New, free viewer for IGC logger files

[Alistair Green[_2_]]

Dear Pilots,

Recently I started using XCSoar on my smartphone to record IGC logger
traces of my flights in club gliders. Naturally I wanted to review my
flights on a PC afterwards, but this was not easy to do without expensive
commercial software. Some free programs exist, but I found them to be
tricky to set up and awkward to use on a small laptop screen.

So, I decided to write my own IGC viewing software, and release it for
free.

The result is now online at:

https://alistairmgreen.github.io/jsigc/

and the full source code is available from:

https://github.com/alistairmgreen/jsigc

It is written in JavaScript and runs inside a web browser, which means that
no installation is required - simply go to the web site, click the button
and select a file. (Note that all of the processing happens on your
computer; nothing is ever uploaded to the Internet.)

The layout of the web page adjusts itself to match the screen size. I have
used it on a large desktop monitor, a 15" laptop, a small netbook and a
smartphone.

At present, the software has the following features:

* Interactive map showing the glider's flight path and the declared task
(if any). The map data comes from the OpenStreetMap project.

* Graph showing the GPS height and pressure altitude as a function of time,
either in metres or in feet.

* Display of any "header" information included in the file (pilot name,
glider registration etc.)

Of course it is by no means a replacement for "SeeYou" or similar, but I
hope that it will be useful to somebody.

I intend to make further improvements in the future, and would be grateful
for any input from the community. Comments, suggestions and bug reports can
be left on the GitHub issue tracker:

https://github.com/alistairmgreen/jsigc/issues

Anyone with programming or web design skills is more than welcome to make
their own copy of the code and add some new features or cosmetic tweaks. I
would love to receive a GitHub "pull request" with your enhancements.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Alistair Green
Bath, Wilts & North Dorset Gliding Club, UK

P.S. In case you have never heard of "GitHub", it is one of the biggest
computer programming sites on the Web. It provides tools for sharing
program source code and merging together changes made by different people,
allowing programmers all over the world to collaborate.

[Colin Wray[_3_]]

Brilliant Alistair, many thanks.
It seems churlish to suggest improvements, but you did ask:
Some way of relating time/height with position on the map ?

On Thursday, 20 August 2015 22:45:10 UTC+1, Alistair Green wrote:
> Dear Pilots,
>
> Recently I started using XCSoar on my smartphone to record IGC logger
> traces of my flights in club gliders. Naturally I wanted to review my
> flights on a PC afterwards, but this was not easy to do without expensive
> commercial software. Some free programs exist, but I found them to be
> tricky to set up and awkward to use on a small laptop screen.
>
> So, I decided to write my own IGC viewing software, and release it for
> free.
>
> The result is now online at:
>
> https://alistairmgreen.github.io/jsigc/
>
> and the full source code is available from:
>
> https://github.com/alistairmgreen/jsigc
>
> It is written in JavaScript and runs inside a web browser, which means that
> no installation is required - simply go to the web site, click the button
> and select a file. (Note that all of the processing happens on your
> computer; nothing is ever uploaded to the Internet.)
>
> The layout of the web page adjusts itself to match the screen size. I have
> used it on a large desktop monitor, a 15" laptop, a small netbook and a
> smartphone.
>
> At present, the software has the following features:
>
> * Interactive map showing the glider's flight path and the declared task
> (if any). The map data comes from the OpenStreetMap project.
>
> * Graph showing the GPS height and pressure altitude as a function of time,
> either in metres or in feet.
>
> * Display of any "header" information included in the file (pilot name,
> glider registration etc.)
>
> Of course it is by no means a replacement for "SeeYou" or similar, but I
> hope that it will be useful to somebody.
>
> I intend to make further improvements in the future, and would be grateful
> for any input from the community. Comments, suggestions and bug reports can
> be left on the GitHub issue tracker:
>
> https://github.com/alistairmgreen/jsigc/issues
>
> Anyone with programming or web design skills is more than welcome to make
> their own copy of the code and add some new features or cosmetic tweaks. I
> would love to receive a GitHub "pull request" with your enhancements.
>
> Thanks for reading.
>
> Regards,
>
> Alistair Green
> Bath, Wilts & North Dorset Gliding Club, UK
>
> P.S. In case you have never heard of "GitHub", it is one of the biggest
> computer programming sites on the Web. It provides tools for sharing
> program source code and merging together changes made by different people,
> allowing programmers all over the world to collaborate.

[Alistair Green[_2_]]

At 23:06 20 August 2015, Colin Wray wrote:
>Brilliant Alistair, many thanks.
>It seems churlish to suggest improvements, but you did ask:
>Some way of relating time/height with position on the map ?
>

Thanks, I'm glad you like it.

In terms of improvements, I had been thinking much the same thing - maybe a
time slider that would move markers on the map and the graph?

It also really needs a way to read accurate values off the graph - "Does
this qualify for Silver Height or not?"

Regards,

Alistair

[Soartech]

Looks very nice. I often like to see my flights on map as opposed to Google Earth.
However the date of my flight is a day before it occured. Not sure why. I will have to check the date/time in my Android tablet.

[Soartech]

On Thursday, August 20, 2015 at 8:29:18 PM UTC-4, Soartech wrote:
> Looks very nice. I often like to see my flights on map as opposed to Google Earth.
> However the date of my flight is a day before it occured. Not sure why. I will have to check the date/time in my Android tablet.

Just checked the date/time and they are both right on. You may have a problem. I used XCsoar to record the IGC file.

[[email protected]]

Very cool app. I also see the date problem with my flight date one day earlier than actual. Flight can be downloaded here: http://crosscountry.aero/flight/view/6074

You might want to use some of the features of crosscountry.aero as ideas for improving your app. It's always good to have some competition among these tool developers.

5Z

On Thursday, August 20, 2015 at 5:31:58 PM UTC-7, Soartech wrote:
> Just checked the date/time and they are both right on. You may have a problem. I used XCsoar to record the IGC file.

[Brad Alston]

;908042']Dear Pilots,

...

So, I decided to write my own IGC viewing software, and release it for
free.

...


Well done Alistair! Thank you for sharing your talents with us.

Brad.

[Alistair Green[_2_]]

At 01:56 21 August 2015, wrote:
>Very cool app. I also see the date problem with my flight date one day
>earlier than actual. Flight can be downloaded here:
>http://crosscountry.aero/flight/view/6074
>
>You might want to use some of the features of crosscountry.aero as ideas
>for improving your app. It's always good to have some competition among
>these tool developers.
>
>5Z
>
>On Thursday, August 20, 2015 at 5:31:58 PM UTC-7, Soartech wrote:
>> Just checked the date/time and they are both right on. You may have a
>problem. I used XCsoar to record the IGC file.
>

Thanks to everyone who replied. I'll have to look into the date issue; it
is probably something to do with flying in a time zone significantly
different from UTC.

I did not know about crosscountry.aero, but it looks useful!

Regards,

Alistair

[Colin Wray[_3_]]

A time slider would fix it for me.

On Friday, 21 August 2015 00:45:11 UTC+1, Alistair Green wrote:
> At 23:06 20 August 2015, Colin Wray wrote:
> >Brilliant Alistair, many thanks.
> >It seems churlish to suggest improvements, but you did ask:
> >Some way of relating time/height with position on the map ?
> >
>
> Thanks, I'm glad you like it.
>
> In terms of improvements, I had been thinking much the same thing - maybe a
> time slider that would move markers on the map and the graph?

That would be an excellent answer.

>
> It also really needs a way to read accurate values off the graph - "Does
> this qualify for Silver Height or not?"
>
> Regards,
>
> Alistair

[Alistair Green[_2_]]

I have updated the IGC viewer app to fix the date bug.

This problem only affected users whose system clock was set to a time zone
with a negative offset from UTC. The flight date was read from the file as
UTC, but implicitly converted to local time when displayed.

The date is now always shown as UTC; a side effect is that the time of the
first position fix is also included.

At 01:56 21 August 2015, wrote:
>Very cool app. I also see the date problem with my flight date one day
>earlier than actual. Flight can be downloaded here:
>http://crosscountry.aero/flight/view/6074
>
>You might want to use some of the features of crosscountry.aero as ideas
>for improving your app. It's always good to have some competition among
>these tool developers.
>
>5Z
>
>On Thursday, August 20, 2015 at 5:31:58 PM UTC-7, Soartech wrote:
>> Just checked the date/time and they are both right on. You may have a
>problem. I used XCsoar to record the IGC file.
>

[Dan Daly[_2_]]

On Monday, August 24, 2015 at 7:00:18 PM UTC-4, Alistair Green wrote:
> I have updated the IGC viewer app to fix the date bug.
>
> This problem only affected users whose system clock was set to a time zone
> with a negative offset from UTC. The flight date was read from the file as
> UTC, but implicitly converted to local time when displayed.
>
> The date is now always shown as UTC; a side effect is that the time of the
> first position fix is also included.

Thanks to Alistair from those of us with negative offsets!

[[email protected]]

thank you Alistair,

great addition to our tools!
Would you be able to implement the ENL analysis too?

regards,
aldo cernezzi
www.voloavela.it

[jmurtari]

Alistair,
Love you web based IGC viewer. I'm the webmaster for https://SoaringTools.org/ -- would love to host your stuff, add you as a contributor to the site?

My direct email: jmurtari --at-- SoaringTools.org