For developers of aviation apps such as electronic flight bags with chart displays and other types of mapping software, obtaining the data for aeronautical charts is a significant and recurring burden. Eagle Cap Software simplifies this process by helping developers add aeronautical chart displays built on Arinc 424 data to their applications, eliminating the need for the developer to write custom code and process the data for every regular update. Eagle Cap’s Aviation Charting Service provides the software to add Arinc 424 data and to display the maps.
“Aviation Charting Service renders Arinc 424 data as vector elements from an SQLite database, minimizing the data footprint and load times,” said Dane Winchester, co-founder of Eagle Cap Software. The data covers airports, VORs, NDBs, waypoints, airways (high and low), restricted airspace and flight information regions.
“This service provides a quick and easy method for application developers to add the visualization of aviation data to their application’s map display,” said Winchester.
According to Eagle Cap co-founder Tom Perkowski, many mapping services in aviation don’t use Arinc 424 data. “Cost of the data and a tool to render it have been the stumbling blocks.” To lower the cost, Eagle Cap “is going to be splitting the yearly recurring cost among multiple customers and will bring the scale needed to get the per-user or per-tail price down to an affordable price.”
Eagle Cap can provide all the Arinc 424 data, even for China, or developers can bring their own licensed 424 data and use the Aviation Charting Service software to process and display the data. Jeppesen, Lido and Navblue or air navigation service providers and the FAA supply the 424 data.
First deployments of customer products using Eagle Cap’s Aviation Charting Service are expected this summer, Perkowski said. “We are in negotiations with two potential launch customers, one of which is an airline.”