Monday Apr 20, 2009 at 20:36

TPE in the blogosphere

Nice to see TPE getting some pick up in the blogosphere, and on some forums too. Here are links to some of the sites that have covered it:

• plαdys
• F29
• Rich Durnan’s Blog

What’s next?

TPE is currently described as being in Beta and is at version 0.8.1 – hopefully that’s clue enough that development is not done yet. Indeed, there’s a long list of improvements I’d like to make.

Here’s what’s in my mind:

• Fix the known issues – see here
• Resizable/maximizable window – wouldn’t it be great to make that map bigger?
• Adjust bearings for local magnetic declination (compass north, not true north)
• Add transit times to the Details section
• Extend Locations to allow for ‘Occasions’ – locations at a particular time and date
• Extend Occasions to allow for ‘Expeditions’ – plan your multi-day shoot and compose a full itinerary
• Printable layouts – you probably want all this info on a sheet of paper to carry with you into the wilds
• KML support so you can copy and paste, import and export to/from Google Earth
• Offline mode – get the times and angles for your saved locations when offline, even if you can’t get the map (that’s part of the reason for doing this as an Adobe AIR app, rather than as a web-site)
• Search capabilities – you probably want answers to questions such as “when is full moon at Delicate Arch in October?”
• Potentially some more astronomical phenomena (lunar eclipses?) depending on just how much more maths I can take

A few folks have commented that it would be great to have this integrated into Google Earth. I’m personally not so sure – I often find the level of detail in Google Earth for out-of-the-way places to be inferior to the topographic map view of Google Maps. Additionally, there are a few issues with the lighting in the 3D model than could serve to confuse (noted here). However, if there looks like being a good way through this, then I’ll look again for sure.

In the meantime, what other features would you find useful? Let me know by e-mailing or leaving a comment.

Posted in Technology TPE

Stephen · Monday, April 20, 2009, 20:36 · Permalink

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