Discussions

G'day peoples,

I've been writing some software that is effectively 'ground station' software. For the initial development I'm focusing on quadcoptor usage (due to available hardware), but the software is being designed to work with all types of drones. 

Right now I'm working on telemetry and came across a problem with representing velocity. The device I'm working with reports velocity on three axis, but I cannot figure out a way to portray this to the user. I have the usual gauges (VSI, direction, speed, attitude, etc), but I would like to show the user what the current velocity is. 

I've looked at a lot of software and I've not seen any form of indicator or gauge for this information. This has surprised me as I thought such information would be useful. I do understand that one axis is effectively VSI. However I thought that a form of 3d indicator showing the strength of the velocity on each axis may be useful.

Does anyone seen a method to display such information to a user in a useful manor? Also comments on the usability of such information is welcome.

Btw, the software is written as GPLv3 and will be FOSS, no gotcha's. It's designed for monitor and control of multiple drones on touch devices (or pc/laptop), via a gateway (currently using a raspberry pi for this), with the intention that it's very portable and easy to extend for new drones/comms hardware. I'll announce the software when it gets to a point where it is presentable and usable beyond the limitations of my currently available drone.

Cheers,

James.