Aeronautical Publication Production

An automated template based system to create and maintain Aeronautical Information Publications.

AeroPub is a comprehensive package meeting the Aeronautical Information Publication (AIP) requirements of the Aeronautical Information Services (AIS/AIM) sections of civil and military aviation authorities. Through extensive work with worldwide ANSPs, military and civil aviation authorities, IDS engineers have developed an AIP production system that allows AIM staff to create, edit and publish AIP and Static Data, by extraction from the Aeronautical Database, while conforming to ICAO standards. AeroPub can be customised to local requirements, with safety and integrity. AeroPub is capable of extracting information from the Aeronautical Database (the IDS AeroDB is AIXM and ARINC compliant) and of generating an ICAO compliant Aeronautical Information Publication. Management of the Aeronautical Information is performed through the IAS Data Management Suite (GfeaMan and Feaman). AeroPub allows strong control of the processes managing the aeronautical information contained in a Publication and provides high level of automation.

AeroPub automatically:

• Extracts aeronautical information from both AeroDB and the Document Repository (aeronautical data and chart, texts) valid at the selected effective date
• Builds the publication structure for the new AIRAC cycle according to the rules stored in the system and the current document version;
• Inserts each aeronautical chart in the proper section of the AIP;
• Starts the publishing engine (Adobe® FrameMaker®) environment and creates the new AIP;
• Generates AIP Amendments by comparing the new AIP with the current version, marks differences with change-bars and updates the page dates; and
• Stores the updated documents in the repository in multiple formats (XML, HTML, PDF, MIF, etc.) making use of the native publishing engine output capabilities.    

 

Authoring

AeroPub allows handling of multiple types of documents produced by different users and tracks their history up to the latest version. This also applies to the aeronautical features stored in the database, for the textual parts of aeronautical publications and for the aeronautical charts. Historical versions are archived with their effective date of publication and the author details and stored in a centralized document repository. A specific application (AeroCatalog) manages the document cataloguing, consulting, modifying and tracing. The user is able to query the repository by document structure, temporality, operators (owners) of changes, etc.

The Electronic AIP (eAIP)

With the increasing needs for sharing information using the fastest and most cost effective means, it is imperative that an AIS organization maintains and publishes an electronic version of the AIP based on the XML format.

This choice is supported by:

• Reduced size of documents;

• Full ICAO compliancy;
• Independence from proprietary systems (Databases, Word Processors, etc);
• Easy usage and browsing; and
• Simple migration of existing documents to other formats (PDF, Word, etc).

 

Although the ability to produce XML documents is a native feature of the publishing engine, AeroPub makes use of a dedicated built-in XML generator, compliant with Eurocontrol standards, to produce a true electronic AIP (eAIP) for the web environment.

 

Main Aeropub features:

• Text amendment tracking;

• Database managed file control (Check -In /Out);

• AeroCatalog to Store the “external” information needed to be published;

• Automatic page effective date assignment;

• Automatic change bars creation;

• Automated list of AIP pages creation;

• Automated checklist of AIP creation;

• Automated cover page creation;

• Automatic AIP error reports Generation;

• Temporality of Database ensured by AeroDB;

• Amendment Cycle Support;

• Multi-User Environment;

• Database management tools;

• Eurocontrol Validation Rules Support;

• SVG Graphics Support; and

• Full output options: XML, HTML, PDF/Paper.   

  AEROPUB Brochure  1336Kb