How to Make VFR Charts Using FS2002

GA pilots are using VFR charts -which are termed 'Sectional VFR' in the USA- both to prepare a flight and to fly it along their route. Such VFR charts are provided with FS2002 Professional Edition. A unique scale, generally, provides a set of charts for a whole country. Such charts are not easy to find on the Internet, even with some sites providing them for the USA. The only other solution then, for the flightsim pilots is to turn towards bookstores who are selling such aeronautical charts. Even in that case, you will not neither easily find the VFR charts you will need for a flight in some exotic country, as those will need some rare and specialized bookstore. So, what? We personally found a fine, and useful solution as we are just using FS to provide for making useable such VFR charts. Your navigations then will become more realist. Like in the real world, it will be a easier flight when you will be able to check the landscape as seen from the plane to a chart. The VFR charts you'll be able to make will usefully be available thus to use with our innovative tutorial 'A Alternate Technique to the Computation of A Navigation in FS'

click on thumbnail above to a illustration of sectional VFRs one can draw with FS2002 (part of a easy sectional VFR, left; part of a more elaborated sectional VFR, right)

The most easy way to go, generally, is to make one chart for one given navigation as that will not be time-consuming. Just grossly locate some airspaces and the references for the main terrains along the route, for example, and you are done! More elaborated charts which close nearer still to the real-world sectional VFRs will need more of your time. Such a demanding work however may prove useful, especially when you will have at your disposal a chart centered upon the terrain you are usually flying from

The technique we use for sectional VFRs on the fly is like follows. The description thus is refering to graphic tools we use with our system and each reader will have to adapt the tutorial to his own graphic softwares. The picture illustrating this tutorial is showing the result, as we are using too a set of shareware replacement textures for our FS2002

• first, we are setting FS2002 in a Full Screen mode with a dimension of 1,280x800. A plane is set in Transposition mode as we deactivate any hindering display, like the brakes message or the FS data at the upper left of the screen
• then you will have to set the date and time in FS to reach to a light which will accentuate the terrain's relief, bringing to a sense of a real VFR chart. The settings we use is like July, 11th and twilight (more precisely 1 minute more once FS is passing into the twilight knot). Note that, for more accuracy, you will have to reset time to those values for each of the screen captures to come
• with the 1,280x800 full screen mode, un-zooming 10 times from the lower altitude FS default zoom looks like a good setting. It looks like, depending on the areas where you make the chart, you will need some scaling should you wish to keep a same scale for you charts. In that case, when the pictures re-assembled to color-treated, just scale them of a given percentage to match a scale you would have defined (a scale of 289 pixels for 30 NM looks like a fine scale, for example)
• now just assess what the limits of the chart you want to build are to be. Just move the plane in the Transposition mode until the first part of the chart is centered unto the screen and is displaying with the maximum resolution possible (which often may be limited to the two-third center parts of the screen, for example). That best resolved picture will be helpful, among others, to get the roads and highways visible (which may be hard in any case. That is not a trouble however as some lacks on the chart may not be a hindrance). It looks like, in any case, that it be about impossible to have the roads under the size of the highways to appear. That, as far as the use of the chart is concerned, will thus bring to make with a laconic 'check chart', along a navigation using the chart...
• now just make a screen capture. Use either your system's keys (like 'Imprec Syst' or 'Alt+Imprec Syst' for Windows XP, for example) or some software (as some may be found freeware). And then just procede the same way for as many parts of the chart you will need to image (and do not forget to re-set the FS time for each of those)
• you will just have now to stitch those views with a graphic software and getting a first basis for your chart!

Now that the first part of the work is over, you are going to manipulate that image at the way of obtaining a more realistic chart and a one with a rupture enough which will attenuate the fact that it is not a real world one. For that just use a graphic software and play with the colors, saturation, etc. settings

• general counsels we can give is first to get rid of the greenish, Kodachrome hue of FS and Windows. That is made through the RGB settings of the software. Just take like a reference that you need to get 3 gamma units off Red and Blue, and two from Green. After that you will, further, brighten the picture a little, which is estimated visually and, from there, just keep working the image out with some advanced graphic software -some of which may be found freeware. Like a example, we personally use 'Auto Level' and the colors-luminance settings as we usually goes towards some brighter picture. At last, using some cursors like Brighten, Exposure, Gamma Bright and Contrast, we eventually get to the chart rendering we want. Back to RGB, we have some blue hue off, tending to some more 'kaki' feeling, which is closer to the real thing

The last step consists into to get all that better still. Personally, for example, we are adding the major aiports, with their class B airspace, one VOR or more as along the course we are displaying most of the lesser terrains. Like a conclusion, we save the picture into the .gif format for less weight. Note that, when you will be using that chart for preparing a navigation and saving that in .gif you might have some resolution loss, which is avoided by saving into .bmp, for example, and converting back into .gif