S2K tracking map

[abajan]

Could someone please enlighten me on why TD Twenty-Seven still appears on the tracking map at the top of the Active Storms/Invests - Atlantic ... forum? It's been 14 days since that tropical depression became Epsilon. And Epsilon has been dead for some time now.

[tolakram]

Could someone please enlighten me on why TD Twenty-Seven still appears on the tracking map at the top of the Active Storms/Invests - Atlantic ... forum? It's been 14 days since that tropical depression became Epsilon. And Epsilon has been dead for some time now.

https://i.imgur.com/R4LBViU.jpg

It's broken, doesn't handle this many storms, and the API that's used is retired but thankfully the firm that runs it, and asks for money now, keeps the old version active. The PHP code that draws the map is obfuscated and as far as I can tell can't be fixed. It works fine as long as we don't have too many storms.

[abajan]

Could someone please enlighten me on why TD Twenty-Seven still appears on the tracking map at the top of the Active Storms/Invests - Atlantic ... forum? It's been 14 days since that tropical depression became Epsilon. And Epsilon has been dead for some time now.

https://i.imgur.com/R4LBViU.jpg

It's broken, doesn't handle this many storms, and the API that's used is retired but thankfully the firm that runs it, and asks for money now, keeps the old version active. The PHP code that draws the map is obfuscated and as far as I can tell can't be fixed. It works fine as long as we don't have too many storms.

I see it's been replaced with the NHC graphic. Good idea!

[cycloneye]

Yes, it will be temporary while a new graphic is installed for 2021 but at least we have something.

[Extratropical94]

I am aware that I'm necro-ing this thread, but are there any updates on this? Are there still plans to have a unique S2K tracking map or has the NHC TWO map solution become a permanent one?

The reason why I'm asking are the appreciative comments I received for the snipped of my track map in the Victor thread. Maybe I was a bit rash to dismiss the idea of turning it into a new track map for S2K.
I'm setting up a Raspberry Pi at home this weekend to help me with some automated data processing, and I'm sure that it could also handle some plotting. Also, I played around with the code, removed some hi-res details, and resized the map layout, so it could be embedded in the website (at 50% size or something, the original is still ~ 2500x1200px).

Long story short, if there is still a demand for a track map for the forum, I'd be happy to contribute.

Right now, it looks something like this:

[tolakram]

I am aware that I'm necro-ing this thread, but are there any updates on this? Are there still plans to have a unique S2K tracking map or has the NHC TWO map solution become a permanent one?

The reason why I'm asking are the appreciative comments I received for the snipped of my track map in the Victor thread. Maybe I was a bit rash to dismiss the idea of turning it into a new track map for S2K.
I'm setting up a Raspberry Pi at home this weekend to help me with some automated data processing, and I'm sure that it could also handle some plotting. Also, I played around with the code, removed some hi-res details, and resized the map layout, so it could be embedded in the website (at 50% size or something, the original is still ~ 2500x1200px).

Long story short, if there is still a demand for a track map for the forum, I'd be happy to contribute.

Right now, it looks something like this:

https://i.imgur.com/gDnUZT0.png

That would be awesome, but might not be as easy as one would hope. The old map service is dead, the company now offers commercial products (if they are still in business) and left the free service up for years, maybe without realizing it? The primary issue with the map will be the load, as it's loaded on every view of the page. We had some complex PHP scripts to cache the map locally, only updating it every 30 minutes or so, once, and using the local copy for display.

I'm not a PHP programmer, and I'm not sure how we could write a service to grab (cache) the map for local display. I'm sure it can be done, but my experience is Microsoft.NET, not PHP.

[Extratropical94]

I am aware that I'm necro-ing this thread, but are there any updates on this? Are there still plans to have a unique S2K tracking map or has the NHC TWO map solution become a permanent one?

The reason why I'm asking are the appreciative comments I received for the snipped of my track map in the Victor thread. Maybe I was a bit rash to dismiss the idea of turning it into a new track map for S2K.
I'm setting up a Raspberry Pi at home this weekend to help me with some automated data processing, and I'm sure that it could also handle some plotting. Also, I played around with the code, removed some hi-res details, and resized the map layout, so it could be embedded in the website (at 50% size or something, the original is still ~ 2500x1200px).

Long story short, if there is still a demand for a track map for the forum, I'd be happy to contribute.

Right now, it looks something like this:

https://i.imgur.com/gDnUZT0.png

That would be awesome, but might not be as easy as one would hope. The old map service is dead, the company now offers commercial products (if they are still in business) and left the free service up for years, maybe without realizing it? The primary issue with the map will be the load, as it's loaded on every view of the page. We had some complex PHP scripts to cache the map locally, only updating it every 30 minutes or so, once, and using the local copy for display.

I'm not a PHP programmer, and I'm not sure how we could write a service to grab (cache) the map for local display. I'm sure it can be done, but my experience is Microsoft.NET, not PHP.

Thank you for the reply! I hadn't thought about the load issue. Doesn't caching actually increase the traffic (for S2K at least), since every user viewing the page downloads the map from the S2K server instead of the external hoster? I guess that might be helpful in the case that the external hoster is less reliable or has unstable connection.

If I understand you correctly, the script just needs to grab the image from an external source and move it to the webserver where S2K is running on.
Unfortunately, I am no PHP programmer either, but I could imagine that such a script is basically a one-liner. Something along the lines of

Code: Select all

copy(url_to_hosted_image.com/map.png, /local/directory/images/map.png)

in pseudocode.

Maybe this could even be done with a simple wget or curl shell script on the webserver, which is then started automatically every 30 minutes by a cron job.

Feel free to correct me if I am getting this wrong.

[tolakram]

I am aware that I'm necro-ing this thread, but are there any updates on this? Are there still plans to have a unique S2K tracking map or has the NHC TWO map solution become a permanent one?

The reason why I'm asking are the appreciative comments I received for the snipped of my track map in the Victor thread. Maybe I was a bit rash to dismiss the idea of turning it into a new track map for S2K.
I'm setting up a Raspberry Pi at home this weekend to help me with some automated data processing, and I'm sure that it could also handle some plotting. Also, I played around with the code, removed some hi-res details, and resized the map layout, so it could be embedded in the website (at 50% size or something, the original is still ~ 2500x1200px).

Long story short, if there is still a demand for a track map for the forum, I'd be happy to contribute.

Right now, it looks something like this:

https://i.imgur.com/gDnUZT0.png

That would be awesome, but might not be as easy as one would hope. The old map service is dead, the company now offers commercial products (if they are still in business) and left the free service up for years, maybe without realizing it? The primary issue with the map will be the load, as it's loaded on every view of the page. We had some complex PHP scripts to cache the map locally, only updating it every 30 minutes or so, once, and using the local copy for display.

I'm not a PHP programmer, and I'm not sure how we could write a service to grab (cache) the map for local display. I'm sure it can be done, but my experience is Microsoft.NET, not PHP.

Thank you for the reply! I hadn't thought about the load issue. Doesn't caching actually increase the traffic (for S2K at least), since every user viewing the page downloads the map from the S2K server instead of the external hoster? I guess that might be helpful in the case that the external hoster is less reliable or has unstable connection.

If I understand you correctly, the script just needs to grab the image from an external source and move it to the webserver where S2K is running on.
Unfortunately, I am no PHP programmer either, but I could imagine that such a script is basically a one-liner. Something along the lines of

Code: Select all

copy(url_to_hosted_image.com/map.png, /local/directory/images/map.png)

in pseudocode.

Maybe this could even be done with a simple wget or curl shell script on the webserver, which is then started automatically every 30 minutes by a cron job.

Feel free to correct me if I am getting this wrong.

That’s correct, but where will the image be hosted and how much bandwidth do they allow? It would need to be the same file name and updated automatically. Caching does bring the cost to S2K which is preferred because it’s already paid for.