[aprssig] FEMA - APRS data mining...

[Kenneth Finnegan]

It doesn't look like anyone has submitted the specific secondary overlay
meanings to either of Hessu's symbol repos. Importing from those is meant
to be very easy for application builders, so the best way to promote the
secondary overlays would be for someone to submit a pull request on GitHub
to Hessu with the meanings and new artwork added.
https://github.com/hessu/aprs-symbol-index
https://github.com/hessu/aprs-symbols
(Even just updating the index would be a great way for new people to get
their feet wet using Git and GitHub, which is where we're doing a lot of
the APRS development and discussion these days)

I was a bit surprised looking at the overlay documentation (
http://aprs.org/symbols/symbols-new.txt) to not see anything there for what
the different digipeater overlays mean. I know there is very specific
meaning for symbols like 1#, W#, S#, but I've always been a bit hazy on
what the latest definition of those are.

To be clear, when you say "eight color attributes" you mean APRSdos
rendered stations in eight different colors for user convenience? I was
very confused where a three bit color property got encoded in packets until
I figured out you were probably talking about this:

WHITE: . . . . . . . A Full-up APRS station that is message capable
GRAY: . . . . . . . . A Tracker or other station without message capability
CYAN: . . . . . . . . A moving station with CSE/SPEED or a Dead Reckoned
Station
BLUE(dark) . . . . The previous position of a MOVED station or object
YELLOW: . . . . . Your own active OBJECTS you are transmitting to the net
VIOLET: . . . . . . Objects placed on the map by others
Dark GRAY: . . . Old Symbols not updated in the last 80 minutes or more
BLACK: . . . . . . Old Symbols that have been "killed" by the originator
RED: . . . . . . . . . Emergency, Alarmed, or otherwise unknown symbols

--
Kenneth Finnegan
http://blog.thelifeofkenneth.com/

On Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 5:50 PM, Robert Bruninga <bruninga at usna.edu> wrote:

> FEMA Technical Office would like to mine APRS data for better field data.
> The main thing they want is a better way to SEE big pictures concepts
> quickly..
>
> For a decade, FEMA uses the "Waffle house index" they get from Waffle
> house to show in RED, YELLOW, GREEN, NORMAL coloring attributes on 1700
> Waffle houses throughout hurricane zone so they can see instantly, the big
> picture of conditions.
>
> See the FEMA Waffle index!
> http://www.popsci.com/article/science/how-waffle-house-
> became-disaster-indicator-fema
>
> FEMA asked if APRS could do this...
>
> FEMA thought that APRS only had a dozen symbols (They had been watching a
> D700 display only),  I pointed out that APRS has always had nearly 200
> symbols each with up to 8 color attributes (only APRSdos displays the
> colors I think)..., but even those 200 were  expanded in 2008 or so to
> nearly 3000 of which over 135 have been defined but most clients have not
> painted them all in yet.
>
> This was done through overlays so that  they  are all backwards compatible
> on older systems as a base symbol with a letter overlay, but they can be
> fully painted out to be a whole new symbol as clients wish.
>
> See: http://aprs.org/symbols/symbols-new.txt
>
> APRSdos had these color attributes on every symbol but this layer was not
> implemented by most clients that just  use ICONs.  I believe some clients
> have implemented it, but I have not kept up.
>
> Hessu was working on a common updated data base.... (how's that going?)
>
> I asked the FEMA to tell me their top priority symbols and I would see how
> well they mapped to APRS symbols and get myself up to speed on where we are
> with symbols..
>
> So, I am open for you APRS gurus to fill me in on any progress on symbols
> beyond what I have been tracking on http://aprs.org/symbols.html
>
> Important people want to know...
>
> bob, WB4aPR
>
>
>
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>
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