[IDV #AUV-614403]: Track control and Animation

Hi Maswood,
Sorry, your support request got lost in a long list of requests.
Are you still having problems with the trackcontrol?

Jeff

> 
> I am trying to draw different kinds of display and/or animation .According
> to your previous suggestions, I did experiment with
> ucar.unidata.idv.control.TrackControl.java ,
> ucar.visad.display.TrackDisplayable and related java files.
> 
> 
> And it seems that all the methods to draw the tracks , are called within the
> "init()" method of TrackControl.java.
> As of my understanding that to modify the track display, we do not need any
> kind of animation yet the method  "getAnimation();" is called inside  the
> init() method of ucar.unidata.idv.control.TrackControl.java . Could you
> please tell me what is necessity of this function here as I failed to
> comprehend after debugging several times.
> 
> And I am  wondering how and where to use "addReference" or any other method
> in TrackControl.java inside the init() method to add multiple display when
> the track is drawn  and also where the variables [latitude, longitude , etc
> which are read from .csv/track files] are stored  in the TrackControl.java ,
> so that we can manipulate or create different data structure, datareference
> using those variables and then add other forms display here when the main
> track is drawn.
> 
> 
> As there is not animation involved here, it seems that only creating data
> structure and/or manipualting data and then add those data reference here
> would create multiple track or other form of display.
> 
> 
> And which java files/where it need to be modified if we would like to create
> animation i.e. according to time - > the display would change.
> 
> 
> Thank you in advance for any kind of hints or suggestion.
> 
> Maswood
> 
> 
> 
> address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > Hi Maswood-
> >
> > > I have a problem of displaying turtle track and I would like to
> > > modify/augment/extend the code of IDV.
> > >
> > > Here is the screen shot displayed by IDV. This is a turtle track .
> > >
> > > So I'd like to visualize transparency in this track and modify the width
> > of
> > > the track based on other  variables.
> >
> > You can map a parameter to alpha, but not to line width.  LineWidth is a
> > VisAD ConstantMap only and is a single value.
> >
> > > As the IDV is build on top of Visad and most of the displayed function is
> > > inherited from visad , I
> > > was thinking of changing the code of visad.
> > >
> > > There is a section in visad about how to implement transparency using an
> > > Alpha Map section in "4.6: Transparency "
> > >
> > > http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/tutorial/s4/Section4.html<http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/tutorial/s4/Section4.html>
> > >
> > > In this example when the height is high, the object is less
> > > transparent(opaque).
> > >
> > > where I'd like to display that when time frame is earlier, the track
> > would
> > > be less transparent.
> > > the more recent the times, the track would be more transparent.
> > >
> > > The problem is its : not clear  where and how IDV uses "Visad display
> > > function" to plot or visualizes the track
> > > and which class/function  need be to modified for that.
> >
> > The IDV wraps a lot of the VisAD ScalarMap functionality in the
> > DisplayMaster/Displayable classes in ucar.visad.display.  A DisplayableData
> > object wraps a DataReference and the ScalarMaps/ConstantMaps applicable to
> > the data in the DataReference.  The DisplayMaster is a wrapper for the VisAD
> > DisplayImpl.  There is some information in the IDV Workshop materials:
> >
> >
> > http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/IDV/docs/workshop/dev/data/VisADDisplayModel.html
> >
> > One way to do what you want without changing any code is the following:
> >
> > - Load in your track.
> > - Select the Formulas Data Source and then the Grids->One value colored by
> > another formula and select the Plan View->Color-Filled Contour Plan View
> > display and click Create Display.
> > - When the Field Selector pops up, select the parameter you want to display
> > for the "Data field" and the Track->Basic->Time field for the "Color field"
> > and click OK.  That will plot the data colored by time.
> > - Now, for that display, select the Edit->Color Table->Edit Color Table
> > menu to bring up the color table editor.  In the editor:
> >  - Click the Transparency radio button and set a desired transparency for
> > the old time data.
> >  - in the color bar, click on the left side of the bar to set the
> > transparency for the low time value.
> >  - then right click on the color bar and select the Edit
> > Colors->Transparency->Interpolate->Right menu from the popup menu to
> > interpolate the transparency from the low to high values.
> >
> > That will display your track with older times more transparent than newer
> > times.
> >
> > I know that's not intuitive, but it does provide the right combination of
> > ScalarMaps to get the job done.
> >
> > However, if you want to use a track control and the associated features it
> > provides (e.g. animation), then you would need to modify/subclass the
> > ucar.unidata.idv.control.TrackControl and/or
> > ucar.visad.display.TrackDisplayable to set the color table based on the
> > shown times.
> >
> > > Any kind of suggestion would be greatly helpful and appreciated.
> >
> > Don Murray
> >
> >
> 
> 


Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: AUV-614403
Department: Support IDV
Priority: Critical
Status: Closed