The Unofficial XCSoar Manual

From XCSoar

The moving map shows:

• Glider symbol
• Waypoints
• The active task
• The bearing to the next waypoint
• Special Use Airspace
• Terrain and topology
• Markers
• Trail
• Glide range

The map is drawn in a projected coordinate system (not latitude and longitude), and can be zoomed in and out, changing the scale, as well as panned.

To change the scale of the map:

• Tap on a blank part of the map to highlight the map if it is not already selected.
• Then use the PocketPC up/down key to either zoom in or out.

The map scale is displayed in the lower left corner of the moving map display, and as a striped bar on the right side of the map area. The alternating colors in the striped bar represent the distance measurement in a decimal scale, (e.g.\ 0.1 km, 1 km, 10 km, 100 km) depending on the zoom level.

Compaq Aero Users. If you enable the Compaq Aero Game Keys (On the Q-menu) the centre two front buttons become the up/down keys.

There is a facility to have two zoom settings; one when the glider is in circling flight mode, and one in the cruise or final glide flight mode. This is the "Circling zoom" option in the Settings-$>$Display. By default, the cruise/final glide zoom is 5 km and 0.3 km for circling. When the user zooms in or out, it affects the current mode's zoom setting only, so when leaving the mode the previous mode's zoom setting is used. If ``Circling Zoom'' is not enabled, there is only a single zoom level.

Auto-zoom automatically zooms in when approaching a waypoint to keep the waypoint at a reasonable screen distance. The user can still zoom out if desired. When auto-zoom is active, an 'A' appears next to the map scale.

When a waypoint changes (automatically, via the task selector, or by manually switching waypoints), autozoom returns the zoom level to what it was immediately prior to any automatic zooming in it may have performed. This has the effect of allowing users to zoom in and out manually in cruise, and when approaching a waypoint, the system automatically zooms in. When passing the waypoint, the system goes back to the previous cruise zoom level in effect.

A pan mode allows the user to explore areas beyond the glider. This is particularly useful when task planning.

• Enable pan mode by pressing the XXX hardware or onscreen button.
• The map can then be panned by dragging the screen or using the cursor keys.
• When done, pan mode should be disabled by pressing the XXX hardware or onscreen button.

When pan is active, the text 'PAN' appears next to the map scale. The location of focus when panning moves with the glider.

The glider symbol shows the position of the glider on the map. The orientation of the glider indicates the estimated heading of the glider.

The map is oriented in one of two ways, depending on the flight mode and the configuration settings:

North up

Here the map is always oriented with true north up. The glider symbol is rotated according to its track corrected for wind.

Track-up

Here the map is oriented so that the glider's track made good is up. The north arrow symbol points to true north. The glider symbol may be shown rotated according to the computed heading of the glider taking wind into account.

Configuration settings can be used to further specify north or track-up when in circling mode. These are useful to prevent disorientation when looking at the map while circling. Track-up when circling makes it easy to determine which direction to exit the thermal.

Waypoints are displayed with different symbols depending on the waypoint type. Those marked as landing points in the database file are drawn as a filled circle. All other types of waypoint are drawn as a small black hollow circle.

XCSoar continually calculates which landing points are with in gliding range using the current wind and MacCready settings.

The waypoint symbols are shown below:

• Non-landable waypoint
• Unreachable airfields are purple filled circles
• Reachable airfields in purple filled circles with a green band

The estimated arrival altitude of landable points is optionally displayed next to the waypoint.

At large zoom scales, all waypoints are drawn as small black crosses.

Waypoints are optionally labelled, in a regular font.

The active task course is drawn on the map as a green dashed line. Assigned area tasks also show the task sectors or areas as a shaded region. The start and finish waypoint additionally show green circles or lines representing the start and finish zones or lines. Task observation sectors are drawn as green segments.

At all times a thick black line is drawn from the glider to the next waypoint in the task.

Local special use airspace regions are drawn on the map as shaded areas. The color and pattern of the areas are specific to different airspace categories and may be configured by the user. Depending on the settings, the user may choose to display no airspace, only airspace above, only airspace within a particular height separation, or automatic display where XCSoar decides when it is important to display the regions.

• Major roads, shown as red lines
• Rivers, shown as blue lines
• Large water bodies (lakes), shown as blue areas
• Large cities, shown as yellow areas
• Small population areas, shown as yellow diamonds

Cities and small population areas are labeled in italics.

Terrain is colored according to height, and optionally shaded by sun direction or lift-generating slope. Invalid terrain, or terrain below sea level is colored blue.

Terrain is phong-shaded to improve visibility. Currently the shading is set up so that the virtual lighting position is the wind bearing, thus brighter areas are on the upwind side of hills and dark areas in the lee of the hill. Support for a sun ephemeris is underway.

Both terrain and topology display can be switched on or off by pressing a button.

An optional 'snail trail' is drawn on the map showing the glider's path history. The color and thickness of the trail depends on the variometer value; with lift areas being presented in green and thicker lines, sink areas being presented in red with thin lines. Zero lift is presented as a grey line.

If an intelligent variometer is connected with Netto output, the Netto vario value is used; hence the colors and thickness of the trail indicates the airmass vertical movement rather than that of the glider.

The snail trail display can be toggled off, a short trail (about ten minutes) or a long trail (about one hour).

Markers are shown as small flags on the map. The markers can be dropped manually, by pressing a button, or automatically. An example use of automatic markers is to drop markers when entering circling mode, as a simple way of showing all thermals encountered.

Markers are not preserved after XCSoar is exited, however the location of all marks are saved to the file \verb|xcsoar-marks.txt|.

A reachable glide footprint is displayed on the map display as a dashed line, indicating where the glider would descend through the terrain clearance height. This footprint is calculated for tracks extending 180 degrees around the glider. The reachable glide footprint is useful in assessing range with respect to topology when searching low for lift, and when flying in mountainous areas.

The final glide path is checked for whether the glider clears terrain by the terrain clearance height. If clearance is not attained, a red cross appears on the map at the point where the violation occurs.