Software Includes All-New Charting Engine, Geo-Referenced Charts

On Friday, Seattle Avionics Software released its Voyager Flight Software System version 4.0 -- merging a completely new, extremely fast DirectX charting engine with version 3.6’s fuel stop auto-routing, Google Earth integration and over 200 other new features.

Voyager 4.0 features a completely new charting engine based on DirectX technology -- the same technology used in Google Earth and Microsoft Flight Simulator. Voyager’s all-new charting engine is extremely fast, redrawing images nearly instantaneously and capable of updating the screen more than 50 times a second, depending on hardware. This allows completely smooth zooms and pans—the first general aviation software offering this state-of-the-art technology.

In addition to replacement of the charting engine, Voyager 4.0 incorporates over 200 product enhancements and improvements. Key among them is the ability to display any combination of computer-generated (often called digital) charts with scanned, geo-referenced Sectional and IFR charts, which look identical to paper charts. This enables pilots to both plan and fly using geo-referenced Sectionals or IFR enroute charts with overlaid weather, TFRs, and aircraft position.

Company representatives state Voyager 4.0 seamlessly merges all Sectionals and IFR charts so pilots need not select particular charts to display; they simply pick the type of chart to display and Voyager does the rest. Other major enhancements to Voyager include three-dimensional highway-in-the-sky features, night vision-friendly color scheme, and much, much more.

"This version of Voyager has been in the works for nearly two years and we’re delighted to be releasing it today," says John Rutter, President of Seattle Avionics Software. "Over the years, pilots have said they loved Voyager’s features but wanted it to be faster. We listened and rewrote the charting engine from the ground up, the difference being like night and day. Furthermore, rather than write a fast but strictly 2D charting engine, we opted to spend the time and resources to use the very latest high-speed 3D graphics technology to lay the foundation for future versions of Voyager."

"We had two different development teams working on Voyager 4.0", adds Steve Podradchik, CEO, who led the development effort. "One team wrote a new charting engine from scratch, using the same very high-speed Microsoft DirectX technology that drives video games, Google Earth, Xbox, etc. The other team looked at all the feature requests we’ve received over the years and put in about 200 major improvements like adding scanned Sectionals and IFR Charts, doing a complete overhaul of GlassView (the moving map module), 3D Highway in the Sky features, more modern and night-friendly color scheme, faster startup, and much, much more."

New features include:

• Extremely fast DirectX-based charting engine
• Scanned Sectionals and IFR Low/IFR High Charts merged with digital TFR and Weather data. In addition, shows aircraft position in GlassView, Voyager’s moving-map module.
• Personal Layouts so you can customize everything on the screen with a single click
• Web Synch that performs "one-click" data synchronization among multiple computers
• Completely updated GlassView module
• More modern look and feel, including 3D as well as 2D views and enhanced chart colors

Pilots are invited to a personal demonstration of new Voyager 4.0 at the Northwest Aviation Conference & Trade Show, which kicks off this weekend in Puyallup, WA. In addition, Seattle Avionics Software offers on its Web site self-running product demonstrations, free live on-line ‘Webinars’, and a free version of Voyager called FreeFlight.

FMI: www.seattleavionics.com