Level II apps

[rdale]

I stumbled across this app which claims to have the only L2 feed on iOS... It looks like the real thing - anyone have any knowledge of this? I understand why L2 apps haven't been a big deal due to bandwidth back in the day, but you'd think there would be more demand these days. It seems RadarScope has put their efforts elsewhere as the app still misses some critical items (like the ability to turn off FFWs) and super-res SRV.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/noaa-superres-radar-us-hd/id505555988?mt=8

 

[rdale]

Disregard. It's a nice app, good L3 dual pole stuff, but this is the L2 image. It's a composite and it shows Keep looking (or find a developed interested in L2!)

 

[Zac Flamig]

I doubt you are going to find one, the hardware is still just not powerful enough. Radarscope's level 2 data is probably as close as you are going to get for the foreseeable future.

 

[rdale]

If RS can show near L2 just fine, what's the difference that puts true L2 out of reach?

 

[Zac Flamig]

RS 'cheats' by pre-processing the level2 data to send only a single tilt. If you were to download a whole volume scan you would end up with ~16 times more data to deal with (16 tilts in a typical VCP) which quickly adds up when you only have ~500mb to work with and significantly less if you really want to play nice.

 

[rdale]

Why not just have it grab the first tilt?

 

[Zac Flamig]

That is what RS does, but doing so requires non-trivial infrastructure to pre-process the data before sending it to mobile devices. This basically excludes a majority of app developers from being able to do so because the startup costs are very high, and the resulting payoffs are very low.

 

[Rob H]

I doubt you are going to find one, the hardware is still just not powerful enough. Radarscope's level 2 data is probably as close as you are going to get for the foreseeable future.

I doubt there's a technical reason - I can render out L3 scans in HTML5 canvas in ~30ms on my i5 laptop, and I've only started optimizing - I'm sure native graphics libraries are faster. As for memory use and all that, there are creative ways around everything. So much mobile development out there tries to brute force things which works with an i7, 8gb ram, etc. but falls flat on a phone/tablet.

It's the same reason there are only a few options for L3 - the demand isn't huge, and the people that need it are mainly content with existing solutions. I'm not sure how many bins are in an L2 scan, but I'm pretty sure canvas could handle it on a 2nd gen+ iPad. If people are really interested in L2 on iOS, I'll see how hard it would be to add it to the thing I'm working on - it can't be too different from L3 binary data. Here's a little sample of the L3:

http://capbreak.com/wx/tools/radar

 

[Rob H]

the resulting payoffs are very low.

This is pretty much it. How many phone developers are competent enough to parse binary data and elegantly manage the limited resources? How many of those people want to make an app that only a handful of people would actually need/use?

Why not just have it grab the first tilt?

This is a large part of the problem as Zac alluded. You need a proxy service that sits in between your app and your data source. In my case, I need it to convert binary data to JSON since binary parsing in Javascript sounds horrible. With what RS does, they extract the first tilt to keep data size down. Now you need dedicated hosting to house that service, so you no longer want to hand this out for free, so you decide to charge money for it. Then you need to talk to Allisonhouse, etc. to see how you can proxy their data to users and make sure you aren't breaking any terms. It's a whole can of worms, and unless you're developing it for yourself for fun, it's kind of a headache - and I haven't really solved that problem to my satisfaction yet.

 

[rdale]

Tell that to Mike Gibson

I'm half jesting, but you don't think people who spent $250 on GR2AE would spend $30-$60 for something close (I'm sure volume explorer is out) for their iPhone / iPad?

 

[Rob H]

Mike Gibson doesn't have any of these headaches (he has others I'm sure). He assumes people have a decent computer that can handle the 3D stuff (GR is technically 3D, just projected to look 2D). Desktop users just take the entire L2 binary and work with it. Bandwidth/memory use/etc. are no problem on the desktop.

How many people *did* spend $250 on GR2AE? It's definitely a niche market, which is why there are so few players, and why you don't see awesome new interfaces or features coming out frequently - the type of stuff that competition creates

 

[Zac Flamig]

I wonder what the use-case is for having L2 data on a mobile device too? Chasers are happy using 4-bit threatnet data, so surely they don't really need or benefit from L2 data on a mobile device. I can't imagine power users on the go (away from someplace where they'd have GR2AE) are really going to want to spend the time deeply interrogating L2 data either...

 

[rdale]

I wonder what the use-case is for having L2 data on a mobile device too?

Nothing too complicated... I always want the best resolution available to me. Whether chasing, nowcasting, or just watching. If the good stuff is on my PC, I shouldn't have to boot it up and go to my office area to view it.

benefit from L2 data on a mobile device.

I agree it's not a NEED, but you're saying there is NO BENEFIT to seeing high-res reflectivity and velocity when chasing? Hmmm... Not sure I'd agree.

WDT started the game with their high-res reflectivity map, but they don't have the ability to support SAILS so you have to drop back to low-res in order to get updates (note: don't say chasers won't benefit from 2 minute scans ) But WDT/RS didn't finish the game by adding in high-res SRM.

 

[Zac Flamig]

What is the benefit when chasing? I certainly haven't seen it. I think if there was a substantial benefit more people would be using GR2 on their chase computers. But that might be an interesting survey to see what people are actually running.

 

[rdale]

If increased resolution has NO BENEFIT to chasing, why are people using RS to begin with? They can get a nice low-res map from weather.gov that'll work with minimal data bandwidth needs...

And then again maybe that depends on if you're chasing a 1/2 mile wide circulation with 186kts of GtG shear, or looking for 30kts of embedded rotation on a 60 mile long LEWP