IGCview Help

IGCview help

You can see your own IGC files here! Mail them to Bill Hall

To use IGCview, the buttons across the top of the map panel (the green box) in general cause another set of buttons to appear down the left-hand side of the page. There is alt text associated with each button so if you hover the mouse over the button for a while an explanation of its function will appear.

The top buttons currently are:

The File button. This gives you options to load a file from the web or from your local PC. If you have just launched IGCview from a web site, loading .igc files from the web using the button should be straightforward. If you want to load a file from you local PC you will have to read the installation notes. As IGCview can load .igc or gardown tracklog files, there is also a save file option, which saves the current primary log in the .igc format, including the current task. This is a convenient way to convert your gardown (from Garmin GPS) files to .igc, or to embed a task into an existing .igc file.

This presents a number of buttons to zoom-in, zoom-out, zoom-to-task, or to zoom to the area covered by the current primary task. Note that in general zooming-in is most easily done by dragging the mouse on the map to open up a box, which IGCview will zoom to fit the screen.

Replay button, which allows you to maggot-race the loaded logs. To start the replay running, select one of the top two buttons on the left-hand side for either a real-time start or synchronized start (all logs are synchronized to a common start time). Then you can pause, stop, speed up the race with the other buttons. Sometimes logs have a long preamble where the pilot started his logger early in the day. In this case it is a good idea to speed up the replay by hitting the forward button a few times (you will see the clock speed up) and then pause to reset the replay speed when the glider finally gets going.

This the the Flight Data button. It will open up a page with a quantative analysis of the logs loaded. Note that IGCview distinguishes between the one primary and (possible multiple) secondary logs. IGCview will compare the primary flight performance with the average of the secondaries. If you only load two flights, then you get a straightforward comparison between the two. If you have many flights loaded, you can use the 'select tracks' button to choose between them, e.g. to select a new primary.

This it the Tools which presents a variety of generally useful buttons down the left-hand side.

	The File button. This gives you options to load a file from the web or from your local PC. If you have just launched IGCview from a web site, loading .igc files from the web using the button should be straightforward. If you want to load a file from you local PC you will have to read the installation notes. As IGCview can load .igc or gardown tracklog files, there is also a save file option, which saves the current primary log in the .igc format, including the current task. This is a convenient way to convert your gardown (from Garmin GPS) files to .igc, or to embed a task into an existing .igc file.
	This presents a number of buttons to zoom-in, zoom-out, zoom-to-task, or to zoom to the area covered by the current primary task. Note that in general zooming-in is most easily done by dragging the mouse on the map to open up a box, which IGCview will zoom to fit the screen.
	Replay button, which allows you to maggot-race the loaded logs. To start the replay running, select one of the top two buttons on the left-hand side for either a real-time start or synchronized start (all logs are synchronized to a common start time). Then you can pause, stop, speed up the race with the other buttons. Sometimes logs have a long preamble where the pilot started his logger early in the day. In this case it is a good idea to speed up the replay by hitting the forward button a few times (you will see the clock speed up) and then pause to reset the replay speed when the glider finally gets going.
	This the the Flight Data button. It will open up a page with a quantative analysis of the logs loaded. Note that IGCview distinguishes between the one primary and (possible multiple) secondary logs. IGCview will compare the primary flight performance with the average of the secondaries. If you only load two flights, then you get a straightforward comparison between the two. If you have many flights loaded, you can use the 'select tracks' button to choose between them, e.g. to select a new primary.
	This it the Tools which presents a variety of generally useful buttons down the left-hand side.