Placement

Parking nodes

By default, docking devices use the closest parking node in front of them as the source for guidance. All airplanes will end up with nose wheel on the yellow T drawn by the node.

Parking stands with static jetways that cannot move sideways are an exception to this. Airplanes with suitable doors will always get guided to align with the jetway.

If your airport uses custom lines to draw them, keep parking nodes aligned with your custom graphics. Proper placement of parking nodes is essential for jetways, marshallers, and ground service vehicles too.

Complex layouts

Some airports have complex layouts with different stop distances depending on airplane type, or even multiple overlapping positions and several docking devices to serve them.

The easiest way to deal with complex layouts is by using markup tools to draw guidance lines. You can use in-game development tools to draw lead-in lines and stop points.

Markup

Extract noolaero-module-vdgs-devkit package into your Community folder and launch Microsoft Flight Simulator in development mode.

Then open your airport project in Scenery Editor and add a new group named VDGS markup under your airport node.

Simple stand

For a simple stand:

1. Draw a PaintedLine from taxiway to the where you want the airplane nose wheel to stop. Direction matters: the first point must be at taxiway and the last near docking device.
2. Move the line into VDGS markup group.
3. Apply material Lead-in line (from noolaero-vdgs material group) to the line.
4. Enter stand ID into Display name property field.

Complex stand

For a complex stand:

1. Create a new group under VDGS markup and name it after the stand.
2. Draw a PaintedLine from taxiway to the end of the lead-in line.
3. Apply material Lead-in line (from noolaero-vdgs material group) to the line.
4. Draw a PaintedLine across the lead-in line where you want airplanes to stop by default.
5. Apply material Default stopbar to the line.

For each custom stop offset at the stand:

6. Draw a PaintedLine and apply Custom stopbar material.
7. Add one or more airplane types into Display name property field, delimited by space. For available values, see vdgs_stops parameter in SimObjects.

Ensure that all the lines created for a stand are inside the group created in step 1.

In the example shown on images above, we use the offset with most airplane types as the default stop line, and add custom lines for other stop offsets. You do not have to name lead-in line or default stop line, but for clarity, we have named them lead-in and default.

Since parking stands often have similar configurations, you do not have to draw lines for every parking stand from scratch. You can select the group, make a copy, and move it to another location. You only have to rename the group to match the new stand.

Post-processing

After you have finished drawing guidance markup, save your work and locate the XML file that contains your airport. It is usually at PackageSources\Scene or PackageSources\Scenery.

Then find markup.py program inside Tools folder of noolaero-module-vdgs-devkit package. You need Python 3 to run the program.

Open command prompt, and run:

python "C:\MSFS\Packages\Community\noolaero-module-vdgs-devkit\markup.py" -airport "C:\Dev\MyAirport\PackageSources\Scene\KJFK.xml" "C:\Dev\MyAirport\markup.json"

Don’t forget to substitute the paths with your own.

The program will check your airport for common VDGS placement errors. If everything is well, it produces markup.json file containing parameters of your layout.

Submit the file and we’ll replace the default node-based guidance with your custom version.

Your file does not have to have markup for all stands (the rest will remain the same), and you can mix simple and complex stands.