[Xastir-dev] Adding coordinate formats to Xastir

[Curt Mills]

On Sun, 2 Jan 2005, Tapio Sokura wrote:

> I imagine there would have to be some configurabitily on the displayed
> coordinate systems as well. An average Xastir user probably is not that
> interested in always seeing about four Finland-specific coordinate systems on
> the calculator :) Let alone tens or hundreds of other formats if/when other
> national systems are added.

Agreed.  Some sort of a deal where the user could ADD several
formats to it, and choose from a list of all coordinate systems
available, would work.  Just have that in the File->Configure area
somewhere, configure it once, and forget about it.  It'd be good to
allow several to be added, perhaps no upper limit on the quantity.


> I was wondering whether autodetecting the additional coordinate systems to
> display in the coordinate calculator based on the location of the station
> would work.

I'd think you'd be asking for trouble with that.  You might kind'a
get it right at first, then changing political boundaries would make
it be forever out of date.  Add to that some people might have an
interest in areas that are not by their home, perhaps friends or
vacation places in a foreign country, and you'd have a major problem
trying to account for that.

 
> Letting the user select which formats he wants to see
> might be clearer.

Yep.


> Anyway easy coordinate conversions would be nice for SAR, where air units use
> WGS-84 geographical coordinates and ground crews usually use national grid
> systems (the KKJs) and you need to be able to convert between them. And I
> guess in the future we will also see a variant of UTM (ETRS-TM35FIN) added to
> the mix..

The WGS-84 decimal lat/long for the air, UTM for the ground troops
scenario is exactly what we end up with in our SAR groups.  It's a
pain.

-- 
Curt, WE7U.				archer at eskimo dot com
http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
  Lotto:  A tax on people who are bad at math. - unknown
Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates. - WE7U.
The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"