For the simulations, we use recorded data from real flights of various flying objects such as paragliders, gliders and helicopters. These are recorded by our supporters and made available as files.
The recorded data is stored in various file formats such as IGC and CSV and contains position and sometimes other information at various times during the flight. The time intervals of the position data sometimes show jumps, as do the coordinates of the flying objects.
As the data is used in every run of the simulation, we have decided to pre-process and standardize the files received. We smooth all flight tracks using spline interpolation and perform sampling at constant, regular time intervals.
The following figure shows the raw data from an IGC file on the left, overlaid with an interpolating spline curve in the middle and the pre-processed flight track on the right, as it is available in the simulation:
This drastically reduces the computing effort during the simulation, especially when many flying objects are simulated simultaneously.
In the course of the project, we plan to make the software tools used together with the specification of the interpolated file format available on a publicly accessible source code repository so that interested parties can reproduce them and use them themselves.