Mapping feature question /suggestion

that is quite good actually. takes a bit more input than my suggestion but is useful.
testing it I tried a couple of places and surprised how many unactivated summits there are in areas I have been to.
Gran Canara has 27 summits and only one ever activated. I can see why it’s had 15 activations though. It’s a 10 pointer you can drive practically right to it, and even the “walk in” from nearest car park is 0.03 miles!

The really great feature of this is that in my Hereford example there are hills shown from four different SOTA regions in two associations all within the 50km circle.
73,
Rod

That is true. I have said it before, but I will say again, the resource Rob has created here is fantastic.

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It is now possible - not with a double-click, however (double-click in Google maps is usually reserved for zooming). Here’s how:

  • in the range page, click the “Define range” button at the top left;
  • in the “Define range…” window that opens, choose range type and dimensions as usual;
  • choose “Select point on map” from the “Reference point type” dropdown;
  • zoom into the area where you wish to mark your reference point;
  • click on the “Pointer” checkbox: this will change the mouse-pointer to a crosshairs when the mouse is over the map, showing you that you can mark a point (the mouse can still be used to move the map around as usual);
  • click in the map to place a marker at the desired point:
    • this marker can be dragged to it’s final resting place, or
    • click elsewhere in the map to move the marker to a new point;
  • when you’re sure the reference-point marker is where you want it to be, click on the “Map »” button;
  • if any summits within range are found, they will be shown as usual;
  • having clicked on the Map button, the “Pointer” checkbox will be un-checked and the map mouse cursor will be returned to it’s default.
  • Reactivating the “Pointer” checkbox and then clicking on the map will clear all results and you can choose another point.

Hope that comes somewhere near what you were looking for Steve.

Rob

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awesome, many thanks Rob. Top stuff.

I had never realised this could be done. After reading your post and explanations, I’ve tried it and found it fantastic!
Thank you very much, Rob.
Let me point out a possible feature to be added to this great tool.
What about adding a way to highlight either:

  • those summits which have not been activated in the current year
  • those summits which have never been activated by the ham making the query.
  • those summit which have never been chased by the ham making the query.
  • those summits which are completes for the ham making the query
    This would apply only to the summits displayed in the specific selected range.
    Of course this would require that the mapping tool be connected with the database and the ham querying this be properly identified.
    Just an idea…
    Best 73 de Guru

…and there you have it. I’ve been pleading for access to the database, for nearly two years, and I’m still waiting. Those points you mentioned could all be implemented in the SMP in just a couple of days - WITH the data.

[quote=“EA2IF, post:14, topic:11699”]
I had never realised this could be done
[/quote]But you knew about the range page, right?

73, rob

I should because it’s probably been there for long but I didn’t.
Honestly, I’m not the typical curious guy clicking on everything and trying to find all features and possibilities in a given program or application.
Now, thanks to your post, I felt interested to see that and I clicked on “range” for the first time.
I have used tracks sometimes but have never clicked so far on any of the other tabs: alerts, spots, extras, contact.
I haven’t felt the need for it yet.
OK about your request for access to the database to which OK you are still waiting for.
Let’s see what happens…
Best 73 de Guru

Hi Phil - this has now been implemented in the tracks page. I’ve tried it with a number of different GPX files, and the code likes standard GPX files, but is having some problems with files containing non-GPX-standard tags. But it’s a start - try it and see what you think.

Rob

Update - the drag-and-drop code now accepts any well-formed GPX file, regardless of whether it contains any proprietary, non-standard tags (things like “<topografix:width>940</topografix:width>”), so that little issue is solved.

Be interesting to know whether anybody has tried the drag-and drop option in the tracks page yet?

Rob

Ah, the delights of XML for data interchange.

These are not my words but describe XML just perfectly.

“Some languages can be read by human, but not by machines, while others can be read by machines but not by humans. XML solves this problem by being readable to neither.”

:wink:

That’s Fantastic Rob!

This is a screenshot of a dragged and dropped GPX file collected on a recent activation I did of Scafell Pike. I first tried a GPX file collected using Viewranger in OSM on my phone and that displayed for saving. I then tried a GPX file collected on a Garmin GPS62s and that worked also.

Well done, clever fellow.

73 Phil

PS What has happened to the Cycle and other OSM Maps - they have dissapeared from the pull down. Only Terrain and Satellite view available.

Hi Phil - thanks for the flowers! Glad the drag-and-drop works OK.

As to the “missing” OSM maps control, I notice that your screenshot also does not show the Panoramio, Weather and Cloud controls, which should normally be (have been! - see below) visible in the top centre of the mapping area. This suggests to me that something is not quite right in your browser - unless of course you have a VERY wide screen, and your screenshot is only the left-hand portion of a very wide browser window.

In any case, since the Panoramio, Weather and Cloud controls’ functionalities are now no longer supported by Google (such a shame!), I have removed those controls. This can incidentally help to alleviate the problem of overlapping controls at the top of the map area when the screen width is narrow. Let me know if you still have problems viewing the OSM maps control.

Rob

Rob,
works fine using raw GPX data from a variety of Garmin devices.

No issues here with the OSM cycle maps.

Thanks again.
Pete

The GPX drag-and-drop functionality in the SMP tracks page has now been extended to include a graphical GPX “editor” by means of which the dragged-and-dropped GPX track may be optimized.

Why optimized? - well, it can often be the case that GPX tracks recorded by your GPS device contain more information than is necessary to define a “clean” ascent route. It should be understood that GPX files which are to be uploaded to the SMP should contain only the ascent section of the route taken or suggested, unless:

  • the descent section follows a route SIGNIFICANTLY different than the ascent section (in which case keep both sections), or
  • the descent section represents a better route to take while ascending: in this case, the ascent section should be discarded.

GPX tracks can also contain sections where you may have been moving around at some particular place, but did not make any significant progress along the route (you may have had a rest, and looked around for a while) - such sections contain no useful information and should therefore also be removed.

So, you may need to optimize your GPX file, and that’s what this editor is for.

How to use the new functionality? - drag-and-drop a GPX file onto the map area in the SMP tracks page, then click the “Edit…” button in the left-hand area to display the edit dialog. Then, either work it out yourself, or consult the Help for more information - follow the links there for drag-and drop.

HTH, Rob

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Thought I’d again bring this topic to the attention of those who use the tracks page - especially those who upload GPX tracks regularly to the SMP.

The salient points are:

  • drag-and-drop of GPX files onto the tracks mapping area is enabled;
  • those tracks may now be edited in a custom window;
  • edited tracks may then be saved to file;
  • the file can then be imported into the SMP system.

HTH, Rob

The range function is indeed one of the greatest features on SMP. I was fine with the manual entry of grid locators but this is a nice extension.

It’s really a pity Rob has never received access to the database for such features. I do not know whether the following workaround would be suitable:
@DM1CM
What about having the user upload his activator log to SMP for this purpose? Every activator can easily download this file containing all his activations from the database. As all QSOs are listed in this file, this could even be used to reactivate the lovely QSO display Rob had to close down due to lacking database support.
I fully agree this is far from an nifty solution but better than hoping for direct access to the SOTA DB.

73 de Michael, DB7MM

Well, the MT are making plans to make data available via a published API, but I fear it will be much too inflexible a system to cope with the fine details which my solutions - which have already been proven to work - would, and do, require.

But there is yet another way to get the data from the SOTA system, and it’s a method which I would have thought impossible, or at least unworkable. That method consists of laboriously downloading or scraping the details of all activity of each of the SOTAWatch/database users in turn, one by one, from the database pages themselves. This has in fact been done - not, I hasten to add, by me - and an automated system set up to pull the data at regular intervals has been established.

And here is where I have to thank my very good colleague, Christophe ON6ZQ for his amazing efforts in pulling off this incredible feat. He’s put in a lot of work to get this running and I think we owe him a round of applause for his initiative, energy and skill.

Unfortunately, things haven’t gone so well at my end, where I have struggled to integrate the new data into my own database, and to get it all running in tandem with my copies of the SOTA summits data. It’s always a problem to deal with copies of copies, and to reconstitute a relational database reliably from flat text files where all the data are mixed. And we’re talking of nearly 1 1/2 million records here, which I would have to maintain on my own test machine at home (moderately difficult), as well as on the shared server (difficult due to various restrictions) where the SMP is hosted.

I have to date already created three different versions of the activations page and its’ supplementary files - each time dealing with differently-structured datasets -, and I have to say that each time it’s been a nightmare to manage. This is the reason why I had to put the latest development version of that page on hold, since I was, to put it mildly, exhausted and irritated with the whole thing. It’s taken me a few months to get over it and there’s no easy way forward to make this thing work.

Except one: allow this one-time database administrator (already very familiar with the database type (and, incidentally, the tables and database structure!) used by SOTAWatch) access to the database. There would, in fact, be no real technical obstacles in the way; only issues of a personal, or social, nature. And that’s how it’s going to stay with this MT. As somebody once said on the old forum, the MT are having a party, and if you don’t like the music, you can go elsewhere and find another party.

Anyway, I can still play around with other stuff and try to develop a tool here, an update there, in the SMP: it all keeps “ze little grey cells” active.

In that regard, and in response to a specific request by Christophe (thanks again!) for such a thing, I’ve developed a little tool for mobile-phone or pad use, which simply gets a user’s current location from the device and shows a table of summits within x kilometers/miles of that location. It’s still in development, but seems to work OK: go to http://mobile.sotamaps.org/nearest_simple.php to try it out on your phone browser.

Rob

Here’s a tinyURL version of that mobile tool: tinyurl.com/qbjkt2u . It would be nice to know if anybody has tried it on a phone or pad, and to know what results they got…

@DM1CM
Rob, thanks for the comprehensive reply. I fully agree running a separate copy of the SOTA database is a demanding task. That’s the reason I suggested the users uploading their own activator log in order to get a visualisation of activated summits. But definitely I do not understand all the problems this idea brings up on the programming side.

This reminds me of the sad fact, that many German activators will not need to use SMP in future anymore. With the majority of DM references to be deleted, many Germans will leave this party.
That’s also the reason I stopped uploading tracks to the SMP: What is the use of uploading tracks for references which will be deleted anyway?

Apart from this you are running a valuable tool for many SOTA participants.

Tried it out on my Android Tablet with Android browser and also my desktop with Firefox: Works like a charm. Personally I would prefer the first result sorted by distance instead of reference. But that’s only a single touch to change this. I expect the Export button being greyed out is intended.
To be honest, up to now I used my dedicated Garmin GPS receiver for this feature. (We talked about this when we met at the Ham Radio.) Of course I had to load suitable summits lists on the Garmin before. As mobile coverage is often quite patchy a lightweight online solution is a nice supplement for this.

73 de Michael, DB7MM