I love airloom[1], but since yours is open source, I'll try to make use of it next time, and contribute code or ideas :)
Fwiw, my use-case is simply throwing it on the TV as a screensaver of sorts for my nephews when someone they know is travelling. Just a way to make the world seem smaller!
It's led to some cute situations where their mom was flying almost directly over my dad living in our childhood home, and we video called him and directed him to the spot in the sky where my sister (his daughter) was flying over. Her kids were ecstatic. We live in interesting times
That altitude scale could use something that makes logical sense than the seemingly random colors? Like its super hard to tell it by the color without knowing the index.
That is definitely up there in the todo, I wanted to try and render out 3d aircraft models too, if i could even get like 10-15 commonly used models and keep rest generic, it would still improve the viewing experience by a lot, for now the next update would for sure indicate the model number and the origin/destination on hover itself.
Looks cool to look at. Something that would be cool to have in an airport lounge, or just any public space near an airport
I wonder how feasible it would be to render all airplanes at once, not just those near the chosen airport. A quick google says there are about 12-14k planes in the air at any given time, which sounds reasonable to render with some optimizations
I currently use opensky network api on the client side itself using their anon user thing, which limits me to burn credits, it could in practice load the entire world but you would get rate limited pretty much instantly by opensky.
For the same reason, I made it open source, you can throw in your keys in there and can render all the flights, but keeping it open and free was the priority here, so had to compromise on the distance, but within a given city it has all the flights accurately.
I was wondering, I flew about 1,100 miles one way then back (no stops). The first path we were very high up I'd assume like 30K feet, the way back we flew I'd say 10K feet, much lower. I was wondering why.
Possibly to do with how the jet streams were at that time.
For longer flights, large passenger aircraft will generally aim for something like 30k feet - the thinner air means less air resistance so more fuel efficiency (the cost is the fuel required to get there, which is why I said "for longer flights").
However, at that altitude the "jet stream" can cause winds of 100+ mph. This can be helpful with your direction of travel, or it can slow you down. If the jet stream was strong and trying to blow you backwards, it may have been more efficient to travel at a lower altitude where the jet stream wasn't present.
There are many factors that could have contributed to this (airspace restrictions, turbulence, etc...), but usually altitudes are selected based on the prevailing winds. You want as strong of a tailwind, or at least as weak of a headwind as possible.
still working on adding a custom terrain map, so its more realistic to view, while the globe part is just pure skill issue, i tried a few different approaches but wasn't able to code that in
Both this post's viewer and the older one I linked directly above have greatly exaggerated vertical scaling. It is not proportional to the distances on the map. With actual 1:1 height scale all these planes, even the stratospheric jets, would be much closer to the ground.
Currently it servers more aesthetically than accuracy when it comes to vertical scaling, its on the feature list to add 1:1 height scale, it isn't as pleasing to look at but definitely a must have.
Nice to hear. Just as an aside, the one I linked already has a (deep in the settings) setting to adjust the vertical scaling. But even at minimum 0.2 ~ 0.3 scale it's still not 1:1.
So I did play around with it for a while, and one thing that I kept running into is how dysfunctional the entire thing becomes at that scale, it looks really good surprisingly, yet the usability gets really limiting, and makes it X times harder to use, a logarithmic solution might be better here I believe.
I love airloom[1], but since yours is open source, I'll try to make use of it next time, and contribute code or ideas :)
Fwiw, my use-case is simply throwing it on the TV as a screensaver of sorts for my nephews when someone they know is travelling. Just a way to make the world seem smaller!
It's led to some cute situations where their mom was flying almost directly over my dad living in our childhood home, and we video called him and directed him to the spot in the sky where my sister (his daughter) was flying over. Her kids were ecstatic. We live in interesting times
[1]: https://objectiveunclear.com/airloom.html
Are you a member of the Kardashians?
Aren't we all in some way, if not just a little?
That altitude scale could use something that makes logical sense than the seemingly random colors? Like its super hard to tell it by the color without knowing the index.
Great app/site!! Only thing I'm missing is a jump to here button (using GPS to switch to my location on the map)
The planes look like swords, made me think Cloud Strife was going outta control with his Smash special.
This is really cool. Have you considered showing the aircraft model/type? Since the ICAO24 is already available, a lookup could add it.
That is definitely up there in the todo, I wanted to try and render out 3d aircraft models too, if i could even get like 10-15 commonly used models and keep rest generic, it would still improve the viewing experience by a lot, for now the next update would for sure indicate the model number and the origin/destination on hover itself.
Looks cool to look at. Something that would be cool to have in an airport lounge, or just any public space near an airport
I wonder how feasible it would be to render all airplanes at once, not just those near the chosen airport. A quick google says there are about 12-14k planes in the air at any given time, which sounds reasonable to render with some optimizations
I currently use opensky network api on the client side itself using their anon user thing, which limits me to burn credits, it could in practice load the entire world but you would get rate limited pretty much instantly by opensky.
For the same reason, I made it open source, you can throw in your keys in there and can render all the flights, but keeping it open and free was the priority here, so had to compromise on the distance, but within a given city it has all the flights accurately.
it's 3D but I can't go first person mode on the planes feels a missed opportunity
I was wondering, I flew about 1,100 miles one way then back (no stops). The first path we were very high up I'd assume like 30K feet, the way back we flew I'd say 10K feet, much lower. I was wondering why.
Possibly to do with how the jet streams were at that time.
For longer flights, large passenger aircraft will generally aim for something like 30k feet - the thinner air means less air resistance so more fuel efficiency (the cost is the fuel required to get there, which is why I said "for longer flights").
However, at that altitude the "jet stream" can cause winds of 100+ mph. This can be helpful with your direction of travel, or it can slow you down. If the jet stream was strong and trying to blow you backwards, it may have been more efficient to travel at a lower altitude where the jet stream wasn't present.
There are many factors that could have contributed to this (airspace restrictions, turbulence, etc...), but usually altitudes are selected based on the prevailing winds. You want as strong of a tailwind, or at least as weak of a headwind as possible.
Fantastic. Nice work using color as additional altitude information.
Maybe I missed it, but it is always fun to see the origin and destination when looking at flight tracks.
That's fun. Having helicopters and their entire flight trails would be neat too.
Looks flat to me ...
Some mountain airports might be quite interesting with 3d terrain
But that's not what this is. Here only the airplanes are in the third dimension. The world map isn't even a globe
My local airport is at 1417ft MSL, so the planes start and land in mid-air.
still working on adding a custom terrain map, so its more realistic to view, while the globe part is just pure skill issue, i tried a few different approaches but wasn't able to code that in
Use the double-arrow buttons to change the view angle.
I think it’s a comment stating that it’s a flat image without depth.
A non flat visualisation is what you could see for example on a 3D screen, augmented reality, or virtual reality.
Very cool! Have you considered rendering clouds?
I love this
this is awesome!
See also, https://objectiveunclear.com/airloom.html?airport=MSP . Another very nice 3D viewer for adsb info.
Both this post's viewer and the older one I linked directly above have greatly exaggerated vertical scaling. It is not proportional to the distances on the map. With actual 1:1 height scale all these planes, even the stratospheric jets, would be much closer to the ground.
Currently it servers more aesthetically than accuracy when it comes to vertical scaling, its on the feature list to add 1:1 height scale, it isn't as pleasing to look at but definitely a must have.
I think the current scale is a good solution. Otherwise the vertical data is too compressed when you zoom out
Nice to hear. Just as an aside, the one I linked already has a (deep in the settings) setting to adjust the vertical scaling. But even at minimum 0.2 ~ 0.3 scale it's still not 1:1.
So I did play around with it for a while, and one thing that I kept running into is how dysfunctional the entire thing becomes at that scale, it looks really good surprisingly, yet the usability gets really limiting, and makes it X times harder to use, a logarithmic solution might be better here I believe.