Sounding Plugin - for paraglider pilots

[vicb]

I have created a plugin to display soundings for paraglider pilots.

You can try it by installing windy-plugin-sounding.

It's still in early stages - feedback welcome.

Thanks to John C. Kealy - I borrowed some code from his skewt plugin.

[Gkikas LGPZ]

@vicb
I can run J. C. Kealy's skewT but I cannot find your Sounding plugin.
Am I doing something wrong?

[siim]

Load plugin and then right click on map.

[Gkikas LGPZ]

@siim
OK, thx. it works now.
I thought I could find it in the "More layers..." drop-down menu as for SkewT

[Gkikas LGPZ]

@vicb
I suggest to indicate units (height=ft?, wind speed=kts?)

Also, you can ask for help from Alan Walls, who made one of the best SkewT apps
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ajw.skewt&hl=en

[vicb]

@Gkikas-LGPZ Units should be what you have configured in windy settings - I'll add them on the graphs at some point.

There are quite a few things I want to improve/polish and then I'll get the android app you pointed to. Thanks !

[raf-t]

hi victor,
i m quite new to windy plugins, so this may be a stupid question : do you think it could be possible to have a direct link that would point to your plugin for a given url and which would show your sounding ?
not sure how/if a plugin can be loaded when page opens...
regards
raphael

[vicb]

I don't think it's possible right now as plugins have to be loaded explicitly.

[stitch]

@vicb ,

I commend you for your work done on the F160 plugin.

Do you have a preference for km/h units in the F160 wind field? Or, could I sway you to use knots as an alternative - widely used unit in marine and aviation professions.

Thanks for you work.

[vicb]

@stitch The plug-in uses you preferred units are as configured in the windy settings.

There might be some bugs and I still have to add units on the axis but it will come.

[Gkikas LGPZ]

@vicb
What does those numbers mean?

[vicb]

The intersection between the green and red lines is the top of thermals (1900ft on the screenshot) - that's how high glider pilots can expect to reach when flying.

The cursor is supposed to show the altitude - 68900 should be 21000(ft) but there was a bug with imperial units that I just fixed in 1.1.6. Thanks for reporting !

[Gkikas LGPZ]

@vicb
I think the scale on the left is wrong
(shows aprox. 1000ft less in low altitudes and 2000ft less in high altitudes).

example: point "A" marks the temp. at 300 hPa (30000 ft, FL300)
but the diagram shows 28300 (1700ft off). .....

[Gkikas LGPZ]

..... at lower levels

point "B" marks the temp. at 600 hPa (13800 ft, FL140)
but the diagram shows 12000 ft (1800ft off).

[mhaberler]

I really like the better-sounding plugin!

I have a few suggestions for improvement:

• make the Favorites display optional with a toggle button like 'Zoom View' - it takes a lot of screen real estate and if you're probing locations you might not necessarily limit yourself to favorite locations
• make the ground brown box translucent so you can see temp and dewpoint at low altitudes - the values vanish in the brown box like so: https://snipboard.io/p3Za7H.jpg (or maybe remove the brown box to start with and mark ground level with a line - the box adds no information per se)
• try the plugin on a a few mobiles (or mobile screen predefs in Chrome Dev Tools) - pretty much unusable. Width and height not adapted to screen size. Works great on a PC though.

thanks for adding this!

best regards,

Michael

[vicb]

@mhaberler Thanks for the feedback Michael.

1. Making the plugin better on mobile is something I plan to work on. Only a few users know that you can load plugins on mobiles so it was not high priority.

2. Could you elaborate more on favorites, why is your use case usage ? One thing I was thinking about is to display only the 5/10 favorite spots closest to the current location to save screen real estate. However I ended up having < 15 favorites and haven't found it to be inconvenient. There is probably room for improvement here - we only need to find a good way.

3. What would be the use to see below ground ? AFAIR it seems like some models do not have sensible values below ground level.

[mhaberler]

@vicb right, continuation of dewpoints/temps 'underground' doesnt make any sense

now if you're looking into mobile screen real estate is an issue to start with, so maybe drop the brown box altogether and save some pixels for the skewt diagram - just start at ground level and record ground elevation

my use case: I use the traj plugin for planning balloon rides

so I pick a track which is likely and nice, and then check conditions along this path

'along this path' practically never translates into a favorite location - so in this case just used up screen space for no use

[grantonthefly]

The plugin is incredible Viclo, thank you

[vicb]

Happy that you like it @grantonthefly

[grantonthefly]

Hopefully, we will get the functionality to able to load it from the windy quick menu on desktop instead of from menu bar everytime. Are you able to access your plugin on mobile?