Creating an Animated EFIS Video

You can create an animated EFIS video using a utility publicly released in July 2025. Click here to see an example of a completed video.

USAGE INSTRUCTIONS:

Run the ‘Flight Data Viewer’
From the menu select ‘Help’ --> ‘View Application Trace Logs’ --> ‘View Program Folder’. This will open the folder which contains the ‘Flight Data Viewer’ executable files in Windows Explorer.
Find ‘HiResEFISRender.EXE’. Right click on it and select ‘Create Shortcut’. You should be prompted with “Windows can’t create a shortcut here. Do you want the shortcut to be placed on the desktop instead?”. Respond ‘Yes’
Close the Windows Explorer window showing the executable files.
View your desktop.
Find ‘HiResEFISRender.exe – Shortcut’.
Rename it to ‘FDV Animation Utility’ or whatever you prefer.

The utility requires that one or more named ranges be created in the flight data file containing the flight to be animated.
Open the flight in the ‘Flight Data Viewer’
Select the start of the range by clicking on a graph or a row in the data grid.
Hold down the shift key.
Select the end of the range by clicking on a graph or a row in the data grid.
Right click anywhere on the data grid and select ‘Define Range’.
Name the range and optionally define the range type.
Press OK. The range will be automatically saved in the flight’s data file.
Note: To animate the full flight create a range that covers the entire flight. Click the first row in the data grid, hold down the shift key and click the last row in the data grid.
Close the ‘Flight Data Viewer’

Start the animation utility by clicking the desktop shortcut.
Fill in the path to the flight data file, select the named range, select a path that the video frames will be written to, type the base name for the frames (ex: HiResEFISFrame will create files with names like, HiResEFISFrame001.png, HiResEFISFrame002.png, etc), and frame rate. If the range contains aerobatics read the help tip next to ‘Sky/Ground Bitmap Magnification Factor’ and respond accordingly.
Press start. The frames will be created in the specified folder.
At this point you will need to rely on your knowledge of your video editing software to assemble the individual frames into a single animated video. Most video editing software supports importing frames and combining them. If you’re not sure how to do that with your video software Google will be your best friend.