APT-VIEW Demo for IBM PC Compatibles (MS-DOS) Dr TS Kelso tkelso@afit.af.mil 20 May 1993 To run this demo, you will need the files AV-DISK1.ZIP, AV-DISK2.ZIP, and PKUNZIP.EXE (this is Version 2.04g). Once you have these files, you will need to unpack each of the .ZIP files to separate 1.2MB or 1.44MB diskettes. Once you have done this, you are ready to begin the installation. To set up the program, put the first diskette in the drive, change to that drive, and type INSTALL {source drive} {destination drive} The source drive is the drive with the diskette in it; the destination drive is the drive you want to install the program on. If you were installing from the B: drive and wanted to install to your C: drive, you would type INSTALL B: C: You can install to any valid drive in your system, as long as it has sufficient space to hold the software and the one sample image. Installing the full system takes 2680k plus about a megabyte of working space for saving screen images; if you didn't want the capability to save screen images and generate either a GIF image or PostScript file, you would only need 1713k. Of the disk space required, 1126k is for the image, 407k is for the map files, and 95k is for orbital data. We plan on tailoring the map files to reduce storage requirements and processing time. The configuration file (APT-RVW3.CFG) is set up assuming your display is capable of handling 640 x 480 resolution with 256 colors. You can, however, change this resolution within the software file. You will be able to tell if your display will handle this resolution when you run the install program; the first thing it does is run a program called G-TEST to test your graphics capabilities. G-TEST will start off by checking your color text capabilities; you should see a full screen with ``Test'' written all over it with various foreground and background colors. After this screen has displayed, hit ENTER to go to the graphics test portion. In this portion, you will be allowed to test the various resolutions supported by the software. Please test each of them (by selecting the resolution with the up/down cursor keys and hitting ENTER). You should have no problem with the first choice and should see a yellow box bounding the screen with a message in the upper-left corner stating the resolution and showing a 256-color bar. As you go through each mode, you may see a message flash by stating that this mode is not supported by your graphics card, followed by a jumbled screen. Make note of the highest resolution your system will support. After running the tests and exiting G-TEST, the install program will begin unpacking the software to the directory \APT-RVW on the destination drive. Once that is completed, you will be asked to insert the data diskette; simply press ENTER once you have. The image will be copied to the subdirectory IMAGES. This sample image was taken from NOAA 11 on 23 August 1992 during the 2053 UTC pass and shows Hurricane Andrew passing through the Bahamas. The image was captured using a five-element crossed yagi antenna (~$70) with Yaesu rotors (~$500) which were controlled by a standalone satellite tracking rotor controller called SAT TRAK II (~$300). The signal was fed through a Wraase preamp into a Wraase receiver (~$1500) and the audio signal was fed into an A-to-D converter (~$300) inside a 386 PC. Similar results could have been obtained using a quadrafilar antenna (~$300) and eliminating the rotors and rotor controller. Total cost (not including the PC) for the first system is approximately $2,670; for the second system it's $2,100. Here is what's in the APT-RVW3.CFG file on the demo disk: 2 ;mselect - 640 x 480 x 256 0 ;offset_x 0 ;offset_y 1 ;delta_x 1 ;delta_y APT-RVW3.NAM % Default drive for data files \apt-rvw\images\ % Default directory for data files SAT.RSA % Default drive for work files Yes % Delete .RAW files (Yes or No) The first line specifies the screen resolution; choices are: Mode Resolution ---- ---------- 0 320 x 200 1 640 x 400 2 640 x 480 3 800 x 600 4 1024 x 768 The next five lines should not be changed. If you wanted to put your data files in another directory, you would need to specify a default drive and directory; the configuration is set up with the current drive as the default and \APT-RVW\IMAGES\ as the default directory. The only other line you might want to change would be the default directory for work files. If you installed to a hard disk, processing files to transform to GIF or PostScript may be slow; simply specify a RAM drive here and you will cut these times considerably. If you don't feel comfortable with changing these values, there really is no need to do so. After everything has been copied to the destination disk, you are ready to run APT-RVW3F; the install program will end by doing this for you. At the first screen, press ENTER. At the second screen, select the resolution you wish to use and then press ENTER for the x and y offsets and x and y deltas; the first two do work (if you want to change them) but the deltas do not. Next, an image time will be displayed. This time can be changed but this is STRONGLY DISCOURAGED! If you mess up this time, you will not be able to overlay the map information. Under some rare circumstances, it may be desirable to change the minute value, but adjusting the time to the nearest half second is normally done on the image. At least for the demo, just hit ENTER here, too. Now, the image should display on the screen. Ascending passes will display from bottom to top; descending passes from top to bottom. The first thing you will likely want to do is adjust the image contrast and brightness through the palette. Type P to enter the palette mode and ESC to exit when done. To toggle between a linear gray scale and logarithmic, type T. You can use the cursor keys (for fine adjustment) or PgUp/PgDn (for coarse adjustment) to set these values; up and down controls brightness and left and right controls the threshold below which everything is set black. If the image gets too messed up, toggling will return you to the next default palette. I recommend simply toggling to a logarithmic scale (and possibly hitting PgUp once) and then hitting ESC; the computer will beep indicating the mode has completed. The next thing you would normally do would be to adjust the image. This is done by typing A and moving the cursor (which is vertically centered over in the minute mark portion of the image) in the direction which the image loaded until it is lined up with the beginning of the minute mark. This feature is not well designed for easy explanation and will be changed. Once you are lined up, hit ENTER and the time will be updated; the image time will not be updated unless you type U (NOT recommended unless you're sure you know what you're doing). If you decide after typing A that you don't want to do the update, press ESC. Once the time is set, you can use the map registration features. Typing H will show the home location (currently Wright-Patterson AFB) if it's on the map. Typing M will display all map features in the .WDB and .PNT map data files; you can remove any/all of these and the program will still work. If you type G, a grid of latitude and longitude points will be displayed at one- degree intervals with plus signs at five-degree interval; the satellite ground track will also be shown. Typing L will place a cursor on the screen and allow you to move it to any location; pressing ENTER will show the point's latitude and longitude and ESC exits this mode. If the display gets too busy, you can redisplay the screen by pressing D. This, of course, wipes out everything except the palette and time changes. The final features available are to display a title at the top of the image (by typing T) which shows the satellite name, and the date and time of the image. There is also a zoom feature which allows some crude magnification; the box can be moved around the screen with the cursor keys. Finally, you can save the image produced by typing S. A raw data file will be written to the work disk and a batch file created. After exiting the program (by pressing ESC twice), you can run this batch file to generate a GIF image. This batch file could be easily modified to produce PostScript output, too (instead).