Topic: How to Run US Animated Radar on Google Maps

[ELDoradoWx]

I was asked how to preset the default opacity that the map loads up with.

In order to do this you just need to add a short line of code near the bottom of the code section of ridge.html...

This is what needs to be added:

Code: [Select]

Opacity(0.50);
Here is where you can add it to your code:

Code: [Select]

       Google.addOverlay(Radar[i]);

    }

Opacity(0.50);

    Feed();
    Loop();
}
function Free()
{
    GUnload();
}
</script>
A few visual examples of percentages of opacity you can set the map to "load up" with:  

Code: [Select]

Opacity(0.15);
Opacity(0.25);
Opacity(0.33);
Opacity(0.50);
Opacity(0.75);
Opacity(0.88);

Or you can set it to what ever you wish from 0.01 to 0.99

NOTE: These instructions can also be found on the first post of the thread...

[Cienega32]

And the fun continues...

Clicking the marker:



And as before, the first view if any advisories have been issued,

[DaculaWeather]

How about these live updates? http://www.daculaweather.com/ridge_georgia_master.php

[CNYWeather]

WOW thats awesome Steve!

[DaculaWeather]

Thanks Tony! I struggled all morning long trying different things that would work but finally, 5-6 hours later that was the solution.
The link I posted many pages earlier in this topic was wrong in case anyone went to the wrong page.

[Cienega32]

Outstanding Steve! That is definitely 1st class! The image is perfect for that application! Full balance all the way around! 


- It timed out once for me showing the "Unable to connect" error but a click refresh cleared it.


I was going to throw the static forecast icons in the 2nd and 3rd tabs but this API has so many little toys in it, it's nothing but fun-filled distractions! 

One of these days, I'll actually work on having the balloon validate! 

[DaculaWeather]

The connection to my site has been a little flaky this afternoon.
But thanks!

[subh]

Thanks Danny for the detailed response for the Brazilian RADAR feed query. I will try to use something like this on my google map application for now.

http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com/satellite/misc/s.america-ir-sat.html

Thanks again.
-Subh

[DaculaWeather]

Outstanding Steve! That is definitely 1st class! The image is perfect for that application! Full balance all the way around!  

One of these days, I'll actually work on having the balloon validate!  

Yep, my balloon doesn't validate either. Minor detail! I just finished redoing all my Google Map pages with a new style, now for the rest of the website!

[Cienega32]

My last shot at it validates now that I learned a little bit about Javascript  and using getElementById stuff to get the HTML stuff in the bubble. Bit of an adjustment in the mindset between PHP and Javascript.

What I can't get clean is the "&rid=" in the RADAR call. Using & as is in "&product" don't cut it. But I only have 2 warns/2 errors and all from that small detail so I can live with it for now.

I broke the HTML stuff out separately into a "wxnewpage" file and that somehow helped me get a little handle on this "new" Javascript stuff. It's a tough change over from doing everything in PHP - for me, anyway. Thinking in "client-side" perspective just didn't come easy.

[DaculaWeather]

If the code could be tossed into a file and called from the page, it would take care of the validation issue. But I can live with mine for a while, at least the validation error isn't something that might change the way it looks.

[Cienega32]

Do you mean for the bubble or the RADAR code "&rid="? You guys know all this Javascript stuff so you must mean the "&rid=" thing. And your posted page validates nice & green! That bubble is slick, I have to say again.

The bubble info I call from a file. Once I figured it out a little bit, I put the bubble file's info and other HTML stuff ($currentcondrid) in this:

Code: [Select]

<div style="display: none" >
<span id="ridcond" ><?php echo $currentcondrid; ?></span>
</div>
and did this in the 'marker' setup to present it:

Code: [Select]

var cconds = document.getElementById('ridcond');

    var marker = new GMarker(point, {draggable: false,
      title:"LasCruces-Weather" });

GEvent.addListener(marker, "click", function() {
  marker.openInfoWindowTabsHtml( cconds );
I have no idea if it's the proper way to go about it but it works without error and I learned a little something!

As far as the "&rid=" thing - all the RADARs display and it works fine so no biggie for me. I'm pretty sure my problem is a result of me separating the (older) El Dorado code into different sections.

Thanks again to "ElDorado Wx" for a great script - lots of fun playing with it as well!

[DaculaWeather]

Every time I do this stuff I learn something new! I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks! 
I added two new things yesterday, although not related to this map. I added the USA weather extremes to my home page and added the "OnThis Date" weather history script as a page. I'm getting close to finishing my new website makeover, only have about 20 or so pages left to update, including the main page. I think I'm going to redo the home page a little bit so it will probably be last since it's the most complex. I've finally reduced my css code to one file, and separated the menu and footer into separate files for ease of maintenance. I wonder sometimes how smart I was building the entire site from scratch!  This is a lot of work!

[lddaly]

I wonder sometimes how smart I was building the entire site from scratch!  This is a lot of work!

Your efforts look excellent though! You have my vote for the next featured website.

[DaculaWeather]

Thank you very much! It's nice to know that all that work doesn't go unnoticed! Like I said the home page, the About page and and maybe 15-20 other pages haven't been converted yet but hopefully by this weekend most of the pages will be done. It's the last 3 or 4 that will take the longest and of course, that's why  put those off till the end!

And along those lines (and I'll add a post somewhere else for this) I've got some modified forecast icons that I'll share if anyone would like them. You can see them in action here ( http://www.daculaweather.com/forecast.php ).
There are two sizes available. The size on my site are the same dimensions as the original images but the actual picture is smaller due to the addition of the drop-shadow. The larger image has the same size picture but the dimensions are larger due to the drop-shadow. Oh yea, the corners are rounded!

http://www.daculaweather.com/stuff/rounded_forecast_icons.zip
http://www.daculaweather.com/stuff/rounded_forecast_icons_large.zip

[ELDoradoWx]

I've got some modified forecast icons that I'll share if anyone would like them. You can see them in action here ( http://www.daculaweather.com/forecast.php ).
There are two sizes available. The size on my site are the same dimensions as the original images but the actual picture is smaller due to the addition of the drop-shadow. The larger image has the same size picture but the dimensions are larger due to the drop-shadow. Oh yea, the corners are rounded!

http://www.daculaweather.com/stuff/rounded_forecast_icons.zip
http://www.daculaweather.com/stuff/rounded_forecast_icons_large.zip

Sweet!!! Very Classy!  

[christopher_w]

This project is really taking off! Thought I would add my two cents in with dynamic centering of the map and dynamic loading of radar sites using an airport identifier. This method uses PHP/MySQL to compare coordinates of the airport contained in one database table and calculates the distance to radar sites using their coordinates in another database table. From that calculation it then determines if the sites are within a predetermined range (ex: 300 miles) to create a string of multiple radar sites. The map is then centered on the airport you type in using its coordinates.

Also included in the attached code (Radar.txt) is a script to decode the current METAR from the airport you enter, which I found and modified from http://woody.cowpi.com/phpscripts/. The author said the code is free to use, modify, and learn from. A live demo is available on my site at http://www.chriswardmedia.com/weather.php.

Key columns referenced in Airports Table: ICAO, Lat, Lng
http://chriswardmedia.com/downloads/AirportsDatabase.csv

Key columns reference in Radars Table: Name, Lat, Lng
http://chriswardmedia.com/downloads/NWSRadars.csv


Distance Function in Miles:
if((distance($icaolat, $icaolng, $nwslat, $nwslng))<300)
* change 300 miles to whatever you think is appropriate/your setup can handle

Requirement: You will need a host that supports PHP and MySQL, and know how to create databases/import data into MySQL.  You will also need to enter your MySQL connection information in the sections with:
$host="My.SqlServer.Com"; // Host name
$username="MyUserName"; // Mysql username
$password="WhateverYourPasswordIs"; // Mysql password

Note: If you enter an identifier for a smaller airport that has METAR data, the coordinates may not available in the airports database. In that case the METAR info will load but the map will fail to load any radars and center at the equator in the Atlantic Ocean (0°,0°). If you enter an airport identifier that doesn't exist...the map won't load any radars and no METAR data will show up (go figure).

[stormwatch]

Very nice Pat!! Great job!

Tom

[Cienega32]

NWS in El Paso has finally got a little bit of the Graficast stuff available like many other cities have. I always thought that was pretty cool and wanted the current graphic on my "Googladar" page so I put together a little script that I run as a CRONjob every hour.

It'll find the first graficast available which, from what I can tell, is usually the current outlook and copy it to my root. If there isn't one (quite often in NWS El Paso), it'll copy the U.S. Weather map. I also have it set to run upon page entry if the $NOAAEvent tag I use in the bubble is not "NO CURRENT ADVISORIES" as NWS usually has something up for any advisory.

The 'epz' and 'elp' pertain to the El Paso NWS and are in the directory names they use. You might need to check their "image info" to see exactly where they are in your zones. It's just a quickie that I'm sure could be cleaned up a bit but I thought I would throw it in here in case it interests anyone (you're on your own  ). I include the Graficast below the Google RADAR and I found the objective a good enough reason to explore cURL and CRONJobs for the first time    .

http://www.lascruces-weather.com/wxridge5.php

cronGraficast.php:

Code: [Select]

<?php
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://www.srh.noaa.gov/elp/');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$file = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close ($ch);
$sortcell = strpos($file,'src="/images/fxc/epz/graphicast/image');
if ($sortcell != ''){
$graficast1 = substr($file,$sortcell+32);
$pos = strpos($graficast1,'"');
$graficast1 = substr($graficast1,0,$pos);
$graficast2 = 'http://www.srh.noaa.gov/images/fxc/epz/graphicast/';
$graficast = $graficast2 . $graficast1;
}
if ($graficast == '' or $sortcell == '')
{$graficast = 'http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/noaa/noaa.gif';}
$ch = curl_init($graficast);
$fp = fopen('./graficast.gif', 'wb');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $fp);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
fclose($fp);
?>


[weatherbob123]

I get the key and paste it in to my website http://greenecountyweathernet.com

in my index page but is still ask for a key?

can anybody help me thanks?


bobby

[DaculaWeather]

You have a colon after the = sign right before the key, try removing that.

[ELDoradoWx]

Thought I would add my two cents in with dynamic centering of the map and dynamic loading of radar sites using an airport identifier.

Thanks for taking the time to all of that!

Very interesting information.

[D4R]

...just discovered this page today.  Really great stuff!  Guess nobody's been around for a couple weeks...but I though I'd post the version I developed today.  I still have alot to do, but it's coming along.  My main objective it to develop gps aware smartphone versions..namely webos.

http://snowangelandotter.com/cgi-bin/gmap3.pl?chart=N0R&id=CAE&wrap=10

Just click one of the 'arrows' to change to a different radar location.  The number of images in the loop is controlled by changing the 'wrap=xx' in the url.

Cheers.

Dave.

[Cienega32]

Nice! I like that concept.

[D4R]

...anybody have a Google Maps API v3 of these routines?  Namely radar.js.

Thanks...and, again, great stuff here.

Dave.