A comprehensive tool for the construction of Annex 14 OLS surfaces is provided within our PDToolKit product. This capability also exists as a separate application called Aerodrome Surface Modeler (ASM) which not only has comprehensive facilities for the drawing and analysis of all ICAO Annex 14 OLS surfaces, but can also assess ILS OAS surfaces created by PDToolkit.

ASM allows the construction of the complex set of aerodrome surfaces as described in the ICAO Annex 14 documentation and then facilitates obstacle evaluation. ASM has been designed to create the minimal set of 3D surfaces required for efficient use in the graphical domain.

Once these surfaces have been created full obstacle planning, restriction and analysis can be performed by the user with customisable reports through XML style sheets. Obstacles can be added by the user or loaded from a data source, such as survey files, spreadsheet, etc. This unique obstacle evaluation tool will analyse each obstacle against the 3D surfaces to calculate if the obstacle has penetrated through the surface. The results of the obstacles evaluation give precise information like:

• Exact point the obstacle penetrates through the surface.
• Distance of penetration above the surface.
• Distance under the surface (ideal for vegetation that grows).
• Obstacle ID and surface name for easy review in CAD.

Some obstacles just under the surface are of interest because they might be a tree that will grow over time. ASM allows the user to assign the “vegetation” attribute. This will assist in the reporting process to highlight such obstacles that might be a problem as time goes by.

To communicate the results in a ‘real world’ context, there is a feature to export the 3D surfaces created by ASM to Google Earth. Google Earth will display the satellite images and then overlay the 3D surfaces on top hence giving the user a realistic view.

Key features

• Undulating runway capability with ability to specify datum’s.
• Multiple runway configuration.
• Contour lines for quick and easy elevation overview of 3D sloping surfaces.
• Option to display simplified aerodrome surfaces for easy understanding and clear viewing of surface boundaries.
• Fully user configurable through XML parameter file.
• Handling of large datasets of survey, database or spreadsheets files.
• Comprehensive obstacle evaluation detailing penetrations and near penetrations.

Based on the parameters and the user options, ASM will create the following aerodrome surfaces in an efficient mathematical manner:

• Runway Strip
• Approach
• Inner Approach
• Transitional
• Inner Transitional
• Balked Landing
• Inner Horizontal
• Conical
• Outer Horizontal

User Configurable Surface Parameters

As documented in the ICAO Annex 14 text, there are instances where the default parameter values can be modified and this will change the specifics of the aerodrome surface concerned. These parameters are likely to be based per aerodrome/runway so ASM allows the user to read the parameter values from a pre-defined XML document. ASM comes with an XML file that has the current default parameters as documented in Annex 14. The user can duplicate this file and then change any parameters according to the specific requirements.

To compliment ASM, ASD has created Aerodrome Surface Assessor to handle fast, easy and quick obstacle assessment through a web portal. Aerodrome Surface Assessor has been designed to simplify the task of obstacle assessment around aerodrome surfaces, being a cloud service Aerodrome Surface Assessor can be used from different types of computer devices that have access to the internet. Further details can be found here.