Feeding Data to LiveTraffic

How to send prepared data and see those planes

This page is yet a stub and requires more details.

Here are two sources in the meantime:

  • Here is a Support Forum thread discussing feeding data. That was the time when the SendTraffic.py script started to take shape. It discussing a few technical backgrounds.

  • The script to feed data is provided with LiveTraffic since v2.50 and is Resources/SendTraffic.py.

For using SendTraffic.py you obviously need Python, probably version 3.6+, tested on 3.8. (Here's a thread on using Python 3.5.)

Then run SendTraffic.py -h for getting the following help:

usage: SendTraffic.py [-h] [-a HEX_LIST] [-d NUM_LIST] [-b NUM] [--historic NUM] [-l] [--host NAME_OR_IP] [--port NUM] [--weatherPort NUM] [-v] [inFile]

SendTraffic 1.0: Sends air traffic tracking data from a file out on a UDP port for LiveTraffic to receive it on the RealTraffic channel. In LiveTraffic, activate the "RealTraffic" channel to receive the data and have it displayed as moving planes. From LiveTraffic, you can also export tracking data in a matching format using the options "Export Tracking Data" and/or "Export User Aircraft". The latter allows you to fly yourself and have your aircraft's movements written as tracking data. Data is written to Output/LTExportFD - <timestamp>.csv.

positional arguments:

optional arguments:

  • -h, --help show this help message and exit

  • -a HEX_LIST, --aircraft HEX_LIST List of aircraft to read and send, others skipped. Add one or several transponder hex id codes, separate by comma.

  • -d NUM_LIST, --aircraftDecimal NUM_LIST Same as -a, but specify decimal values (as used in the CSV file).

  • -b NUM, --bufPeriod NUM Buffering period: Number of seconds the first record is pushed into the past so that LiveTraffic's buffer fills more quickly. Recommended to be slightly less than half of LiveTraffic's buffering period. (More than half of buf period triggers historic data processing.

  • --historic NUM Send historic data, ie. reduce included timestamp by this many seconds

  • -l, --loop Endless loop: restart from the beginning when reaching end of file. Will work best if data contains loop with last position(s) being roughly equal to first position(s).

  • --host NAME_OR_IP UDP target host or ip to send the data to, defaults to localhost

  • --port NUM UDPport to send traffic data to, defaults to 49005

  • --weatherPort NUM UDP port to send weather data to, defaults to 49004

  • -v, --verbose Verbose output: Informs of each sent record