berkeleyguy3

The plot thickens...

If I look up "Los Cabos" by airport name, I get the code SDJ, which is incorrect. SDJ actually has a second entry in the database (which I assume is the correct one) for Sendai, Japan.

Another one for the list...

Thanks for all your work on this excellent tool!

rmyadsk

The SJD/SDJ issue has been resolved. SJD will resolve to Cabo, and SDJ is indeed in Japan.

The TerraServer feature is nearly finished and I'm going to attack the XML data store next. That will give us airport lookups, which means I can produce something for you folks. I go on the road tomorrow, so stay tuned, all the best code is written in the air. I hope to have something to post soon!

rmyadsk

Success!

Tonight I found an excellent (free) XML parser, CMarkup, and it couldn't be easier to read in the data. All I have to do is write the interface - where you enter the code to search for, and where the information will be displayed - and the Lookup program will be ready. This should be easily done tomorrow, in the air, on my flights from the airport shown in this screenshot to Honolulu.

This, of course, has large implications for the whole Flying Fish project because all the flight routing is is a collection of these airport objects...

Navin R Johnson

Awesome. Looking forward to the fruits of your hard labor.
In fact, I will go make a donation to you right now. Others should consider the same, too!

ja_user

True, as hard as I find it to pay for software. This is one program that I have no problem donating to. It has done everything advertised, and I have used it for a couple years now.

Now, I don't see that you accept Hawian MIles?

rmyadsk

Thanks, everyone, for your support. I had another very good couple of days working on this and I've made some real progress. I hope to have a first release of Airport Lookup available to you Saturday night (Hawaii time).

rmyadsk

Well folks, the first hint of an object-oriented Flying Fish has arrived. Please see page one to download the Airport Lookup component. This version is named 0.5.0 and with good reason; there's still quite a bit of work to get it to where it needs to be. Some fields are greyed out until I can perform some validation on the data, and I think the interface overall needs work. But it does demonstrate the XML capability as well as customization from a plain-text file (see the \cfg directory).

I've also added a very basic capability to fetch a map from the US Census Bureau's Tiger Map Server. It's a nice addition to the TerraServer imagery, but quite a bit of customization (for even basic things such as zoom/scale) are needed. Nevertheless, it was an easy derivation from the classes I wrote originally for the satellite imagery, and as I mentioned before, I have the (highly reusable) code forever now. This also means that when I find another service to interface with, the work will take hours, not days.

Enjoy the TerraServer imagery. I've included a satellite and map image of BWI, my home airport, to preserve the directory structure. In the configuration file, you can bump up the resolution to as much as 2000x2000 pixels (typically ~800KB) - the only other limitation is that of your screen and of your Internet connection! And coming soon...for certain urban areas...high-resolution color imagery.

Please be patient while downloading imagery: you may get a nasty "Not Responding" message while it works, especially if the file is large - this is due to the thread scheduling and I'm going to work to multithread it so the program will continue to function normally while the Internet socket is open. Right now we use HTTP port 80 but this will soon be configurable.

Enjoy playing with the options in the [TerraServer] configuration file section and remember, the default values can be found in factory.cfg.

Running the program will use the default.cfg file, but run it via a command prompt or via shortcut as "AirportLookup.exe factory.cfg" to read in the factory.cfg file instead. Or make copies of the configuration file and use those. It's entirely up to you. Heck, if you think you have a good one, post it here for others to use.

Airport Lookup, like Flying Fish (past and present versions), is free software. I only ask that you find a reason for its existence - use it and enjoy it. And pleas post your bugs/ideas/suggestions - that helps me make it better for everyone.

Thanks for your support.

AKronin

To jump back in time...

Yes, and definitely yes! ^ I just discovered your program a week or so ago, and from what I've seen it's awesome. Unfortunately I haven't had the chance to use it much since my home is Windows-free (but full of Macs). Are you still considering alternate OS versions, or perhaps a platform-agnostic Java edition? I searched the forum and your website but found no further mention...

ja_user

Can't you just run it through Wine?

WINE is a emulator of windows for other OS's.

AKronin

Thanks for the idea. I checked with Wine HQ and the Darwine project, but it seems running Windows binaries/executables on Mac OS X using only Wine is not currently possible.

ja_user

I have only used it on linux, but my understanding of OS X was that it was a BSD derrivitive, so you may be able to use BSD Binaries to get it to work?

AKronin

Yes, OS X is based on FreeBSD. However, my machines are all PPC. So my understanding is that I would either need some sort of x86 emulator, or else the Windows application source code would have to be recompiled using Winelib.

mshafrir

Is this project dead, or has it moved?

rmyadsk

I was actually working on another module, a Google Earth plugin, just hours ago on the plane out to Hawaii. You enter airport codes into the program and it exports the data to Google Earth. (There is no FF mileage information in the example yet.) It might be another option for visualization...though I still want to make the program available as "only" a simple mileage calculator. This uses many of the same things I wrote for the AirportLookup component - configuration files, XML datasets, etc.

Google Earth Preview

I'm developing, in tandem, a navigation program for a ship I find myself on regularly...

SeniorChief

Noticed some posts with regard to a Mac OS X verision of this program.

I would be very interested in that. Use Macs exclusively, tried WINE and just gives me headaches...

Notice you live and work in the same area I do. Make the BWI - HNL flight quite often...

Later,
Ken

BTW, somehow I know my first post on FT would be about my computer... Found FT by googling for information on UGS.