myrmex
Members
101
Mar. 2003
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Dec. 08 2003, 12:44 pm |
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People have been asking for some kind of GPS system in-game, almost since PB1. Until now, most people who REALLY needed and used that kind of information relied on WHEREAMI to find their location. That's not necessary anymore!!! I've included a minimap for each of the main islands, including the entire MotuMotu island chain, as well as a map for the ocean around the main islands, and a 'global' map.
I have to give credit to Korrupt for working out the basics for a new compass system. After he 'gave away' all his source code, I started working on a complete GPS package. This first version is pretty basic, though it took me a bit of effort to make it accurate. It's not perfectly accurate, but it's pretty close when you stick to the main islands. It doesn't take into consideration the roundness of the world, so if you go too far away from the main islands, the accuracy degrades pretty quickly. It'll still give you a general feel for where you are, though. 
You can get my GPS at < Myrmex's GPS >. Just copy the compass.swf file into C:\Program Files\There\ThereClient\Resources\Compass\ directory. You might want to rename the old compass file in that directory before you copy the new file. But, just in case, I've included the There compass file in the zip.
Here are links to some screen shots. They are all 800x600 jpgs, so I didn't embed them.
1> < This shows the GPS in it's minimized state >.
2> < This shows it in it's normal state >.
3> < This shot was taken WAY outside the area of the main islands, on my way to the North Pole >.
4> < Here's one going from Tyr to Saja >.
5> These are shots taken on the various islands:< Tiki >, < Cangrejo >, < Motu Motu >, < Tyr >, < Egypt >.
I discovered an interesting inaccuracy in the There Map of Saja when I was testing the accuracy of my GPS. The < first screen > was taken at the base of the ramp from the entry point of Saja. You can see that the There map is accurate here, but the < second shot > was taken from one of the islands, almost inside the gazebo, looking up towards the houses they never release.
You can see how the There map reports my position incorrectly.
But the biggest discrepancy I found was in the scale representations on the There maps. All the maps have the same scale key that's 90 pixels wide. But all the maps have different meters-to-pixels ratios. Saja's conversion is 9.6 while the Tiki map's conversion is 95 and Tyr's is 38.75. Not a big deal, but interesting none the less.
I hope everyone gets good use from this, and if you have any suggestions or find any problems, please let me know. I have plans to add a speedometer and an accurate altimeter in the future, as well as making things more accurate on the global level maps. "Reality is the story I read in my mind, written by my senses."
"I haven't lost my marbles, I just don't keep 'em in the bag!"
"The less a man makes declaritive statements, the less apt he is to appear foolish in retrospect."
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DougS
Members
86
Sep. 2003
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Impressive. This will be very helpful to my boat tours. 
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SilverFox
Members
707
July 2003
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saw it in official forums
Good job 
... but I being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly, becuase you tread on my dreams.
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myrmex
Members
101
Mar. 2003
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Okay... I added an altimeter to the GPS system. And I've uploaded the new ZIP file.
You can get it < here >. And I took a quick < screenshot > to show you the new layout.
So, my next additions will be a speedometer, a slider to adjust the transparency, and I was thinking about adding a list of the coordinates of popular places. And maybe eventually, the ability to save the coords of your own locations.
What do you think? "Reality is the story I read in my mind, written by my senses."
"I haven't lost my marbles, I just don't keep 'em in the bag!"
"The less a man makes declaritive statements, the less apt he is to appear foolish in retrospect."
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Grimm
Members
263
May 2003
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| Quote (myrmex @ Dec. 08 2003, 2:45 pm) | Okay... I added an altimeter to the GPS system. And I've uploaded the new ZIP file.
You can get it < here >. And I took a quick < screenshot > to show you the new layout.
So, my next additions will be a speedometer, a slider to adjust the transparency, and I was thinking about adding a list of the coordinates of popular places. And maybe eventually, the ability to save the coords of your own locations.
What do you think? |
I think you 0wn. 
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SilverFox
Members
707
July 2003
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sounds really great 
... but I being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly, becuase you tread on my dreams.
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evankirk
Members
1375
April 2003
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Ok, this.. is cool. Myrmex.. you are cool!!
There 4 All - Community Journal
http://there4all.thereinperson.com
"Old bagel hating, cranky southern old codger" - Lordpenquin
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ReMzy
Members
116
Sep. 2003
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freaking cool 'TU ur GPS own man  
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Ara
Members
570
April 2003
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YAY for MYRMEX!!
awsome shiz you made!!!
heehee  MUAHAHAHA!
Ara
Cheerleaders Kick Ass!!
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Vanno
Members
475
July 2003
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thats incredible.....simply amazing
too bad we can't teleport through a browser by coordinates anymore, or else you could make a save coord option, which would mean n00bs wouldnt have to buy the explorer pack anymore http://vanno.thereinperson.com
If I was to suffer, let it continue. One day a blessing will come.
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spyderbytez
Members
221
June 2003
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Wow! you are a genius!
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Gabriel_Cage
Members
198
Aug. 2003
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OMG this is AWESOME! I am ALWAYS lost, lol.  Tune in to Pulse Radio!
www.feelthepulse.net
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andypoole
Members
155
May 2003
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Kingey, the altimeter, along with all other measurments in There, are in meters. (unless our avatars are under 2 feet high, and can only step six inches at a time)
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MUX
Members
115
May 2003
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DUDE!!!! this is kick @$$!!!! i used to kno what the code was fer it but you should make it so you can zoom in on the map and schtuff that would be awesome!!!
this also brings up alot of things we could do to make there a game we can do stuff for like say advertisements or like a radio station thing like or whatever...yano what i mean ....like a There WMP or sommat....if any 1 would do that...that would be Awesome!!! or even a news ticker (jogs elbow into evan....)
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spyderbytez
Members
221
June 2003
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Hey Myrmex.. I think you should try to put a basic Clock on there that reads the time on our PC if thats possible?. i know i few people who are waiting for this :-)
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MoonRaven
Members
33
Sep. 2003
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oooo. I am very impressed.
And the position and heading is great for building.
People often ask "How big is There". Now I can say, well, I use a GPS to get around....
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Rand76
Members
44
Oct. 2003
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if possible the ability to enter waypoints would be cool too. I like geocacheing in rl and it'd be cool to do that in-world as well.
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c5studio
Members
262
July 2003
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First I want to say I love this thing. Probably the best improvement I've seen in there including improvements from There! lol 
However I'm wondering if anyone has encountered a more frequent freezing of webpages since loading the GPS? I have no idea if the 2 are related but the timing of the problems coincides.
Well, even if the GPS is causing my webpages to lock up.. I don't care, I'll relogin every 10 min, if that means I can use this sweet plugin hehe c5studio
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Rejeanne
Members
211
April 2003
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This looks really sweet! I'd love to be able to click on a button to set my current position as zero-zero-zero, so that when I move the GPS will just show the distance between where I am now and my zero-base. This would really help for aligning PAZ's and building mazes!
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Sam_G
Members
94
July 2003
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"However I'm wondering if anyone has encountered a more frequent freezing of webpages since loading the GPS? I have no idea if the 2 are related but the timing of the problems coincides.
c5studio"
Yes it does, I am having the same problem also. I cant tell if it started right before I loaded it, or not. But it only means I have to open webpages out of client, I HOPE there is no connection, just bad timing lol
Sam_G "Yes, I havent recieved my paycheck in 3weeks, he moved my desk to storage room B, and he took my stapler and and never returned it...."
Milton Wattams-
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myrmex
Members
101
Mar. 2003
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Well, I finally got all the new features added. And I made a help page, too! Though it doesn't seem like anyone's needed it so far. But as I add more features, it'll probably come in handy for the non-geeks.
The new version of the GPS has a button for switching between X,Y,Z coordinates and Latitude, Longitude, Altitude measurements. I also added a refresh rate adjustment and a transparency adjustment as well.
Seeing how this thing has gotten more popular than I ever thought it would, I decided to start a club to make announcing new releases easier. As well as possibly providing me with a group of willing beta testers to help me work the kinks out of new features. If you want to join, it's called "GPS_Enthusiasts".
I think the next features I'm going to work on adding are a list of popular locations and their coordinates, a way to add your own saved locations to the list, and a way to select one of those locations and get a readout of heading and distance from your current location. Pretty soon this thing is gonna take up the whole screen when you've got all the views open.
Enjoy the new version, and please let me know if you find any bugs.
You can download the new version at < http://there.erraticism.com/gps/compass.zip >
THe help file is included in the zip, and is also on-line at < http://there.erraticism.com/gps/ >
See you in There! "Reality is the story I read in my mind, written by my senses."
"I haven't lost my marbles, I just don't keep 'em in the bag!"
"The less a man makes declaritive statements, the less apt he is to appear foolish in retrospect."
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SilverFox
Members
707
July 2003
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sounds good, can't wait to try it
... but I being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly, becuase you tread on my dreams.
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Rejeanne
Members
211
April 2003
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| Quote (Sam_G @ Dec. 10 2003, 6:03 pm) | "However I'm wondering if anyone has encountered a more frequent freezing of webpages since loading the GPS? I have no idea if the 2 are related but the timing of the problems coincides.
c5studio"
Yes it does, I am having the same problem also. I cant tell if it started right before I loaded it, or not. But it only means I have to open webpages out of client, I HOPE there is no connection, just bad timing lol
Sam_G |
According to the help file, the GPS hits the whereami web site 5 times a second. Can't wait for everyone to use it...
Seriously, this is a great hack but it *is* a hack. The whereami web page was never meant to be hit 5 times a second by every avie in There.
I love the functionality of the GPS compass, but I worry that this will force There to just remove whereami altogether. It's an 'undocumented feature' anyway, they've never promised to keep it or leave it unchanged. It's only a matter of time now...
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MarcusD
Members
10
Nov. 2003
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| Quote (Rejeanne @ Dec. 11 2003, 7:43 pm) | According to the help file, the GPS hits the whereami web site 5 times a second. Can't wait for everyone to use it...
Seriously, this is a great hack but it *is* a hack. The whereami web page was never meant to be hit 5 times a second by every avie in There.
I love the functionality of the GPS compass, but I worry that this will force There to just remove whereami altogether. It's an 'undocumented feature' anyway, they've never promised to keep it or leave it unchanged. It's only a matter of time now... |
I hope this isn't how myrmex did it. Especially since you can get the same info using a command in < http://localhost:9999 > which I believe is how Korrupt got his original one to work.
< http://www.outsidethere.com/deathany/hack/part-I.htm >
The original There compass.swf is based on this info as well as it pulls the heading every fraction of a second to point in the right direction.
If you are having web problems with the compass try going back to the original and see if you have the same problems.
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myrmex
Members
101
Mar. 2003
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Rest assured, it's NOT hitting WHEREAMI every update. It is using the localhost:9999 interface to get the positional data. I just referenced WHEREAMI in the help file to clarify what I meant by "data reported by There".
The only reason I included the refresh delay was to cut down on the number of calculations that your computer has to do every second, to moderate the impact on local system resources. And using the Longitude and Lattitude display puts even more strain because it's perfroming more mathematical operations on LARGE numbers. But all the resources used are on your local machine.
I've never noticed any lag when I've used it. But then, I've done a lot of testing out at sea, away from the population. But, as I continue to develop the application, I'm working on optimizing the code as well. I think I'll do some CPU utilization tests tonight... That'd be fun!! "Reality is the story I read in my mind, written by my senses."
"I haven't lost my marbles, I just don't keep 'em in the bag!"
"The less a man makes declaritive statements, the less apt he is to appear foolish in retrospect."
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SpeedBrkr
Members
49
Nov. 2003
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Did you see my comment in official There forums myrmex?
If not, I just mentioned that when you change the alpha value to zero, the GPS map also affected, making it useless. Can you code it so that only the compass is affected by the transparency affect and not the GPS. Also maybe you can small increments for refresh rate instead of divide/multiply by two each time you press either direction.
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myrmex
Members
101
Mar. 2003
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I made the correction on the on-line help page, thanks to Roland_P for pointing out my error. Not too worried about the help page in the zip file. But I'll change it for the next release.
SpeedBrkr - I'm working on a minor change to the GPS maps, combining what you've said with a suggestion from tablatronix. I'm going to make the ocean in the maps transparent, but have a blue colored graphic behind them that will change transparency when the alpha adjustment is changed. The islands, labels, and cross hairs will stay opaque, but the ocean will fade out.
I'm debating the idea of adding a 'trace' feature into the system. It won't be in the next version, but if I persue it, it'll probably be in the version after that. With it, you would click a button to enable your trace, and once every few minutes, the GPS would report your position to my website and other people with the GPS could query the site and select you to track. I've thought about making this a subscription service, along the lines of 1000TB a month or 10000TB a year kind of deal. Subscribing would allow you to "leave your trace" as well as track other traces.
What do you think? "Reality is the story I read in my mind, written by my senses."
"I haven't lost my marbles, I just don't keep 'em in the bag!"
"The less a man makes declaritive statements, the less apt he is to appear foolish in retrospect."
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MoonRaven
Members
33
Sep. 2003
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1) I agree with Rejeanne that we need an option to have an "offset or origin value". So that an offset/origin can be specified, and all the resulting numbers are based on an offset from that point. Would be good for measuring also.
2) Speed value, in apparently meters per second, is not quite what anyone is used to. Maybe in kilometers per hour (or maybe even mph optional) would be more in line with the speeds people are used to?
3) Any my favorite. A mini - compass only display
Most of the time I am not interested in the GPS and all the numeric displays. And the "There" compass display is large.
An optional "mini compass" about a quarter the size of the THERE compass would be nice, for times that you just want a vague idea which way you are headed.
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BuddyBoy
Members
69
Jan. 2003
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Truly amazing, from what I've read (have yet to try it myself).
If anyone wants to take on a new project, it would be *really* cool if someone were to invent binoculars...
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BOINCer
Members
592
Aug. 2003
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Thanks myrmex! This is incredible! I have it installed and will try it as soon as they open!
| Quote (BuddyBoy @ Dec. 12 2003, 6:11 pm) |
...it would be *really* cool if someone were to invent binoculars... |
I have often thought that as well! Please somebody!! BOINCer, but you may call me Bo
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BOINCer
Members
592
Aug. 2003
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I got to use it last night and it works great! I went from Nada, the southeastern most of the Tiki Islands up past Ootay, Caldera, on to Motu Motu where I turned and headed to Tyr. From Tyr I buggies to the island under Saja. Then took my HoverPack up 1,340 meters to Saja. Later in the day I left out of Ootay and headed over to Egypt. So, in one leasurly afternoon I hit every island on There without teleporting. Without the GPS this would have been a very hit or miss proposition.  for your programing skills!! BOINCer, but you may call me Bo
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MUX
Members
115
May 2003
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myrmex about the tracking part of the GPS going with others i would make a point that it will be a selective viewer thing...being that some of us may have annoyin people that want to stalk us or follow us around so maybe if you made a thing so we can select who we want to view where we are or i see this becommin a big problem in the near future...
ALSO ....what about a zoom function!!!!! it would be awesome to get in closer so you can see where you are going up close
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myrmex
Members
101
Mar. 2003
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Jan. 19 2004, 11:51 am |
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I almost forgot about posting on There Universe, but the latest version is finally ready. The interface has been re-done again, to simplify things a bit. I'm continually working on it and making more improvements.
The bugs related the There's memory leak(web page loading times and text field entry problems) are still an issue with the GPS. In an attempt to lessen the occurance (haven't been able to completely stop it), I added a Manual Refresh mode that allows you to keep the GPS open, but it will only refresh when you click on it anywhere that's not a button. If you can click and drag the GPS, it will refresh when you click. The refresh works even in automatic mode, so if you're using a long refresh delay, but want to update the GPS info, just click somewhere.
You can get the new version at: < http://there.erraticism.com/gps/compass.zip >
The help file is included in the ZIP file, and is also on-line at: < http://there.erraticism.com/gps/ >
I think it's going to be a while before I release another version (unless I can solve the bugs). I'm planning several major enhancements for the next release, and won't release until I"ve got them all working. But please keep the feedback coming. It really has been helpful as I've developed this hack.
I'm planning on changing the Saved Traces panel to be more customizable (though you may have to do much of it by hand outside the client). I also plan to allow you to click a place on the mini-maps to start a new trace. And I'm definately going to change the alpha control to a slider. The last thing that I know I'm adding to the next release will be customizable startup options (transparency, refresh speed, possibly open panels) that you'll most likely have to set by hand outside the client. Other potential add-ins are a clock (probably showing both your local time and There time), with the clock will come an ETA field for an active trace, possibly more color options for the display. "Reality is the story I read in my mind, written by my senses."
"I haven't lost my marbles, I just don't keep 'em in the bag!"
"The less a man makes declaritive statements, the less apt he is to appear foolish in retrospect."
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