View Dynamic Objects

The View Dynamic Objects window is where dynamic objects are managed. Every Object appearing on the Dynamic Objects view is also listed on the Local Object table view, as they are locally originated Objects managed and transmitted by the local station. However, dynamic objects have additional attributes describing how the objects will travel.

There are two tabs on the View->Dynamic Objects window:

• the Dynamic Objects tab, which lists all dynamic objects and their current motion parameters:

  1. enabled status;
  2. the scope of object transmission (Private on the local station only, on the Local RF network only, or Global authorized to be forwarded to the APRS-IS network);
  3. play/pause button (to quickly stop or resume motion of the object);
  4. speed in the current configured distance unit per hour;
  5. name of the associated route, if travelling on a route;
  6. bearing of travel, in degrees relative to True North, if not following a route. If the object is following a route, the bearing value is ignored and unmodified.

  The tab also has buttons to create a dynamic object, change an existing local fixed object to a dynamic object, and delete a dynamic object when you no longer need it.

• the Routes tab, which lists all loaded route paths which may be associated with dynamic objects. Each route has the following parameters:

  • the name of the route (used to reference the route on the Dynamic Objects tab), taken from the file containing the route, optionally with an appended sequence number if more than one route came from the same file.
  • a checkbox to enable or disable plotting of the route on the main map window. Note that this has no effect on whether the route can be used to direct the path of a dynamic object; the object will follow its route regardless of whether the route is displayed.
  • the width in pixels that the route polyline will be drawn.
  • the color the polyline will be drawn in.
  • the transparency of the the polyline (0 is invisible, 255 is fully opaque).
  • the stroke style of the polyline, a choice of solid, dashed, dotted, or dashed-dotted.
  • the read-only count of the number of vertices in the route polyline, as determined when the route was loaded from a file.

  There are buttons below the tabular list of routes for loading a route from a CSV, GPX, or KML file, and deleting an already loaded route selected in the table.

  When loading a route file, additional controls are on the Load dialog window to:

  • specify the color, width, and stroke style to use for the route(s) (if such information is not already included in a KML file);
  • specify whether the route(s) in the file are an open polyline or a closed polygon
  • whether the loaded route should be compared against roads, trails, etc., in the OpenStreetMap database to improve the accuracy of road-following routes. For example, if the route is determined from a cue sheet that only lists intersections where the event participants are expected to turn (or not), this option may help in getting the dynamic routes to better match curving roads between the cue sheet points (rather than plotting it as corner-cutting straight lines between the cue sheet points). Note this feature is a best-guess approximation, and may not give the desired results. When in doubt, add intermediate vertices to the route yourself to ensure the path is followed correctly, i.e., be a track segment in a GPX file rather than a GPX route that only identifies the intersections and not the points in-between.

  The supported file formats are CSV (comma-separated values, with the latitude and longitude in the first and second columns respectively in fractional degrees North and East), and standard XML-based GPX files (commonly used by commercial GPS products and their PC software) and KML files (as also used by Google Maps and other GIS products). Note the plugin does not read spreadsheets in their native file formats; the data must be exported in the plain-text CSV format to be readable.