MetaFlight is a high-level description specification for visual databases that dramatically simplifies the ability of the runtime system to use the database with minimal user setup.
While OpenFlight describes and contains the geometry and structure within a single file, MetaFlight describes the structure, organization, file naming, and coordinate systems of all the datasets that comprise a single, more complex database.
MetaFlight provides the bridge between database generation tools and runtime applications. By communicating the metadata that enables runtime applications to take advantage of the database structure, MetaFlight simplifies data integration and optimizes real-time paging efficiency. In addition to being XML compliant and integrated with Creator Terrain Studio and Vega Prime, MetaFlight offers smarter loading and real-time management as well as increased determinism in runtime applications.
Providing independent runtime control and knowledge of the tiling structure for efficient runtime paging efficiency, MetaFlight also supports database configuration control, precise geo-location, and extensions. This file format standard also simplifies runtime setup and allows for the selection of datasets by location.
Features
- A concise and consistent publishing format.
- Extended OpenFlight data-model to include higher-order objects.
- “Database” objects that identify version and ownership information.
- “Dataset” objects that partition database into thematic layers.
- “GridStack” objects to describe database tiles as a multi-layer system of grid cells.
- “Filename Pattern” objects that can describe datasets containing thousands of files.
- “Coverage” objects that define geo-location of datasets.
- “Coordinate System” objects that describe complete coordinate information about all files in a dataset.
- XML-compliance.