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davidhowland14
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davidhowland14 1199063614|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
Andyeich, over on SnowJournal you posted saying that it would be fairly easy to make add-on programs which would generate statistics for the trails and lifts. Would you mind posting on how to do this? I assume it's part of the Google Earth API?
AndyEich 1199065939|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
Yes, I posted some of suggested statistics in this thread, and while I don't know exactly how to generate such statistics yet, I know someone who writes "application folders" for GE that take inputs from GE (placemarks, notes within placemark properties, etc) and generate KML files that automatically load into GE. We would only need to do the first part of this, and based on discussions I've had with him, I have the impression it's not too difficult. While I haven't gone through it yet, he gave me a tutorial / "hello world" in C# that should get me started. If need be, I can do this myself, though I think it might be easier & faster to find someone who is a real programmer who wants to participate in the project.
I think first it would be best to generate our "requirements," basically a brainstormed list of statistics we want to be able to generate and how we'd like them to be displayed. I am assuming that to make this accessible, we'll try to minimize the stuff done in C#, export the data to csv/Excel and do most calculations and graphs there—any thoughts on that proposal?
davidhowland14 1199068215|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
Ideally we could have an unlimited number of statistics that are generated by a program. Then the user could suggest what they want to view. Would there be an easy way to move that statistical information from GE to the website. Ideally there could be a feed set up which would update as the GE files are updated.
AndyEich 1199075808|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
That would be awesome, but I'm sure it's beyond my capabilities. How about if we take things a little further over the next couple days, then go back to the NELSAP thread and see if we can find others who are interested?
davidhowland14 1199077195|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
Sounds good to me. I'm working on finishing an Attitash map, and i'll finish up the standards page sometime tomorrow, i hope. Then i'm off to loon until friday. I'll try to get as much done between now and then as i can.
Anonymous (72.93.131.x) 1200344079|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
Andy, have you thought at all about using Javascript, in order to be more cross platform? I'm on a mac, and if you use c# i can't help at all. JS is completely cross platfrom and probably better used for this sort of web-deployment.
-David
I keep forgetting to log in!
AndyEich 1200434054|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
I did consider Java but found it was not as popular in the GE forum. Is javascript a "real enough" language to support this kind of stuff? Last time I used it was ~1996 and it was just to do user prompts and popup windows in web pages; I assumed it was not full-featured but must be wrong.
My first choice would have been C++ since I used to know that, but GE forum people said it is a lot more difficult when you can't use the .net stuff (which I think requires VB, VC#, or VJ) and people with more time and experience than I seem to be trying the C++ route without success.
I have a programmer friend who has time and offered to help, but he hates MS so if we go that route it will be all on Linux and with open languages/compilers. That made me nervous because he hasn't used GE and the two people I know who do *lots* of GE development are completely Visual Studio / C# based. They are people I work with, so I would feel guilty about asking them for help until I've had time to make reasonable progress myself.
If we don't make progress in a couple months, I will go ahead and ask another friend for help who can do anything in no time. While I don't think he's wed to it, I think he does most of his stuff in Visual Studio on Windows.
So all things considered, if I am to make progress on the software (and by all means, feel free to try it as well in any way possible, or if we find a real programmer I'd be ecstatic to leave it all to him/her), I felt the C# route offered the biggest safety net.
davidhowland14 1200435681|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
I have some experience in Java, and I'm working slowly on working up a java app for this which I can use to base the JS off of. I also have found a C# compiler for mac. I would personally tend to lean towards the open source route, but that's just my personal prejudices talking. Let's work a little more on our own and see what works before we make any decisions.
AndyEich 1200494721|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
Made some progress last night. Wasted a bunch of time with utilities to convert kml2csv, but then got pseabury's API wrapper to compile and made some slight modifications to dump the names of all states, areas, and trails to a text file when you run the executable. It will take a good bit more experimentation to access trail properties (even lat/lon/alt), and certainly a while to figure out how to make it run from within GE, but I feel a lot better about it than I did a day ago.
