(Dylan posting under Kellie's account. Dammit!)

I've spent a day or so hacking at the newer version of the Google Earth API, and the result is that the overlays produced for new tracks uploaded to KA72.com will be a tad more informative.

First of all, my sincere apologies to the colourblind amongst you. I have not used any standard colours for this, but they can be changed with feedback. Here are the ones I am using at present:
Orange - 1hr
Dark teal - Nautical Mile
Green - Alpha
Purple - 5x10s
Red - 2sec peak



Note that this all makes much more sense if you click the link under the underlay and load the KML file in Google Earth. Then you can hide and show the different track segments to your heart's content.




You should also be able to click on a coloured section and see the speed (unrounded) and the measure, but this doesn't work reliably in the GE plugin.

This is a first basic attempt at this. Any feedback gratefully accepted.

Please note that the new format only applies to newly uploaded files. See the first few on the ka72.com homepage for some examples.

Cheers,

Dylan.

This is incredible. Well done! Looking forward to my next sail now.

Nice work Dylan, that looks very useful!

Gee you Braniacs are good!

Thanks for the +ve comments so far, looking forward to some interesting feedback once it gets more widely used.

I'll just add that this isn't meant to be a substitute for analysis using one of the more professional programs. It's more just a quick visual on where your fast spots were, handy for identifying the gybe that was your top Alpha, that kind of thing.

Dylan

Wow great work Dylan!

This will prove quite useful... expect to see some multicoloured screenshots popping up now

Great idea! That will be really useful. Very simple to interpret.

Just posted here an example- great work Dylan
www.gpsteamchallenge.com.au/sailor_session/show?date=2011-10-02&team=31

Looks nice Dylan, if you can reduce the line width it makes it a bit easier to see all the tracks

The red 2 sec is very hard to see as it overlays the purple, which has red as a component.
It will stand out best against green or dark teal but green would be a problem for R-G colourblind people. So presuming 2 sec most commonly occurs within the 5 X 10, 5 X 10 then needs to be dark teal, if you wish to stay with the same colour scheme. Considering colour blindness, Green would be best for alpha, presuming alpha is the category least likely to contain the 2 sec.
That leaves orange for the 1 hr and purple for the nm.

Or use black for the 2 sec, that will stand out against all the other colours.

Dylan, thats a really good addition to the site! Could you do me a paragraph for redsurfbus.com pimping your site to the Brits who read mine. I have friends who still use crap like sportstracklive.com even though I have told them about yours and the ability to upload to the important speed sites with the real rankings. Half of them are too old to remember things so need links and a bit of pushing ;-)

Just a short one, I can add a bit to it if you dont have time.

Great work mate !

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Windxtasy said...

The red 2 sec is very hard to see as it overlays the purple, which has red as a component.
It will stand out best against green or dark teal but green would be a problem for R-G colourblind people. So presuming 2 sec most commonly occurs within the 5 X 10, 5 X 10 then needs to be dark teal, if you wish to stay with the same colour scheme. Considering colour blindness, Green would be best for alpha, presuming alpha is the category least likely to contain the 2 sec.
That leaves orange for the 1 hr and purple for the nm.

Or use black for the 2 sec, that will stand out against all the other colours.

Black! There's an idea!

I was thinking that I might leave the 1hr as white, then it is still available in Google Earth for viewing, but honestly most people don't care too much about the 1hr in the overlay.

Then, I'd change the 5x10s to black, which is a better contrast for the 2second peak's red.

I am also playing with another way of specifying the line widths, which will make them smaller when you are zoomed out, and a bit bigger when you zoom in. Still experimenting there, but it would basically look like this from a distance:



but more like this when you zoom closer:



Whereas right now, the lines are the same width no matter how close in you zoom.

Dylan.

I'd change the 5x10s to black, which is a better contrast for the 2second peak's red.

That works well, you still need a colour for the track which is outside the 1 hr. White? with orange 1 hr as in your original proposal?

I like the variable line width for zooming.

Great stuff mate, didn't know there was a colour called dark teal.....

Bloody Brilliant.

I had the pleasure of seeing my overlay in multicolour today. Very useful. However the grey for 1 hr is hard to distinguish from white. I think yellow or orange would work better.

this is a great advance Dylan well done!
imo i would delete the 1hr all together...it serves no real purpose and just clutters
the screen, all the rest..fantastic!

Actually I have found the 1 hr useful already. I would have thought the last part of my session was the fastest overall, but it wasn't.

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Windxtasy said...

Actually I have found the 1 hr useful already. I would have thought the last part of my session was the fastest overall, but it wasn't.

Well, the 1Hr is there still, and you can change the colour in Google Earth if you are interested in it, but my feedback generally was that it was too distracting. I've left it in, but made it white, so it isn't very visible/interfering.

I'm finding the whole layering thing very annoying in Google Earth. I just got it working nicely, and then suddenly it started putting the base track on top of everything again. I've made the base track transparent so if it goes on top, you can still see the colours through it.

Cheers,

Dylan.

Well i take my words back i do remember saying something about your site is good for results but not to analize. Anyway next time i sail i will have a look and see how i find it, whatever i think a good step in the right direction! May actually get an old file and have a look in a minute.

Fair play mate keeping up with The Jone's as such.