3D Airspace and Terrain

We've finished a beta version of the new Maxx III firmware that renders airspaces and terrain in 3D. The code is not yet final – but right now is exactly when we need feedback from pilots. You can download the beta firmware from here.

At this stage, we're primarily interested in the rendering of airspaces. It doesn't need to be — and cannot be — perfect, but it must be good enough to be useful for pilots in flight. That's exactly what we want to find out:

• Are the airspaces in your region rendered correctly and plausibly?

• Does anything strike you as fundamentally wrong?

• Are there rendering errors, missing geometries, or inconsistent altitude extents?

• Are the distances calculated correctly?

The update rate of the 3D rendering is 0.5–1 Hz. Faster isn't possible due to the hardware — this is not a bug.

In the menu under Screen Options, you can choose whether airspaces are displayed in 2D as before, or in the new 3D mode with terrain.

AirspaceCeiling defines the lower limit above which an airspace is no longer displayed. This prevents the display from being cluttered with airspaces that aren't relevant to us. Warnings, however, continue to work — even for airspaces that aren't shown.

The Glide Ratio set in the preferences is used to determine which airspace is shown in the footer. The calculation considers a range of glide angles from infinity down to the configured Glide Ratio, covering all possible flight paths. For each, the distance to the nearest airspace we could fly into is computed. If an airspace lying ahead of us is not shown in the footer because it sits below our possible glide path, we can fly over it — it is therefore not relevant.

HX airspaces in Switzerland can be toggled on or off with a long press on the Remote Control.

Important: Do not fly without a backup

The beta firmware is already running stably, but bugs cannot be entirely ruled out. Therefore, do not use it without a second, reliable instrument as backup.

Feedback

Let us know what you notice — ideally with a photo of the display and the region indicated. We read all feedback, but cannot reply to every email individually. Your observations will flow directly into the next firmware versions.

Thanks for testing with us!