With that tool, one could get a glimpse of the visible environnement at a given position. Very useful for dead reckoning navigation and watch to avoid collision.
Rough example :
imagine a dynamic array of objects with 720 columns and 2 lines (one colomun for each half degree). The first line would be the object, the second line the relative distance to the object.
| 0 |
0.5 |
1 |
1.5 |
... |
... |
180 |
.. |
... |
359 |
359.5 |
360 |
| null |
null |
lighthouse |
null |
... |
... |
ship |
... |
... |
cardinal mark |
... |
... |
| null |
null |
3 nautical miles |
null |
... |
... |
... |
... |
... |
0.2 nautical miles |
... |
... |
Quite difficult because you need to build an environnemental engine/api/emmulator from real data (eg openseamaps, AIS data, weather/visibility (you already have that part !), but once we have that kind of information at any given position, the nav sim could enter another dimension ;)
One could mix the whole thing with the celestial/astro engine and the bathymetry engine and you get a full 3D environnemental engine.
In a few years, you could be able to generate a pseudo real picture from description of your sim world with the help of deep learning : Nvidia work
All of these are bonus enhancements, the possibilities are mind blowing ! Keep up the very good work. :)