Hello Folks
This is to announce the availability of mtrack version 0.2 beta. Mtrack is an
X window based satellite tracking program, it is available under the GPL
and of course comes with full source. The program provides a window which
contains a map along with the sub-satellite point and footprint, as well as
the users home location. Information about the satellite is provided below
the map.
The program can also display a table showing future visibility, the visibilty
at a large number of other locations, and updated keplerian elements. A full
data editor is built in to allow for the addition, deletion and modification
of the satelite data, location data and user preferences. The program can also
import NASA two line elements directly. There is a choice of maps, and the
colours of the map, footprint, satellite and user can all be changed.
It is available from ftp://ftp.sgbt.com/ you will find two new files,
mtrack-0.2.tar.gz and mtrack-0.2.tar.bz2. The new mtrack program has the
following updates:
- Uses the free GTK+ widget set (http://www.gtk.org/)instead of Motif. This
means that it is buildable by anyone. I think it looks a lot nicer too.
- Year 2000 compliant, it too would suffer from the Year 2000 appearing as 100.
- Increased the maximum number of satellites from 200 to 500.
- Included updated keplerian elements.
The majority of the work I have done has involved the first point, the basic
satellite tracking algorithms and functionality have not changed compared to
the original Motif version.
The program as released is considered Beta, and I have thought of a few things
I would like to modify slightly before I make the final 0.2 version. All of the
changes I can think of are cosmetic and I will probably issue a small patch set as
well as new tar files when it becomes available.
Please download the program and give it a go. The TODO file included within the
tar file details additions I would like to make. One of the items is to add
help texts, this does not require any programming expertise, if you would like
to help with that, drop me a line. My time is going to become limited in the
next few weeks (buying a house in the UK) so don't expect much development for
a little while.
Jonathan HB9/G4KLX in sunny Zurich
