About the Balloon Prediction Map

general about text here

The makers of this map do not guarantee the accuracy of any information shown on this map and assume no responsibility or liability for any decisions made or actions taken based on what is shown

General Info:

• Predicts are restricted to between 8 hours before and 7 days after the current time
• Float ascent rate has a minimum of 0.01 m/s (even if you enter 0)
• A float duration of 0 will still have a very small float stage (with the float set to end one meter above the first float point)
• The National Address Database only returns 2000 points per query, so try a different or smaller query area if only some addresses are displayed

Controls Info:

• Right-click and drag to control map pitch and rotation
• Open the drawing tool (top-left) and use the point tool (the dot) to place custom launch locations. If the predict line doesn't appear, try clicking "Fetch Predicts"
• Open the drawing tool (top-left) and use the rectangle tool (the angled rectangle) to draw a rectangle on the map. Then use the select drawing tool (the cursor) to select the rectangle and drag the corners of the rectangle around the predicted ground track. The shape coordinates (bottom-left) can then be entered top to bottom into a balloon cutdown device for a geofence
• Open the layer switcher (hover over top-right) and click 2D or 3D under "Map Dimensions" to toggle compatible layers between 2D and 3D
• Layer features on the map can be clicked to display a popup showing their properties
• Holding "Shift" while left-clicking and dragging will draw a box. After releasing the left-click, the National Address Database will be queried and addresses within the box drawn will be shown on the map
• The "Query Addresses" button will query the National Address Database for the entire screen, so it is disabled until the map is zoomed in (zoom level 14)

Known Issues:

• This about dialog is not styled and does not have enough information about the map
• The static public schools GeoJSON is massive and takes a while to load (~102,000 features taking up ~21 MB with nothing that can really be removed to shrink it any smaller)
• The National Address DB source only provides 2000 points at a time, so requesting for a large or populated area does not provide all the points. This database contains ~97,000,000 features in total, so a static GeoJSON is not an option to get around this
• The National Address DB is not complete. It does not currently have points for significant parts of PA
• TFR Airspace layer is only 2D. The current source doesn't provide the TFR airspaces' altitude data without making many more requests to it, but the information is important enough to warrant displaying regardless
• Updated TFR airspaces data is only fetched once per day (at 4 AM ET)
• Z-fighting on overlapping 3D layers extruded to the same altitude. Seems to be a problem in MapLibre GL JS, not this code
• Map can be slow/unresponsive, especially when loading new tiles when the map viewport is pitched
• Map rotation by dragging a right-click can be overly sensitive and difficult to control. Maplibre GL JS doesn't seem to have any options to adjust this
• All of the predicts and parameters are in metric, but the airspace altitudes are in feet. The altitudes are converted to metric in the code so the extrusion is accurate but the properties for the airspaces do not display this result
• The controlled and uncontrolled airspace GeoJSON files probably haven't been updated in years. Some airspace definitions may have changed in that time
• Attempting to download predict KMLs of multiple custom launch locations only downloads one KML containing all custom launch location predicts (this may or may not be acceptable behavior)
• The golf courses sprite on the "Esri Enhanced Contrast Dark" basemap is broken and renders in a very glitchy way
• There are too many controls for the current display scheme, especially the mobile version. This will be redesigned eventually but for now use the "Toggle Controls" button to hide the controls if they are in the way

Parameter Sweep

This dialog allows you to automatically sweep through prediction parameters and generate a zip of KML files for every iteration. The sweep only occurs on launch locations set on the map. To change swept locations: close this dialog, change your selection on the map, and re-open this dialog.

To prevent overloading the predictor API, this function has a built-in delay of 2 seconds between each iteration. Please only use this function when needed and after you are sure your sweep parameters are set as desired. The zip file download will not occur until all iterations have been processed, which may take some time.