birkelbach/pyEfis

Electronic Flight Information System in Python

pyEfis

Getting Started

For more detailed documentation see: https://github.com/makerplane/Documentation

It is recommende that you work in a virtual environment. To use the global interpreter, skip the below step.

$ make venv
$ source venv/bin/activate

The second command, the activation of the virtual environment, needs to be performed every time you start a new console session.

Next, you install all dependencies.

$ make init

Install FIX-Gateway as documented in its readme.

Now, you can run pyEfis:

$ python pyEfis.py

Controls

This is an Electronic Flight Information System written in Python.

It was created for use in the MakerPlane Open Source Aircraft Project.

It does not have any method of reading flight information directly from the hardware but instead uses FIX Gateway as it's source of information. FIX Gateway is a plugin based program that allows different types of flight information systems to communicate to one another. pyEfis contains a client to FIX Gateway and so has access to all the flight data that FIX Gateway is configured for.

Controls

'[' and ']' Keys changes the Altimeter Setting

'm' Changes Airspeed mode from IAS , TAS, and GS

'a' and 's' select the different screens.

Virtual VFR

In order to take advantage of virtual VFR chart object rendering, download the latest FAA CIFP file from here: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/digital_products/cifp/download/

Extract the FAACIFP18 file into the pyEfis/CIFP directory. Make note of the FAA disclaimers also in the zip file.

Create an index file: ''' ./MakeCIFPIndex.py CIFP/FAACIFP18 '''

This creates an index.bin file in CIFP directory

Update the config file [Screen.PFD] section dbpath and indexpath with the path names of the FAACIFP18 and index.bin files respectively.

Distribution

To create a Python wheel for distribution, there is a make target. The wheel will be created in the dist/ directory.

$ make wheel

After installing the wheel via pip, the user can run pyEfis from the command line. Please mind that the FIX-Gateway server needs to be up and running.

$ pyefis

All CLI options work as defined.

$ pyefis -h
usage: pyefis [-h] [-m {test,normal}] [--debug] [--verbose] [--config-file CONFIG_FILE] [--log-config LOG_CONFIG]

pyEfis

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -m {test,normal}, --mode {test,normal}
                          Run pyEFIS in specific mode
  --debug               Run in debug mode
  --verbose, -v         Run in verbose mode
  --config-file CONFIG_FILE
                          Alternate configuration file
  --log-config LOG_CONFIG
                          Alternate logger configuration file