using 1 zone only.
- A bug is fixed whereby USGS photography was not displayed for airports containing 'X' in the code (eg. KLAX, KOXR).
- The runway number of end 1 is displayed in the runway dialog title bar, in order to allow similar runways and helipads to be correctly identified.
- Thanks are due to Austin Goudge for reporting many of the bugs fixed in this release, and on the TODO list for the next release.
Jan 6, 2005 - TaxiDraw 0.3.0 released.
Version 0.3.0 is a major new version with new or improved features.
Changes from 0.2.x:
- libcurl is used for download instead of relying on the presence of wget.
- Downloaded USGS images are used as multiple tiles instead of concatenating them. As a result, the presence of ImageMagick is no longer required.
- As a result of the above two changes, USGS image downloading is now enabled in the Windows binary.
- The USGS image downloader first checks for colour imagery, and then reverts to black and white imagery if colour is not available.
- A scrolled canvas is now used, giving a more standard feel to moving the airport around than previously.
- Seaplane bases can now be opened, edited and written.
- Stopways are now displayed.
- Threshold position is now displayed for displaced thresholds.
- Beacons can now be added and deleted.
- Windsocks and tower viewpoint position are now displayed and editable, including add/delete (maximum of 1 tower viewpoint position per airport).
- An airport properties dialog is available allowing the airport properties to be edited.
- The runways properties dialog is greatly extended allowing all runway properties to be edited.
- Insert Taxiway shortcut is changed from T to Ctrl+T.
- Cygwin fixes from Bruce Finney.
- The windows binary release now uses a proper installer (thanks to Inno-setup).
- Menu items are now greyed out when not logically available. (Most of them - some still need to be done such as undo/redo).
- Probably more stuff that I can't remember!
Download
The current version is 0.3.2. Downloads are available as a pre-compiled windows
binary, or as source, including a makefile and MSVC6 project file. libcurl and wxWidgets are
required for compilation - wxWidgets versions 2.4.x and 2.5.2 are known to work for version 0.3.2, and version 2.6.x should work with the latest CVS code. The latest development code can also be checked out of CVS, instructions are here. Note that the CVS version may contain new bugs or experimental, unworking code - most users should download the latest released version, currently 0.3.2.
Development Snapshot Binaries
MacOS X 10.5 or later (Intel only) August 2009 CVS snapshot (courtesy of Tatsuhiro Nishioka):
Taxidraw.cvs-bin-20090416.tgz
v0.3.2 Binaries
Note about v0.3.2: Airport->Load Raw Airport (Ctrl+A) is depreciated - use File->New (Ctrl+N) instead. They both did exactly the same thing, so I decided to remove one!
Windows Binary (With Installer):
TaxiDraw-0.3.2-setup.exe
Windows Binary (Zipped):
TaxiDraw-0.3.2-win32.zip
Source:
TaxiDraw-0.3.2-src.tar.gz
MacOS X (Tiger only) package (courtesy of James Turner):
http://homepage.mac.com/zakalawe/.Public/taxidraw-0.3.2.dmg
v0.3.1 Binaries
The following contributed binaries are all currently version 0.3.1 - I'll update the links as new binaries of the latest release become available.
MacOS X package (courtesy of Andrew McGregor):
http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?download=28
Update 25/11/2005 - this link appears to be broken, but the package might still be on the x-plane.org site somewhere.
IRIX Binary:
ftp://ftp.uni-duisburg.de/FlightGear/TaxiDraw/taxidraw-0.3.1-IRIX.bz2
FreeBSD Binary:
ftp://ftp.uni-duisburg.de/FlightGear/TaxiDraw/taxidraw-0.3.1-FreeBSD.bz2
Sun/Sparc Binary:
ftp://ftp.uni-duisburg.de/FlightGear/TaxiDraw/taxidraw-0.3.1-SolSparc.bz2
The IRIX, FreeBSD and Sun/Sparc binaries are provided courtesy of Martin Spott. A list of packages required to run these binaries can be found at:
ftp://ftp.uni-duisburg.de/FlightGear/TaxiDraw/README.strange-binaries
The open-source X-Plane and FlightGear airport and navaid database can be downloaded from Robin Peel's site at www.x-plane.org/home/robinp.
CVS
The latest development source code of the project is held in a version control system on SourceForge's servers called CVS. TaxiDraw's developers have access to write to this system when they wish to update the code. Anybody may download the latest development code from CVS by using anonymous access. Note that the CVS code may contain new, unfixed bugs, unstable code, and code that might do damage to your system (although we hope not!). It is not necessarily code that we consider ready to roll up into a release for users. With those provisos out of the way, here are the anonymous CVS instructions for checking out a copy of TaxiDraw:
cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@taxidraw.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/taxidraw login
Enter a blank password (just hit return) when prompted for a password.
cvs -z3 -d :pserver:anonymous@taxidraw.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/taxidraw co TaxiDraw
To compile the CVS code:
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
make install
To synchronise your CVS checkout with the latest code:
cvs update -dPA
(from the TaxiDraw directory created during the initial checkout).
Note that the commands are case sensitive, and that the SourceForge anonymous CVS servers are notoriously flakey - if you get an access denied or unknown server error please don't blame us, just try again later!
Acknowlegments
The author would like to thank both Microsoft Research and the United States Geological Survey for making the USGS aerial
photography freely available at terraserver-usa.com.
Thanks are due to Martin Spott for making an IRIX binary available, and to James Turner and Andrew McGregor for making MacOS X packages available.
Thanks to Sourceforge for hosting the project.
Credit is also due to all those who have reported bugs, suggested fixes and sent in patches - Thank you!
Links
The following links are all directly relevant to the TaxiDraw project:
The FlightGear open-source multi-platform flight simulator: www.flightgear.org
Robin Peel's X-Plane aviation (airport and navaid) data pages: www.x-plane.org/home/robinp
Contact
Several mailing lists are hosted by SourceForge for discussion of various aspects of TaxiDraw. All require (free) subscription to join - this is purely to keep spam off the lists.
Taxidraw-devel: this list is for discussion of TaxiDraw development.
Details here
Taxidraw-users: this list is for discussion of TaxiDraw use.
Details here
Taxidraw-cvs: this list receives automated emails tracking commits to the CVS by developers. Please do not post to this list! Replys discussing any of the commits should be directed to the taxidraw-devel list.
Details here
If you would rather not post to a public mailing list, offlist mail can be sent to daveluff AT ntlworld DOT com with "taxidraw" somewhere in the subject line. I try to reply to all relevent mail, although I have been known to miss a few (sorry!), and can't guarantee a prompt response.