Aeronautical Charts 1.8.6 for iPad - Airlines Embrace Paperless Cockpit

November 21, 2011 in Navigation

[prMac.com] Sidney, BC, Canada - Corporate Smalltalk Consulting has announced Aeronautical Charts 1.8.6 for iPad, an update to their Navigation app that provides an advanced document viewer that accommodates highly detailed documents at high magnifications. As airlines continue moving toward the paperless cockpit, and iPads are appearing increasingly in pilot flight bags, Aeronautical Charts, with its proprietary LargeViewer technology allowing rapid scrolling and minimal drawing lag times for large charts and massive PDF documents.

While aeronautical charts can be a small, 60 x 20 cm (24 x 8 in), such documents, when converted to high-resolution TIFFs or PDFs, can become more than 64 megapixels in size. Ordinary iPad document viewers slow to a crawl or simply crash and scrolling is extremely difficult. Aeronautical Charts has been specifically designed to provide effortless, real-time scrolling both horizontally and vertically, and quick zooms in and out. The app features TIFF, PDF, and Dropbox download compatibility, quick-view thumbnails, multi-tasking support, and either iOS and/or OS X based pre-rendering.

As reported in the 7/4/11 edition of the New York Times, "Because Apple's tablet computer weighs less and is more compact than a laptop and its touch screen easier to manipulate, its introduction in 2010 made the move away from paper in the cockpit easier. Switching to the iPad is also expected to reduce health care costs and absenteeism from shoulder and back injuries associated with hoisting heavy flight bags, said David Clark, pilot and manager of the connected aircraft program at American Airlines."

Most aeronautical charts are currently available through third party subscription services in PDF or TIFF format. Employing accelerated PDF viewing logic, combined with CSC's newest TIFF decoder, facilitates the pre-rendering of files into LargeViewer format. All pre-rendering need be done only once; thereafter, converted files may be opened and viewed easily. While pre-rendering can be done within the app, CSC recommends their free, Mac OS X LargeViewer Helper for batch pre-rendering. Pre-rendering is done at 2x, but users can render finely detailed charts at 5x, enabling instant zooming in at 40x magnification.

Feature Highlights:
* Innovative document viewer accommodates highly detailed aeronautical charts
* LargeViewer allows display of image documents up to wall size posters
* Reads over 50 different image file formats, and many MS office formats
* Displays and paginates large PDF files, up to thousands of pages
* Support for TIFF/FAX files with variable page sizes
* Dropbox file download compatibility
* Acts like a USB memory stick
* Responsive H/V scrolling and zooming through large documents
* Sophisticated Cache Manager allows user control of cached Dropbox files
* Supports multi-tasking, allowing pre-processing to be done in the background
* Improved logic for dealing with multi-page PDF manuals.

A major convenience feature of Aeronautical Charts is its Dropbox compatibility. The app has read-only Dropbox capability; it will never change or delete a Dropbox stored file. The app allows the downloading of any file, and then gives the user the option to open it using Preview, Aeronautical Charts, or any other app. Similarly, the app need not be running to open a file created in another app. In addition, the app provides a sophisticated Cache Manager. This gives users complete control over files that have been stored in cache memory, allowing mirroring and later use of the Dropbox folder, even when there is no Internet connectivity.

"Now pilots have a convenient, hand-held device for viewing aeronautical charts while in the cockpit," stated company President John McIntosh. "Aeronautical Charts gives pilots and navigators individual touch screens on which charts can easily be viewed, scrolled, or scaled using simple gestures."

Device Requirements:
* iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
* iOS 4.0 or later
* 13.1 MB

Pricing and Availability:
Aeronautical Charts 1.8.6 is $9.99 (USD) and available worldwide through the App Store in the Navigation category. Review copies are available upon request.

Corporate Smalltalk Consulting, Ltd in British Columbia, Canada, is a company known for its Smalltalk expertise, but is now also becoming expert in the field of building large, complex, iOS-based applications. Copyright (C) 2009-2011. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPad and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

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John McIntosh
President
250-656-5656
Canada

Navigation  Charts  Documents  Paperless Cockpit  Dropbox  Viewer  Avionics  iOS