3D Flight View
When WeGlide was still an ambitious and slightly crazy idea, Johannes said at the founding meetings: The flight view in 3D will be the best feature, I'm already looking forward to it! Since then, every time the team was planning new features, the question came up half-jokingly, when will 3D come? Today we have the answer, after half a year of research and development and a beta version online since November, we can now officially announce 3D.
The programming of the 3D view required knowledge from the computer game industry and was thus new territory for all of us. Max, as the newest member of the development team, brought the 3D visualization significantly forward by intensively researching the new techniques. He was also responsible for the calculation of the roll, pitch and yaw angle for a detailed alignment of the aircraft. A lot of work went into runtime optimizations to reduce jitter even on weak devices and to ensure fast switching between 2D and 3D.
But what is the use of the third dimension? The familiar view with barogram and 2D map already covers everything, one would think. However, the cognitive effort required to project the barogram onto the map position is not negligible. The third-person 3D view of the aircraft, familiar from computer games, makes it possible to intuitively estimate height over ground, rate of climb or distance. In combination with a freely adjustable camera angle (hold the right mouse button or two fingers down adjust by dragging), it is playfully easy to learn the position in space and time even from a moving aircraft.
This tool will become even more powerful with the planned functions such as multiflight and phase analysis. These currently require a high degree of focus in 2D and will reduce the mental load with 3D in the future. As a nice side effect of the development efforts, the much desired playback mode of flights is now available for all WeGlide users in 2D. Also, the contour lines in the terrain have been added to the map when zoomed in closer.
We thank the aircraft manufacturers for the good cooperation for realistic aircraft models. This fulfills even Johannes high expectations for this feature.
3D is now unlocked for all Supporter, Premium and Patron subscriptions. The advanced features like phase analysis and multiflight for 3D will be available for Premium and Patron subscriptions when the time comes. You don't have a subscription yet?
