Updates to David Taylor's Software - 2001

This page lists the changes made to my applications during 2001.  Recent updates

Date Application Notes
2001 Dec 29 SatSignal
APT & WEFAX satellite decoder
V3.8.10 - force Meteosat images to be exactly 800 lines high, remove overwrite query for WEFAX ADMIN, SCHE and TEST images, define and use GOES naming standard, support MAXISAT "image" .MAX files as GMS images - uses GMS naming convention and .JPG as output file type, enhanced Meteor 2-21 sensitivity, only suggest sampling frequency if at least 7 minutes of data present, support MRU list on File, Open.
2001 Dec 18 WXtrack
Satellite orbit prediction
V3.1.4 - keep tracking while minimised, recognise shuttle on just the "STS" string, trap error when pass-list cannot be saved.
2001 Dec 17 GeoSatSignal
Process images from geostationary weather satellites
V1.3.6 - support WXSat naming convention (e.g. D2_1200), add stereographic projection for southern hemisphere, display time-only on animation if full date/time unavailable, add Eumetsat RSS image format support, add video linear stretch (as well as histogram equalise), add sea-colour background, add Meteosat sectors 7, 8, 9 combine (7 is "master"), add Rob Alblas HRI format support - file extension .RAH, use calibration from HRI data where possible, support AIW format data, accept older Bracknell MSLP images, accept D2_24 if no D2_21/27 available.
2001 Dec 12 LUTmaker V1.0.6 - adds File, Save As option.
2001 Dec 07 GeoSatSignal V1.3.4 - limited support for GEOS-E/W WEFAX sectors, including animation, support Eumetsat archive format (417 x 417 pixels) and naming convention, add "join-by-default" for loading command-line files, add per-job choice of CLUT, .bmp files in GeoSatSignal folder, add per-job choice of output folder, make animation filename depend on job path and job name, add ability to open animation independently, correct apparent hang when looping checked and player button pressed.
2001 Dec 07 New ! AutoGet
Automated Internet file retrieval
V1.0.0 - new product, part of the GeoSatSignal suite.  Gets current and archive weather satellite images from the Dundee, GSFC and Nottingham Web sites allowing you to make your own animations with the GeoSatSignal program.
2001 Dec 04 WXtrack V3.1.2 - add frequency and note display in satellite Kepler list form, additions and improvements in the Ephemeris, increased azimuth resolution, add prominent real-time UTC/local clock, "point-at-object" commands for tracker, support trackers requiring "flip" mode, support CX6DD tracker over serial interface, allow more recent etopo5.dat from NOAA source - name irrelevant, choice of longitude or azimuth for ephemeris, more accurate locations in .LCN file for NOAA satellites, more precise frequency display.
2001 Nov 30 GeoSatSignal V1.3.2 - support MET7 LZ sector, recognise Dundee water vapour channels, limited support for GSFC/GOES-E/GOES-W animation, support simple TIFF input, add remap for GSFC 1200 x 1000 and other data, improved colour visibility on Bracknell overlay, add GMS-5 A, B, C & D segment spatial calibration, add country boundaries, add tweening for smoother animation (doubles AVI file size), move notes from readme text file into simple help file.
2001 Nov 21 GeoSatSignal V1.3.0 - new program for processing images from geostationary satellites.  Provides sector joining, false-colour, polar stereographic remapping, animation etc.
2001 Nov 19 HRPT reader V2.3.0 - add save of temperature calibration strip with image, enhanced temperature accuracy, enhanced positional accuracy, enhanced mapping accuracy, add simple illumination flattening, add zoomed view, support Dundee L1B format, add support for 16-bit big-endian raw format (files names .raw16), add optional user-defined stations for display, add more keyboard shortcuts, improved tolerance to missing lines, trap some file-too-small and file-too-big errors, trap errors when colour mapping channels are missing, correct focus error message when flipping, don't reprocess when mouse right-clicked
2001 Nov 15 SatSignal V3.8.8 - add full GMS support, enhanced Meteosat support, add command-line control of illumination adjust, add drag-and-drop file loading (registered), diagnostic display of initial command line, locate saved telemetry data in WXtrack folder
2001 Nov 13 SlideShow V2.0.4 - add Export to Filename list for e.g. IrfanView
2001 Sep 25 SatSignal V3.8.6 - add illumination correction for improved evening images, improved black-level prediction for NOAA images, add sampling frequency suggestion for NOAA wave files.
2001 Sep 21 Intel JPEG Library V1.51 - now uses processor-specific instructions, making it faster.  Optional update.
2001 Sep 13 WXtrack V3.1.0 - allow easier access to Edit Location dialog, add large-text display for remote manual tracking, add user-specified home locations in City.txt file, add Guam (GWM) ISS/Shuttle ground station, give more diagnostic information when SAA drop fails, stop second SAA name drop reverting map to realtime
2001 Sep 08 SGP4 component V3.1.2 - correct for Delphi 4 initialisation problem, update documentation, add VectorOrbits routine
2001 Sep 07 SlideShow V2.0.2 - remember form position and state (registered version).
2001 Sep 07 TVwriter
write pics back to digital camera CF card for TV display
V2.0.2 - optionally, accept incomplete numerically-sorted filenames, i.e. sort "1" before "2" before "12" (as in PowerPoint conversion)
2001 Aug 30 FTPpie
FTP piechart utility
V1.3.4 - does not display free space if quota exceeded.
2001 Aug 22 SatSignal V3.8.4 - add despeckle option, allow greater command-line control, revise thermal model to more recent NOAA methods and calibration, improved receiver non-linearity correction, revise default boundary colour to orange, increase image admiration time in batch mode.
2001 Aug 22 SatBatch
Automated satellite decoding
V1.7.0 - add .NOA from Timestep's PROsat as recognised bitmap image file type and file naming convention.
2001 Aug 21 MakeOverlay
Overlay generator for WXtrack
V1.3.0 - works with Large Font displays.
2001 Aug 19 WXtrack V3.0.4 - recognise "STS-" at start of satellite name as switch to ISS-mode, add Colour picture list (as the default), revise picture lists for current SatSignal naming standards, remove case-sensitivity from satellite picture name match, prevent double-click maximise from also selecting satellite by accident
2001 Aug 13 SlideShow V2.0.0 - add auto-scroll when dragging a slide vertically, scroll sorter to show slides newly dropped, add Export to TVwriter command
2001 Aug 13 TVwriter V2.0.0 - add Open Folder, Open Slideshow menu commands, allow registered version to run from command-line
2001 Aug 06 WXtrack V3.0.2 - enhanced satellite pass list display on Setup and Ephemeris, add MET (mission elapsed time) display, add altitude in miles as hint, display frequency to 3 decimal digits, accept SAA dataset names dropped from Internet Explorer to select satellite and pass start time.
2001 Aug 03 TVwriter New program to allow you to write back processed images to a Compact Flash card for display in a Canon S300, Nikon Coolpix 950 or 990 cameras.  Other people have said this was impossible - now you can prove them wrong!
2001 Jul 24 HRPT reader V2.2.0 - histogram equalisation options, image crispening options, add temperature calibration strip to displays, user-controlled temperature display range, add colour vegetation option, add line acquisition times, option to read either pass in dual-pass GAC files, restore flip pass function, simple Sea Surface Temperature support with save, save thermal channels as apparent temperatures, mapping algorithms described in context-sensitive help (click mapping name), fix despeckle problems, improved Large Font display support, add GSHHS shoreline support, much faster plotting
2001 Jul 18 FTPpie V1.3.2 - clarifies the "allowed space" setting.
2001 Jul 16 WXtrack V3.0.0 - add tracker support for Antenna Rotator System (EA4TX), SeaTel tracker, and Kansas City Tracker, add RX control via RTS line, add more user control of map centre longitude, add user-specified ISS ground stations, add user-specified satellite ERP, update for newer format TBUS bulletins, relax picture filename match criteria, allow second command-line parameter "M" to go straight to named pass.
2001 Jul 16 FTPpie
V1.3.0 - add Refresh option (F5 button), minor updates.
2001 Jul 14 SlideShow V1.4.0 - honour "Pause/Break" key in timer mode, look for SSHcache folder files in CD-ROM drive, enable View Slideshow etc. menus after slideshow saved, honour Resample setting in batch mode, correct menu popup behaviour when more than 255 slides in the show - now needs D5 run time library
2001 Jul 04 ShowMan
Disk usage piechart
V5.1.2 - fix memory leak on repeated scans
2001 Jul 02 SatSignal V3.8.2 - revise gamma to give finer steps, improved temperature resolution, improved readout visibility with large fonts
2001 Jun 24 CorrectGeometry V1.3.0 - uses the Delphi 5 runtime libraries
2001 Jun 18 ShowMan V5.1.0 - handles individual files larger than 2GB, remembers current folder when opening a new one, GB size option
2001 Jun 17 HRPT reader V2.1.0 - redesigned internally to allow more algorithms, add NOAA Snow 3A option, add selected NOAA standard algorithms, add temperature-mapped colour algorithm, raw channel output, histogram equalisation more selective, new video-stretch option selectively available, refined gamma correction values, user mouse-selected signal level measurement region, remember form state between uses, remember nudge offsets for recent files
2001 Jun 01 SatSignal V3.8.0 - read Timestep bitmap files, read Timestep .NOA files with auto pass direction sensing, make file open dialog reflect last type used, optional run at lower priority during interactive and batch processing, add wave file signal level check in diagnostic text, marginally better Meteor 2-21 discrimination, increased MRU list size.
2001 May 17 SGP4 component V3.1.0 - add Mean Anomaly result
2001 May 15 SatBatch V1.6.8 - marginally better Meteor 2-21 discrimination.
2001 Apr 28 WXtrack V2.8.4 - improved layout with large fonts, add satellite frequency and note as next-pass hint, use actual satellite frequency for Doppler display, add more zoomed-in display, correct false AOS after real-time mode re-selected, fix low-angle passes falsely triggering AOS, and incorrect pass-box being displayed, note pass-box is NOAA-specific, add post-Kepler update user command.
2001 Apr 15 SatBatch V1.6.6 - slightly improved NOAA detection sensitivity.
2001 Apr 15 SatSignal V3.7.4 - optional wide-bandwidth wave file decode for improved picture quality under good signal conditions, unified sampling frequencies, slightly increased tolerance of noisy NOAA signals and slightly better detection, improved off-image mouse handling and gamma up/down button click timing.  Please note that you now do not need to specify different sampling frequencies for NOAA and Resurs/Meteor satellites.
2001 Apr 09 HRPT reader V2.0.2 - adds CHRPT overlays on Quorum & TimeStep formats, read Keplers from Quorum header, allow false colour when no IR channel is read, recognise NOAA-16 in SAA header, improved TimeStep DOS format handling, support multiple 8-bit channels in newer SAA data, keyboard control of overlay nudge, optional rename to standard format and drop suffices.
2001 Apr 08 JPEG_IO unit Updated to read half, quarter and one-eighth size thumbnails.
2001 Apr 04 Curve Fit unit Least-squares curve fitting unit and test bed.
2001 Mar 24 SGP4 component VB5 demo updated.  Component unchanged.
2001 Mar 22 SGP4 component VB5 new demo from Les Hamilton.  Component unchanged.
2001 Feb 22 Disk Utilities All programs upgraded for Delphi 5 runtime library
2001 Feb 11 MakeOverlay V1.2.0 - allows choice of line thickness
2001 Feb 10 WXtrack
Orbit prediction
V2.8.2 - corrects the possibility of a floating point error at startup.
2001 Feb 10 HRPT reader V2.0.0 - adds overlays for 10B (Rob Alblas), L1F, SSB & Timestep format files, draws distance vector in non-zoomed mode, overlay display on/off switch, more general water-vapour display for all NOAA satellites, purge working set before reading new file, replace list box with memo in diagnostics display to allow copying.
2001 Feb 02 WXtrack V2.8.0 - add multiple pages of active satellites, satellite frequency, sun/moon location readout in status bar, optional sun/moon icons, allow multi-select and double-click for satellite selection setup, add non-real-time AOS display, adds optional current pass footprint box for WX sats, make footprint scanline optional, add user-definable sounds for events around AOS, greater range for pass duration and horizon depression, improved mouse time steps, accept non-standard Keplers with mixed case object names, provide control of Kepler "stale" and "obsolete" ages, allow sorting of Kepler display on column headers, allow UNIX-style Kepler files
2001 Feb 01 SatBatch
V1.6.4 - correct error when deleting existing BMP/PNG overlay to re-create  Note, now requires the Borland Delphi 5 runtime library.
2001 Jan 27 LUTmaker V1.0.4 - now uses Delphi 5 runtime library
2001 Jan 25 SatSignal
V3.7.2 - improved Okean-O signal level processing
2001 Jan 18 SatSignal V3.7.0 - add distance measurement on NOAA satellites, revise distance scale pixels from 4.0 to 3.3 km, improved Okean-O (SICH) quality, sync sensitivity adjustment, increase choice of NOAA colour model in batch mode including "user", revise non-NOAA overlay widths, only save NOAA overlay offsets, prevent soft overlay interfering with cloud-top mode, hide cursor readout when saving PNG, correct registry access code.   Note, now requires the Borland Delphi 5 runtime library.
2001 Jan 14 SGP4 component Visual C demo update.  Component unchanged.
2001 Jan 13 HRPT reader V1.6.4 - add text annotation to gridlines, add "Chans 4 + 5" button for the winter, process SSB real-time data.
2001 Jan 13 SGP4 component Added Delphi 4 example program, notes on registering the DLL.  No version change.
2001 Jan 11 SGP4 component Active-X DLL (component) encapsulation of satellite list and orbit predictions.  For use with programming languages MS Visual C++, Delphi, ASP web pages, and the Windows Scripting Host.  V3.0.8 adds more returned values, Sun and Moon predictions, and a Visual C++ example.
2001 Jan 06 FTPpie Your ISP offers you 30MB of disk space, but doesn't tell you how much space is used!  This tool enables you to get a usage piechart from your FTP service, showing which directories are taking the most space, and to drill down into those directories to see which are the largest files.  V1.1.0 adds allowed space input, shows free space.
2000 Nov 03 Intel JPEG Library V1.5 New library, will be required for future versions of my software.
2000 Oct 19 Intel IPL & NSP libraries Update to current Intel versions, IPL 2.5.2, NSP 4.2.10, which are slightly faster and include Pentium 4 support (IPL).  My future software will be checked against these libraries, but there is no need for you to update if you are working OK.
 

 
Copyright © David Taylor, Edinburgh   Last modified: 2015 Jan 18 at 09:32