RunwayFinder From Google?

JohnSBA

JohnSBA

Pre-takeoff checklist
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JohnSBA
I'd like to gather support for petitioning Google to provide a replacement for the RunwayFinder website that, along with several other great av sites, has just been killed by legal threats from a patent troll. In case you didn't know, RunwayFinder was a fabulous site for flight planning that would overlay public domain charts on the Google Maps interface. If enough people express interest and support, it's possible that Google will add most or all of RunwayFinder's great features to gMaps and presumably also make short work of the patent troll.

Just in case I'm the only one who thinks this a good idea or Google doesn't agree, I've discovered a handy way to get flight distances and some other handy features on gMaps. It would be a good start if a charts view were simply added along with Terrain and the others, even if it were in the "More" pulldown menu along with Bicycling and the rest. Anyway, you can get some helpful features by clicking on the green icon at the top-right of the gMaps screen (see attachment).
gMapsIcon.jpg
 
Don't need Google to agree. Google publishes an API that anyone can use to create a mashup of Google maps and what ever data you wish. I stared work on something like this for my bicycle club years ago. Hmmmm just what I need another project...
 
magicj said:
Don't need Google to agree. Google publishes an API that anyone can use to create a mashup of Google maps and what ever data you wish. I stared work on something like this for my bicycle club years ago. Hmmmm just what I need another project...
Click to expand...

Uhhh.. You might want to educate yourself on the current FlightPrep patent issue. There are a lot of people that have been using Google's API to do online flight planning for years, but apparently FlightPrep claims THEY came up with the idea.
 
magicj said:
Don't need Google to agree. Google publishes an API that anyone can use to create a mashup of Google maps and what ever data you wish. I stared work on something like this for my bicycle club years ago. Hmmmm just what I need another project...
Click to expand...

Maybe someone should create a project on SourceForge and do a collaborative effort on this.
 
JeffDG said:
Maybe someone should create a project on SourceForge and do a collaborative effort on this.
Click to expand...

I like the SourceForge idea, though I thought that's primarily for coding software and OS solutions. Isn't this also a hosting issue, in that the FAA charts would need to be georeferenced and served in scalable format as the maps/terrain/sat views are on Google Maps? As such, it seems to me a trivial effort on their part to provide the hosting. At the same time they'd eliminate any patent claims on something they're already doing with their existing service which they'd surely defend vigorously in court. Google might also be interested in integrating aerial earth photos with their current effort (don't know what they call it - "air views" akin to their "street views?").

If the people who've already done the XML coding donated that to a SourceForge project, Google could then join that as they did Firefox and more quickly adapt and implement the code. SourceForge could also perhaps be a useful platform for coordinating volunteers keeping the charts and airport info current. That role might also be served by a gMaps aviation forum. In some variation/combination of these scenarios it wouldn't take long before this could be a more useful free online av tool than any of the independent sites currently under threat by the patent troll(s). I like that it could all be web-based, so that no proprietary hardware would be required. Any browser or smartphone that can do gMaps would work, right?

Of course, if the RunwayFinder guy has decided to fight the troll(s) maybe he'd want to quash any gMaps effort because it could complicate his chances of success. If anyone's in contact with him, I'd appreciate any indications of his reaction to a gMaps effort. Even though I only discovered RunwayFinder the very day before he shut it down, I absolutely loved it from that first impression!
 
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JohnSBA said:
I like the SourceForge idea, though I thought that's primarily for coding software and OS solutions. Isn't this also a hosting issue, in that the FAA charts would need to be georeferenced and served in scalable format as the maps/terrain/sat views are on Google Maps?

<SNIP>
Click to expand...
The FAA charts are already available in geoTIFF format from the FAA and are thus georeferenced. Maybe you mean they need to be georeferenced in a different way?
 
Cap'n Jack said:
The FAA charts are already available in geoTIFF format from the FAA and are thus georeferenced. Maybe you mean they need to be georeferenced in a different way?
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Sectionals, yes...I think WACs too...but the LEC and HEC charts are just PDFs and not geo referenced.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
The FAA charts are already available in geoTIFF format from the FAA and are thus georeferenced. Maybe you mean they need to be georeferenced in a different way?
Click to expand...
To be useful online, they need to be in a highly compressed file format rather than the FAA's TIFFs. I don't think those are geo-referenced, though I don't know exactly what that would mean in terms of using them on gMaps.

I'm hoping that people who know how to do this will create or join an effort to put together a technical proposal for Google. Seems likely there are some pilots and aviophiles at Google who'd help get something going on gMaps if they had support from the pilot community.
 
JohnSBA said:
To be useful online, they need to be in a highly compressed file format rather than the FAA's TIFFs. I don't think those are geo-referenced, though I don't know exactly what that would mean in terms of using them on gMaps.

I'm hoping that people who know how to do this will create or join an effort to put together a technical proposal for Google. Seems likely there are some pilots and aviophiles at Google who'd help get something going on gMaps if they had support from the pilot community.
Click to expand...

Someone's put the charts online now...just need to pull them and add other features you want

http://www.avcharts.com/
 
Isn't the easy answer to get RunwayFinder hosted overseas? The patent is only applicable to the USA or North America, is it not?
 
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