[FOSS-GPS] Foxtrot GPS track live refresh

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

"rolandas at rodali.lt" <rolandas at rodali.lt> writes:
>
> Hello FoxtrotGPS fellow developers...
> 
> We have spotted FoxtrotGPS as possible software for our embedded Linux
> flight computer to be used in motorized ultralight gliders. We are
> developing electrical motor monitoring software and after looking to
> GPS/map application, believe FoxtrotGPS is very close to our needs for
> additional features related to flight tracking.
> 
> As I understood Friends tracking feature currentluy is rudiment from
> TangoGPS and is not working, as it is related to TangoGPS sever.

Yes, that's right--and with tangogps.org `parked' as it is,
the friend-finder just causes a crash, so I've disabled it
in bzr until we have another back-end to replace the tangogps.org
service.

If you search through the foss-gps archive, you'll find some
preliminary discussion about possibilities. I'd still favour XMPP
(XEP-0080 geolocation; and possibly publishing location via MUC,
 or publishing location via PubSub and using MUC for `shared roster'),
but will happily listen to other proposals from people interested
in helping do the work :)

> We are developing some software which will synchronise files between
> several flight computers ( on separate gliders flying within visibility
> range)  via SSH ( SCP or SFTP) via WIFI adhoc network. FoxtrotGPS
> tracks, could theoretically also be synchronised live at a rate about
> once per second. If FoxtrotGPS would have an option to redraw selected
> tracks constantly while track files are updated by other system
> processes, we would have live picture of glider tracks flying close to
> each other. For us important to see not only where another glider is
> located (friend position), but also his track parameters lift/sink
> during the flight.
>
> The whole meaning of this idea is to broadcast flight conditions by the
> first glider in the team for other team members to make decisions in
> lifting airstream (thermals) searches.
> 
> Could you plese let us know if somebody would be interested to make slight
> FoxtrotGPS modifications which would allow live redrawing of selected
> tracks.

Sounds like a great idea; when we get the friend-finder working again,
it seems like it should be relatively straight-forward to have it
use the existing track-logging/-drawing (with slight modifications,
as you say) to also log `friend tracks' in addition to the main track.

And if you're offering to help with work on reviving the friend-finder,
that's fantastic :)

-- 
"Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr))))."