A aviation & planes forum. AviationBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » AviationBanter forum » rec.aviation newsgroups » General Aviation
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

I'm buying your sectionals for a year.



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old November 12th 03, 02:08 AM
Kyler Laird
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default I'm buying your sectionals for a year.

Not long ago, in rec.aviation.student,
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e....com&frame=off
I learned that the FAA is now selling scanned sectional chart DVDs.
http://www.naco.faa.gov/index.asp?xm...ctional_Raster

At over $300/year for each of the East and West sets, it sounded like
many potential users wouldn't get to touch them. That would be a shame.

I've wanted the data for a long time too, so I decided to get it and
make it available to everyone.
http://aviationtoolbox.org/raw_data/FAA_sectionals/

I'm hoping to provide a bunch of tools to manipulate these (and other)
data sets, but that'll take awhile so I'm offering the raw data for
now. I'll probably move it around later, but I'll make sure it's easy
to find.

Note that the East and West data sets only take 2.7GB, so even with
the Alaska set, a single DVD has plenty of space for all of this (and
the ATA-100 data and an operating system...). Is anyone interested
in DVDs like that? I'm thinking that I'll donate these DVDs to Purdue.
The Computer Society there makes copies of various CDs as a fund raiser
and I'd try to get them to start making DVDs of these data sets if
people would pay enough to make it worthwhile.

I'll try to get some tools going soon. I'll also be configuring to
allow other people to write their own tools on my server and access
everything remotely through XML-RPC.

Enjoy!

--kyler
  #2  
Old November 12th 03, 02:26 AM
David Megginson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Kyler Laird writes:

I've wanted the data for a long time too, so I decided to get it and
make it available to everyone.
http://aviationtoolbox.org/raw_data/FAA_sectionals/


Very nice -- I hope you don't get burned up on the bandwidth because
of your generosity.


All the best,


David
  #3  
Old November 12th 03, 02:57 AM
Borislav Deianov
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

In rec.aviation.student Kyler Laird wrote:
I learned that the FAA is now selling scanned sectional chart DVDs.

....
I've wanted the data for a long time too, so I decided to get it and
make it available to everyone.
http://aviationtoolbox.org/raw_data/FAA_sectionals/


*boggle* I'm not sure which is more shocking - that the FAA would sell
scanned sectionals at all or that somebody would put them up for free
download. THANK YOU!

If you are at all worried about the bandwidth, you might want to set
up BitTorrent on your server: http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/

Regards,
Boris
  #4  
Old November 12th 03, 04:08 AM
Kyler Laird
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Borislav Deianov writes:

*boggle* I'm not sure which is more shocking - that the FAA would sell
scanned sectionals at all or that somebody would put them up for free
download.


Neither should be shocking. Both should be *expected*. We (taxpayers)
pay for this data collection, right?

THANK YOU!


You're welcome. I'll be thrilled if people find it useful.

BTW, I decided to finally move the ATA-100 data and my old (ug, Perl)
interface over to the same server.
http://aviationtoolbox.org/old/ATA-100/
I find that data to be almost as interesting as the sectionals but I
think it's really going to get interesting when they're combined.

If you are at all worried about the bandwidth, you might want to set
up BitTorrent on your server: http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/


Thank you for the suggestion. BitTorrent is great and, of course,
anyone is welcome to inject this data into it, but I hope some thought
will go into some sort of versioning so that updates will easily
propagate. It shouldn't be necessary though. I got this server with
the intent of serving up useful stuff like this without worrying about
bandwidth usage (as I do with my other colo).

plug
This one is hosted at FDC Servers.
http://www.fdcservers.net/dedicated.html
The bandwidth is "unmetered." If it does bog down, I'll try to upgrade
to a faster plan.
/plug

Seriously...enjoy! No worries.

--kyler
  #5  
Old November 12th 03, 11:18 PM
David Megginson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Kyler Laird writes:

*boggle* I'm not sure which is more shocking - that the FAA would sell
scanned sectionals at all or that somebody would put them up for free
download.


Neither should be shocking. Both should be *expected*. We (taxpayers)
pay for this data collection, right?


We taxpayers in the rest of the world also pay for our governments'
geodata collection, but we see precious little of the result unless we
pay a lot of money. I know that we non-Americans don't always have
nice things to say about your country, but I think this is one area
where the U.S. is decades ahead of the rest of the world.

For example, my handrolled Canadian GPS airport and navaid database
comes from U.S. DAFIF data, since the U.S. publishes *far* more free
data for Canada than the Canadian government does. The new 3
arcsecond SRTM elevation data coming out is more than adequate for a
real-life, worldwide aviation terrain-avoidance system (or will be,
once it's all been checked), and the U.S. government is also releasing
it for free. I could go on and on, but I try not to gush online.


All the best,


David
  #6  
Old November 13th 03, 08:19 AM
Robert Perkins
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

On 13 Nov 2003 06:55:23 +0100, Frog wrote:

From: Kyler Laird

I've wanted the data for a long time too, so I decided to get it and
make it available to everyone.


Thank's, that's a hell of a nice gesture.


I'll say.

Hey, forgive me for being a low-timer noob rube, but how would one go
about using this data? Any examples I could use to start hacking away?

Rob

--
[You] don't make your kids P.C.-proof by keeping them
ignorant, you do it by helping them learn how to
educate themselves.

-- Orson Scott Card
  #7  
Old November 13th 03, 01:47 PM
Stu Gotts
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

HA! Won't Boeing/Jepp love that. The industry needs the competition,
but we might hear about Kyler's brakes failing while he drives around
a slippery mountain curve one day!


On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 01:08:26 GMT, Kyler Laird
wrote:

Not long ago, in rec.aviation.student,
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e....com&frame=off
I learned that the FAA is now selling scanned sectional chart DVDs.
http://www.naco.faa.gov/index.asp?xm...ctional_Raster

At over $300/year for each of the East and West sets, it sounded like
many potential users wouldn't get to touch them. That would be a shame.

I've wanted the data for a long time too, so I decided to get it and
make it available to everyone.
http://aviationtoolbox.org/raw_data/FAA_sectionals/

I'm hoping to provide a bunch of tools to manipulate these (and other)
data sets, but that'll take awhile so I'm offering the raw data for
now. I'll probably move it around later, but I'll make sure it's easy
to find.

Note that the East and West data sets only take 2.7GB, so even with
the Alaska set, a single DVD has plenty of space for all of this (and
the ATA-100 data and an operating system...). Is anyone interested
in DVDs like that? I'm thinking that I'll donate these DVDs to Purdue.
The Computer Society there makes copies of various CDs as a fund raiser
and I'd try to get them to start making DVDs of these data sets if
people would pay enough to make it worthwhile.

I'll try to get some tools going soon. I'll also be configuring to
allow other people to write their own tools on my server and access
everything remotely through XML-RPC.

Enjoy!

--kyler


  #8  
Old November 13th 03, 05:08 PM
Kyler Laird
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Frog writes:

I hate to be a pain in the butt, but would it be possible for you to
split the files.


It would, and I'm going to be doing some weird things with them that
might help you, but it shouldn't be a problem even now.

I've only got a lowly dial up connection and it would
take me 4 1/2 days to download just the eastern set. If you could
split it up a little, I could download it over roughly a week and a half
of nights.


You can split them on your own. I'm running Apache so byterange
requests are well supported. You should be able to request any portion
of the files.

If you don't know what that means...find an HTTP client that supports
"resuming downloads", "continuing downloads" or "regetting".

BTW, I've had bandwidth problems. I noticed I was only serving about
1Mbps last night so I filed a report. This morning I was up to 2.5Mbps
but now I'm down around 1.5Mbps. I hope to get it up to at least 5Mbps.

--kyler
  #9  
Old November 13th 03, 05:08 PM
Kyler Laird
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Robert Perkins writes:

Hey, forgive me for being a low-timer noob rube, but how would one go
about using this data? Any examples I could use to start hacking away?


TIFF viewers are widely available so if you just want to grab an image
and view/print it you should be all set.

If you want to go back and forth between pixels and locations (latitude
and longitude), you'll need to exploit these images' GeoTIFF info.
http://remotesensing.org/geotiff/geotiff.html

I'm using GDAL
http://www.remotesensing.org/gdal/
from Python to do this. I'll be happy to share code, but I'm still
trying to figure out a lot of it.

If you're not into programming that much, wait for me to get some other
tools available. Feel free to make requests. I'm thinking that I might
start posting about this in rec.aviation.misc with subjects beginning
"aviationtoolbox: " so that others can easily track/skip the threads.

--kyler
  #10  
Old November 13th 03, 05:08 PM
Kyler Laird
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Stu Gotts writes:

HA! Won't Boeing/Jepp love that. The industry needs the competition,
but we might hear about Kyler's brakes failing while he drives around
a slippery mountain curve one day!


Another good reason for me to stay in Indiana...

--kyler
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Naval Air Refueling Needs Deferred in Air Force Tanker Plan Henry J Cobb Military Aviation 47 May 22nd 04 03:36 AM
Why was the Fokker D VII A Good Plane? Matthew G. Saroff Military Aviation 111 May 4th 04 05:34 PM
bush rules! Be Kind Military Aviation 53 February 14th 04 05:26 PM
Four Winds 192 Crash into the Miami Federal Reserve Building, a year ago today Billgran Home Built 3 December 6th 03 04:22 PM
It's that time of year again. Capt. Doug Home Built 19 September 3rd 03 10:53 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 09:35 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 AviationBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.