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Radio Direction Finder plugin for AFV & TrackAudio

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RDF

Radio Direction Finder plugin for EuroScope. Still actively maintained.

TrackAudio & Audio for VATSIM Standalone Client Support

Supports Audio for VATSIM standalone client through hidden window messaging. This has been used since the birth of AFV.

TrackAudio is a multi-platform Audio-For-VATSIM ATC client for Windows, macOS and Linux. This improved RDF plugin utilizes TrackAudio's WebSocket SDK to synchronize active frequencies and to achieve radio-direction-finding.

Important

Since RDFPlugin version 1.4.1+, TrackAudio 1.3.0 Beta 5 is required due to changes in TrackAudio SDK.

More Customizations

  • (Existing feature) RGB settings for circle or line, and different color for concurrent transmission.
  • Random radio direction offsets to simulate measuring errors in real life.
  • Offers variable precision at different altitudes.
  • Hide radio-direction-finders for low altitude aircrafts.
  • Draw controllers as desired.
  • ASR-specific drawing parameters including colors, precision and filtering.
  • Tag item type RDF state to indicate previously transmitting aircraft.

Integrate afv-bridge

Do the same work as afv-euroscope-bridge. Supports both TrackAudio and Audio for VATSIM standalone client. When a new radio station is set up for RX/TX, RDF detects its status and toggles respective channels in EuroScope.

Configurations

There are two ways to modify the plugin settings - by settings file and by commandline functions.

This table shows all configurable items.

Entry Name Command Line Keyword Range Default Value
LogLevel None
Endpoint 127.0.0.1:49080
TrackAudioMode -1, 0, 1 1
RGB RGB RRR:GGG:BBB 255:255:255
ConcurrentTransmissionRGB CTRGB RRR:GGG:BBB 255:0:0
Radius RADIUS (0, +inf) 20
Threshold THRESHOLD -1
Precision PRECISION [0, +inf) 0
LowAltitude ALTITUDE L_____ 0
HighAltitude ALTITUDE H_____ [0, +inf) 0
LowPrecision PRECISION L_____ 0
HighPrecision PRECISION H_____ [0, +inf) 0
DrawControllers CONTROLLER 0 or 1 0

For command line configurations, use .RDF KEYWORD VALUE, e.g. .RDF CTRGB 0:255:255. Replace "_____" with value in low/high altitude/precision directly, e.g. .RDF ALTITUDE L10000. All command line functions are case-insensitive.

In settings files the default is like the following:

PLUGINS
<eventually existing configuration lines>
RDF Plugin for Euroscope:LogLevel:none
RDF Plugin for Euroscope:Endpoint:127.0.0.1:49080
RDF Plugin for Euroscope:TrackAudioMode:1
RDF Plugin for Euroscope:RGB:255:255:255
RDF Plugin for Euroscope:ConcurrentTransmissionRGB:255:0:0
RDF Plugin for Euroscope:Radius:20
RDF Plugin for Euroscope:Threshold:-1
RDF Plugin for Euroscope:Precision:0
RDF Plugin for Euroscope:LowAltitude:0
RDF Plugin for Euroscope:HighAltitude:0
RDF Plugin for Euroscope:LowPrecision:0
RDF Plugin for Euroscope:HighPrecision:0
RDF Plugin for Euroscope:DrawControllers:0
END
  • LogLevel is none by default. Accepted levels include none, error, warning, info, debug, verbose. Log levels other than none will automatically save an RDFPlugin.log file next to DLL file.
  • Endpoint should include address and port only. E.g. 127.0.0.1:49080 or localhost:49080, etc.
  • TrackAudioMode defines the behaviour between RDF and TrackAudio. -1 will disable all TrackAudio features; 0 will only enable radio-direction-finder; 1 will also update EuroScope channels when TrackAudio stations are updated.
  • RGB, ConcurrentTransmissionRGB, see README below.
  • Radius, Threshold, Precision, LowAltitude, HighAltitude, LowPrecision, HighPrecision see Random Offset Schematic below.
  • DrawControllers is compatible with both TrackAudio and Audio for VATSIM standalone client. Other transimitting controllers will be drawn as well. 0 means OFF and other numeric value means ON.

General Command Line Functions

.RDF REFRESH

  • Clear transmission records.
  • (Audio for VATSIM standalone client) set all channels to off (except primary & active ATIS).
  • (TrackAudio, when TrackAudioMode is not -1 or 0) refresh all channels to sync TrackAudio.

.RDF RELOAD

  • Reload settings in Settings File Setup.
  • Discard unsaved modifications and restore configurations per ASR.
  • Reset TrackAudio connection.

Tip

To change the endpoint or mode for TrackAudio without exitting EuroScope, you may modify plugin settings file, reload settings file inside EuroScope, then run .RDF RELOAD. To change log level, the only way is to unload & reload RDFPlugin.dll inside EuroScope plugin setup dialog.

Per ASR Configurations

Since v1.3.5, all configurations made by command line funcions, except those related to TrackAudio, will only be effective in current ASR and will be saved to ASR instead of plugin settings file. An RDF-configured ASR may contain the following lines, whose value should be consistent with the above:

; These are not default values!
PLUGIN:RDF Plugin for Euroscope:RGB:255:255:255
PLUGIN:RDF Plugin for Euroscope:ConcurrentTransmissionRGB:255:255:0
PLUGIN:RDF Plugin for Euroscope:Radius:20
PLUGIN:RDF Plugin for Euroscope:Threshold:-1
PLUGIN:RDF Plugin for Euroscope:Precision:0
PLUGIN:RDF Plugin for Euroscope:LowAltitude:0
PLUGIN:RDF Plugin for Euroscope:HighAltitude:0
PLUGIN:RDF Plugin for Euroscope:LowPrecision:0
PLUGIN:RDF Plugin for Euroscope:HighPrecision:0
PLUGIN:RDF Plugin for Euroscope:DrawControllers:1

When an ASR is opened, the plugin will use the configurations in the sequence of ASR > plugin settings file > default value.

Random Offset Schematic

  • LowAltitude in feet, is used to filter aircrafts. Only aircrafts not lower than this altitude will be radio-direction-found.
  • A circle will only be drawn within radar display area. Otherwise a line leading to the target is drawn.
  • Random offsets (when enabled) follow a normal distribution. 99.74% (-3σ ~ 3σ) of offsets are within given precision.
  • Threshold < 0:
    • Radius is in pixel. Circles are always drawn in fixed pixel radius.
    • Precision is used for random offset in nautical miles.
    • Low/High settings are ignored.
  • Threshold >= 0:
    • Threshold is in pixel. Radius is in nautical miles. Precision is in nautical miles.
    • Circle size will change according to zoom level. Circles are drawn only when its pixel radius is not less than Threshold. Otherwise a line leading to the target is drawn.
    • When LowPrecision > 0:
      • Deprecates Radius. All circle radius is determined by precision.
      • If HighPrecision > 0 and HighAltitude > LowAltitude:
        • Overrides Precision. Dynamaic precision is implemented taking aircraft altitude into account.
        • Precision (= radius) is linearly interpolated or extrapolated by altitude and low/high settings. Precision = LowPrecision + (Altitude - LowAltitude) / (HighAltitude - LowAltitude) * (HighPrecision - LowPrecision)
      • Otherwise LowPrecision precedes Precision when determining random offset.

Known Issues

  • EuroScope may crash when using TopSky at the same time with certain TopSky settings due to conflicting API method to communicate with Audio for VATSIM standalone client. Goto TopSkySettings.txt and add RDF_Mode=-1 to prevent such cases.
  • Do not simultaneously load this plugin along with the older version of RDF, or with the original afv-euroscope-bridge plugin, which may cause unexpected behavior.

Important

Check your .prf content and make sure afv-euroscope-bridge will not be loaded.

And check your TopSkySettings.txt if you are using TopSky.

Fail to obey these rules may result in accidental crash.

  • Audio for VATSIM standalone client doesn't provide callsign for RX/TX, so this plugin has to guess the corresponding callsign and it doesn't guarantee 100% correct toggles. But it shouldn't affect text receive and transmit function.
  • When using professional correlation mode (S or C) in EuroScope, it's possible some aircraft won't be radio-direction-found because the plugin doesn't know the callsign for an uncorrelated radar target.
  • For dual pilot situation where the transmitting pilot logs in as observer, this plugin will try to drop the last character of the observer callsign and find again if this dropped character is between A-Z. This feature may cause inaccurate radio-direction.
  • Because of new drawing behaviour introduced after EuroScope v3.2.3, switching between ASRs may not change the plugin drawing configurations. In such case, simply pan/zoom your view to update configurations per ASR.

Credits

Developing

Vcpkg, either standalone or bundled with Visual Studio v17.6+, is required. Run vcpkg integrate install in Visual Studio CMD/Powershell and build directly.