Root
The contents of this file appears at the top of each generated .sct and .ese file. There are several parameters that the generator fills automatically, such as {YEAR} (the current year) and {VERSION} (the version specified in the generator URL).
There shouldn't be a need for this file to be edited.
This file contains all of the colours that can be assigned to items elsewhere in the file, such as centrelines or SMR geo data. The purpose of defining colours here is that they can be used globally, instead of defining the colour each time it is used.
Colours are stored in a 24-bit integer format, where the left most 8 bits are the blue colour, the middle 8 bits are the green colour, and the right most 8 bits are the red colour. To convert individual 8-bit red, green and blue (RGB) values into this format, use the following formula:
(BLUE x 65536) + (GREEN x 256) + RED
There is a Google Collab that has been created to enable the previewing of defined colours. It is available here and usage is as described below:
- Click the 'play' button at the top-left of the first code block
- Paste the contents of the Colours.txt file in the box that appears
- Press the second 'play' button
- See the results at the bottom of the page.
The [INFO] section is the first within the .sct file, and the generator simply places the contents of Info.txt into this section, replacing {VERSION} in the way mentioned above.
Line 1 - Sector File Name
Lines 2 & 3 - Default Callsign and Airport - irrelevant.
Lines 4 & 5 - Default Visibility Centre - line 4 is set to the latitude halfway between the 50N and 56N extremities of what we have determined as the 'important area' of the UK. This is important for an automatic calculation made by EuroScope, described below.
Lines 6 & 7 - No. of NM per degree of lat/long - lines of latitude are always parallel, so the first of these lines is 60 in most cases. Lines of longitude converge towards the poles, so with distance from the equator, the value of line 7 should decrease in order to 'squeeze' the sector so that it appears normal on the scope. However, EuroScope uses the coordinate on line 4 to calculate the number of nautical miles per degree of longitude automatically, so the value of these lines is, in effect, redundant.
Line 8 - Magnetic Variation - this is used to rotate the display on the scope such that features are aligned to magnetic north. The sign for this value goes against standard convention -- variation should be positive for westerly variation and negative for easterly variation.
Line 9 - Sector Scale Factor
As with Comments.txt, there shouldn't be a need for this file to be edited.
VRC Documentation, Appendix G, (2005), Available at: http://www1.metacraft.com/VRC/docs/doc.php?page=appendix_g (Accessed: 26 December 2016).