Unix)

This feature is implemented as an external Perl program. It's called »signs« and can be used in place of »fgfs«, for example:

$ signs --aircraft=ufo --airport=KCCR

It generates textures »on the fly« and caches them in $FG_ROOT/Local/signs/cache/. There's no change to FlightGear necessary, other than writing into $FG_ROOT. (FlightGear can only load textures from there, but you can replace Local/ with a link to another place, or you can ask the admin to fill the cache for you -- see the -c option). The -h option lists all the possibilities. I started to make the script work under MICROS~1 Windows®, but have no way to test it. Hints and reports welcome! The signs can be turned on/off via dialog (Shift-c).
Requirements: fgfs (> 0.9.8a), perl, gunzip, convert

program and infrastructure	[6 kB]	REQUIRED	(untar in $FG_ROOT)
worldwide airport data, SFO bay bridges	[465 kB]	RECOMMENDED	(untar in $FG_ROOT)

Austria (cities/villages/objects)	[20 kB]	OPTIONAL	(copy to $FG_ROOT/Local/signs/data/)
Belgium (cities/villages)	[34 kB]	OPTIONAL	(copy to $FG_ROOT/Local/signs/data/)
Germany (cities/villages)	[176 kB]	OPTIONAL	(copy to $FG_ROOT/Local/signs/data/)
Switzerland (cities/villages)	[23 kB]	OPTIONAL	(copy to $FG_ROOT/Local/signs/data/)

Austrian, German, Swiss and Belgian data are from OpenGeoDB, enhanced with elevation data from the FlightGear scenery and additional locations. The elevation data were filled in by another Perl program getelev. It takes the path to one of the data files as input, and generates output on the console and into a file (*.out).

NEWS

started to replace all OS specific code. Maybe it would even run on MICROS~1 already

reading a config file, in which you can define font typeface, color, size, and encoding for each sign type for all input files whose file path matches a regular expression; also, you can put signs and FlightGear options into this file, globally, or for particular starting airports. Read the comments in the sample file. Example configuration:

## global options
--timeofday=noon --aircraft=ufo		# flightgear options
-v					# verbose
-d default/				# use all data files in "default/" directory by default
					# (and only these; +d would have *added* the files in "default/")

## airport specific options
^LO:		+d data/austria.gz	# plus Austrian locations if starting from Austrian airport
^LF:		+d data/france.gz	# and French locations if starting from French airport
^(KUFO|KEDW)$:	+d data/classified	# and classified data ...

## type and data file specific sign properties (the second element is just a cache dir name)
B moo   .*/pubs       font=/usr/share/fonts/moo.ttf  color=yellow  size=80  encoding=UTF-8
C hu    .*/hungary.*  font=Helvetica  color=white

increased performance
an existing default/ directory isn't read automatically any more; put -ddefault into your signsrc file to get the same behavior.

TODO

raise signs with altitude/AGL(?)
add some Austrian locations: everything starting with "St." seems to be missing from the database