Radar software integration with maps & GPS

[Mike Darling]

I'm going to be doing a limited amount of storm chasing this year. I live in the Detroit area, so will probably wind up seeing Michigan and parts of Ohio. I know I won't see a whole lot with my limitations, but I can't get out to the midwest this year.

I'm very confused. I would like to have radar showing on a road map that has GPS capabilities. (By GPS, I just mean showing current location - I'd love built in navigation, but realize that might be too much to ask.) I've spent a lot of time looking for such a thing, and am coming up empty. Am I missing something, or is there really no way to do this?

I have an extensive technical computer background, so don't mind if it's difficult to set up. I don't mind what radar software I have to use, as long as it's decent -- it doesn't have to be a grlevel product. I don't mind what mapping source it has, again as long as it's decent.

I've been trying GR2 and GR3. I've imported shape files sourced from the census geography network. However, this only gives lines for the roads, no names.

Weather.com has this functionality, where you see radar over a map with street names. There has to be a way to do this for ourselves using a professional radar product... right?

 

[Bryan Stokes]

Most chasers just use GR Level 2 and concurrently run a mapping application like Microsoft Street & Trips. Both programs are fed GPS data, usually from a simple GPS puck. It works very well and you can toggle back and forth between the two pieces of software. Is there a reason this wouldn't work well for you? One issue I see with running a map with radar imagery overlaid on top is the potential for other storms to block your view of the roads...which wouldn't work too well when time is of the essence.

Bryan

 

[Mike Darling]

Most chasers just use GR Level 2 and concurrently run a mapping application like Microsoft Street & Trips. Both programs are fed GPS data, usually from a simple GPS puck. It works very well and you can toggle back and forth between the two pieces of software. Is there a reason this wouldn't work well for you? One issue I see with running a map with radar imagery overlaid on top is the potential for other storms to block your view of the roads...which wouldn't work too well when time is of the essence.

Bryan

Just ran across a video that looks like what I was hoping it's out there. I know this video is rendered after the fact, because it's showing tornado's paths with EF rating. That's leading me to guess they don't have something like this in the field.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eDGIpm4K8Q

I have an easy time tracking both on there, and is really similar to what I've had in my head that I've been looking for. (Probably with an option in the software to show one layer at a time, if you'd prefer.)

It will just be my wife and I on chases. She can't drive due to having vertigo. She's catching on nicely, and is as interested in this as I am. However, I'm going to have to also play the forecaster role for a while. Was hoping to have laptop mounted .. i guess you'd call it on the dash, but more like where the radio is so it isn't up on the dash. That way, I'd be able to give quick glances to it, like I would my dash mounted GPS unit. Otherwise, I'll be looking at pulling over a lot more often probably, unless there's no one else around and conditions are fine.

I'm also going to look at putting together a more detailed background bitmap, rather than just a topographical one. However, without having looked at it yet, I'm guessing that grlevel has a fixed "granularity" that it needs in the bitmaps, so there probably isn't a way to get enough detail in there. This year, we'll be in a small enough area, that I could prepare a nice background image in Photoshop, even if it took me a while.

 

[jgmlg]

currently I use weathertap - thinking about changing to GR level 2 or 3. I have an GPS puck, model BU 353. It connects to my laptop with a usb connection and puts my location on the weathertap map. Don't know if it will work for you or not but it is an option.

 

[Mike Darling]

currently I use weathertap - thinking about changing to GR level 2 or 3. I have an GPS puck, model BU 353. It connects to my laptop with a usb connection and puts my location on the weathertap map. Don't know if it will work for you or not but it is an option.

Thanks, hadn't looked at their site & software yet.

Does it show most of the roads you would consider using? Like, everything but subdivision roads?

 

[jgmlg]

shows interstates, us and state roads but not any more detail than that.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Do you have an iPad? If so, get the Storm Spotter app, which has radar over Google maps. Unfortunately, to see the map you need to make the radar fairly translucent, but the recently updated version of the product is better in this regard.

Also for the iPad, RadarScope has even better radar, and does show GPS position but without a roadmap. (Integrate the product with Allison House for a faster data feed).

There is also the Baron Threatnet product that runs on a laptop; this has fallen out of favor as chasers have migrated to the GR products, but I still like it because of the reliability of the satellite signal versus a cell signal. But it's fairly expensive, you could probably buy a whole iPad for less!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[pm_martel]

I just use GRLevel3 with a gps puck for location and then either use a GPS unit or other applications separate from the radar.

 

[Bob Hartig]

I recommend that you check out GRLevelXStuff. They have a ton of free goodies that have been created specifically for GRX users by GRX users, including road map shape files for every state. To be honest, I haven't used any of these maps, so I can't vouch for them. I can tell you that Michigan is among the maps, and since I do some media chasing here on the west side of the state, I probably should download the map myself and see what it's about. Overall, this site is a terrific resource for all GRX radar products, including GR3. NOTE: You'll need to register before the downloads menu will become visible and accessible to you.

ADDENDUM: I just downloaded the Michigan map. Not bad! One could wish that it included street names, but it's certainly a useful tool as is, showing streets down to the city block. And of course, you can zoom in to your heart's content. Here's a radar grab from a couple minutes ago for the city of Hastings, MI. I apologize for the blurriness of the image; in actual appearance, the map is quite clear, though your choice of background will determine how well it shows up.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Do the GR placefiles match the road detail of the Street Atlas/Streets and Trips type products? WxWorx's radar/mapping/GPS on one display is helpful, but of course the road detail is limited to main highways and interstates - OK for storm-relative position info, but not very useful for navigation. I've always had to run Street Atlas and WxWorx concurrently.

 

[Bob Hartig]

Dan, yes, the detail goes down to the block level. The only problem is, it doesn't distinguish between main arteries (except for Interstates) and secondary roads. And, as I had already mentioned, it doesn't show street names. So at a quick glance, you can't tell a paved state highway from a dirt road.

So these map shapefiles are a few notches below ideal. BUT the detail is there, provided you can live with road info that hasn't been updated since 2009. Bear in mind that these maps were one person's labor of love and a huge service to GRlevelXstuff subscribers, and their creator is not likely to update them on a yearly basis.

Still, for whatever shortcomings they've got, these state maps are a big improvement over the very sketchy highway overlays that have been otherwise available.

I will still use my Street Atlas along with my Michigan map, but I probably won't have to consult it nearly as much.

NEW INFORMATION: I just learned that street names do show up. They don't appear as labels, but when you move your cursor over a street, its name appears in the status bar at the lower left of the GR3 screen. This arrangement strikes me as very practical as on-screen labels would create a lot of clutter. Thanks to Nick Nolte for cluing me in.

 

[Bob Schafer]

My my, where to begin? Okay, I'll just say a few things about MY GRL3 setup, which isn't to say it's any better (or worse) than anyone else's, but I've been running (and tweaking!) it since 2008. It can all get very, very complicated, but I'll try to explain the basics as best as I can. I won't try to explain each process for making the individual components work, as that is too involved for here, but there are lots of resources on the AllisonHouse forum and the GRLevelX owners and "stuff" forums. Also feel free to ask me questions, but I don't pretend to be any GRL3 expert.

I use an old Garmin GPS unit that I connect to my laptop, and then Franson GpsGate to allow me to run two apps concurrently: GRL3 mapping overlay plus Spotter Network.

I now use 2010 version of the US Census maps. The files I downloaded for OK are 169MB, which is not every county. For TX I have 381MB of data. All told, my TIGER shapefiles folders account for 2.15GB on my computer, and you'll have to load each and every county one-at-a-time for each radar site, if you do it the way I did.

I don't honestly know if they are more or less accurate than any other maps, but I personally have seen few errors. I have it set so that when I zoom in to where the screen is displaying about 20 miles horizontally the small/dirt roads appear. I figure that if I need to pan out any more than that to get the storm and myself on the screen at the same time I have no business being on a dirt road at that point in time anyway. The dirt roads are so detailed that sometimes it is hilarious what "roads" are on those maps.

Bob Hartig said: "at a quick glance, you can't tell a paved state highway from a dirt road. So these map shapefiles are a few notches below ideal." I will disagree with that. I think it's usually pretty easy to differentiate between paved and dirt, but not always. With the colors I use, paved roads are red and dirt roads are yellow... MOST of the time. Oh wait, I think Bob was referring to maps that were created by someone else, so I guess he wasn't talking about the Census map.

Ever since day one I have placed a premium on making the display legible even in harsh lighting conditions, which is why I use a black background and a really goofy color table for the reflectivity. It works for me. I can see the details of the storm as well as my GPS-created position overlay quite well almost all the time.

It's my understanding that GRL3 is better for chasing because of the size of the files that must be downloaded in GRL2.

I pay AH the $10/mo for their feeds, because I believe they are said to be more reliable and timely, plus providing data that is not available for free. The placefiles I use (not all at the same time, for Pete's sake!) include: SN reports, SN positions, NWS METAR data, Vis Sat, lightning, frontal positions, secondary METAR data feeds, CWA boundaries, and a few hurricane placefiles for when I'm cyber-chasing 'canes.



That is an example of what I was looking at on May 24 last year. Note how my position is displayed as the white circle and dot near Blanchard. This is a "trick" image, though. I had backed up the radar loop, and by the time I got to Blanchard the tornadoes were actually farther northeast than that. The point is to represent how the whole system works, and my hope is that this information will be useful to someone.



There's an example of a zoomed in image showing the dirt roads.