Nerd Challenge - Google TP map !

d...@nadler.com

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Jul 27, 2005, 8:48:55 PM7/27/05

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Hey ! Who're you calling a nerd ?

Objective: URL that shows task area geo-image overlaid with
Turn and Landing points.

Google released its API for mapping. See
http://www.google.com/apis/maps/
With a few lines of clever Javascript (ECMAscript, OK, whatever),
you can overlay your own data on top of the google-provided imagery.
Pizza establishments, homes for sale, suspected mafia safe-houses, etc.

So here's the challenge: With a few clever lines, grab the task
area information and list off John Leibacher's world-wide turnpoint
exchange, then overlay it on the google image, for a printable
area layout. Suitable for programming Charlie's string-computer.
And putting in your cockpit. And amazing your nerd friends
(Hey ! Stop that !).

Caint do it myself 'cause I'm too freakin busy and trying to get
ready to head to Uvalde Friday AM (somebody has to lose and I'm
ready).

Are you going to do it, or are you a wimp ?

See ya, Dave "YO"

john

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Jul 27, 2005, 9:38:25 PM7/27/05

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Cool idea...

Any turnpoint formats already in XML? Makes me wonder why so much
existing software hasn't already switched to XML format for
turnpoints...much easier to parse. Instead there are 20 different
proprietary file formats.

Paul M. Cordell

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Jul 27, 2005, 9:40:00 PM7/27/05

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dave!

Will this be the next Hi-Res display feature on the SN-10C?

Nick Gilbert

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Jul 28, 2005, 1:07:09 AM7/28/05

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Now that is a great idea! How about we create a standard and start peddling
it? My GlidingComps.com website parses XML files to generate scoring
results.

Nick.

"john" <jco...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1122514705....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...

Message has been deleted

Guy Byars

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Jul 28, 2005, 6:12:10 AM7/28/05

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"Tim Newport-Peace" <tnp@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message
news:Nou0dDAE...@spsys.demon.co.uk...
> X-no-archive: yes

> But the is already an IGC XML standard for Waypoints and there has been
> for 5 years now.

Is an XSD Schema available for it? If so where?

Winscore can import/export all its scoring information in XML.

d...@nadler.com

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Jul 28, 2005, 6:57:32 AM7/28/05

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Hi Tim - You may recall that I proposed creating an IGC XML format for
TPs a number of years ago. The IGC committee response was approximately
"This new-fangled XML stuff might not catch on and is kinda
complicated"... Remember ? What the IGC put forward for TP
representations, quite a bit later, is too many different possible
representations, none of which solved adequately the problems we see as
manufacturers. Result ? Nobody uses it....

John Leibacher is real busy at the moment ! I'm sure if someone comes
up with a WSDL to expose the list of areas, and another to grab the
requisite info, John or some volunteer could get this up on his site
using the PERL tools for SOAP. Dummy it up as proof of concept in any
case !

Ultimately this supports the vision of "Turn your glider on, and it
automatically fetches the requisite info for your flight: TPs, landing
sites, TFRs/airspace info, maybe initial weather.

Gotta get to work now !
And I still haven't got packed for Uvalde...
Best Regards, Dave "YO"

Message has been deleted

Henryk Birecki

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Jul 28, 2005, 12:30:20 PM7/28/05

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Tim Newport-Peace <tnp@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:

>To those who are interested in the IGC Waypoint format, the documents to
>read are available at:
>
> http://www.fai.org/gliding/gnss/wpformat.asp
>
>Tim Newport-Peace t...@spsys.demon.co.uk
>

I just wonder if there is any software other than GPS_LOG WinCE that
actually supports this "standard"

Henryk Birecki

Marc Ramsey

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Jul 28, 2005, 9:22:52 PM7/28/05

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d...@nadler.com wrote:
> John Leibacher is real busy at the moment ! I'm sure if someone comes
> up with a WSDL to expose the list of areas, and another to grab the
> requisite info, John or some volunteer could get this up on his site
> using the PERL tools for SOAP. Dummy it up as proof of concept in any
> case !

WSDL, yeech!

I'll let y'all in on a little secret, try accessing a URL in the form:

http://soaring.aerobatics.ws/TP/<soaring site>/tab
http://soaring.gahsys.com/TP/<soaring site>/tab
http://soaring.xinqu.net/TP/<soaring site>/tab

For example:

http://soaring.aerobatics.ws/TP/Williams/tab

Not XML, but a trivial parsing exercise for *real* programmers (hint,
field delimiter is the tab character).

I suspect if someone asks nicely, John will expose a list of the
available soaring sites, if it isn't already available at an as of yet
unknown URL...

Marc

d...@nadler.com

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Jul 29, 2005, 5:02:38 PM7/29/05

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Yeech ? Really now, its not like anyone suggested UDDI...
So Marc, are you man enough to take up the challenge ?

john

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Aug 4, 2005, 11:05:04 PM8/4/05

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Here's what it looks like when turnpoints are overlayed for where I fly
in eastern PA...clickable markers only work with Firefox and parsing of
XML turnpoint data is slow.

John "XJ"

http://home.comcast.net/~turnpointmaps/hilltown/hilltown.htm

Again, we need to get an XML standard up onto Leibacher's site so the
scripts can pull from there.

5Z

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Aug 5, 2005, 3:40:28 PM8/5/05

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Very cool!

-Tom

Bob Gibbons

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Aug 5, 2005, 10:03:32 PM8/5/05

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Interesting.

Appears to work just fine with Internet Explorer v6.

Bob

d...@nadler.com

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Aug 6, 2005, 10:41:03 AM8/6/05

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Very nice ! Agreed on the XML. I think the more recent perl toolkits
to do this actually work without too much pain (perl being John's
bludgeon of choice). Looks like another Nerd challenge is in order....
I'll check with John on the toolchains in use and post some
suggestions.
Best Regards, Dave

PS: For you nerds out there, the ILEC SN10 airspace "compiler" runs on
one of OF's servers as a SOAP service, and John's website submits
requests in order to prepare the SN10 "SUA enhanced" NDB files for
download. We implemented this a few years back and it was a bit
exciting, the tools are now more stable and interoperable.

OF

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Aug 6, 2005, 5:23:40 PM8/6/05

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Done (no credit here):
http://soaring.aerobatics.ws/TP/GoogleMaps/uvalde_googlemaps.html

John Leibacher

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Aug 7, 2005, 11:14:46 AM8/7/05

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<d...@nadler.com> wrote in message
news:1122511735.1...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

> Hey ! Who're you calling a nerd ?
>
> Objective: URL that shows task area geo-image overlaid with
> Turn and Landing points.
>
> Google released its API for mapping. See
> http://www.google.com/apis/maps/
> With a few lines of clever Javascript (ECMAscript, OK, whatever),
> you can overlay your own data on top of the google-provided imagery.
> Pizza establishments, homes for sale, suspected mafia safe-houses, etc.
>
> So here's the challenge: With a few clever lines, grab the task
> area information and list off John Leibacher's world-wide turnpoint
> exchange, then overlay it on the google image, for a printable
> area layout. Suitable for programming Charlie's string-computer.
> And putting in your cockpit. And amazing your nerd friends
> (Hey ! Stop that !).

Many thanks to Dave Nadler for the challenge and particularly to John Cotter
for the solution. I have implemented John's javascript for
all of the 750+ sites in the Turnpoint Exchange. For the US, Canada, and
the UK - where Google has roadmaps - the maps and satellite
views are overlaid, and they do a remarkably good job. Check out Uvalde -
http://soaring.aerobatics.ws/TP/GoogleMaps/uvalde_googlemaps.html - where
the start, finish, and turnpoint nicely line up on the runway. The info
displayed is the turnpoint name, and the number, ID, and ICAO where
available.

fly safely,

John Leibacher