[HN Gopher] Vessel Finder
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Vessel Finder
Author : gscott
Score : 53 points
Date : 2021-03-29 18:10 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vesselfinder.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vesselfinder.com)
| not_knuth wrote:
| I was quite surprised that this website seems to use a self-made
| map viewer. Maybe I'm just out of the loop, but it feels like by
| now everyone either just uses Google Maps and a minute, hardy
| fraction uses something based on OSM.
| tyingq wrote:
| If you pull up a map through their embed functionality, you can
| see OpenLayers (https://openlayers.org/) and OSM is in there
| somewhere:
|
| https://www.vesselfinder.com/aismap?zoom=8&lat=36.00&lon=-5....
| not_knuth wrote:
| Thanks! Good to know...
| Etheryte wrote:
| The increased pricing model Google Maps brought along a few
| years ago [1] makes it a lot less appealing for public-facing
| projects these days. It's still great for internal tools that
| have limited and predictable volume, but for anything public
| you'll both be building a cache layer yourself to reduce the
| costs as well as monitoring it closely. Something as simple as
| ending up on the HN frontpage could easily burn through your
| planned budget. Setting quotas only solves the problem so far
| since your service will still be unusable once you hit them.
|
| [1] https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/pricing
| kabes wrote:
| Nautical maps (available, but not the default on vesselfinder)
| are usually a bit special. There's custom standards like ENC
| s-52/63/57 etc. Typically with a huge amount of symbol layers
| etc. Which is just one of the many reasons they may have gone
| with a custom openlayers solution
| rst wrote:
| It could be a custom rendering of OSM data... whatever it is
| has full street grids for land-locked villages in the middle of
| France, which I can't imagine them gathering on their own. And
| their requirements (particularly for the vessel overlays) are
| peculiar enough that having their own renderer seems pretty
| reasonable.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Clicking [i] in the bottom right corner reveals this is
| indeed based on OSM data.
|
| Kind of stupid design, as the [i] button is so big that a
| small always visible attribution could have fit better (just
| like on osm.org).
|
| This is seemingly one of default options in OpenLayers (my
| guess based on how often I see this type of attribution). I
| wonder why people choose OL anyway. Sites using it in my
| experience have on average jankier UX than those based on
| Leaflet.
| mik3y wrote:
| If you're interested in building your own ship tracker, have I
| got an incomplete (but functioning!) quarantine boredom project
| for you: https://github.com/mik3y/airdash
|
| The hobbyist AIS tracking world seems to be a bit less popular
| than the plane tracking (ADS-B) world. I started the project
| above to try to build a common frontend where one could show
| both; mainly because there weren't any frontends I could find for
| AIS traffic.
|
| If you just want to decode the data, try rtl-ais:
| https://github.com/dgiardini/rtl-ais
|
| I wrote up some quick instructions on getting it working on
| rasberry pi here:
| https://github.com/mik3y/airdash/wiki/Running-RTL-AIS-on-
| Raspberry-Pi
|
| And a dockerized version here:
| https://github.com/mik3y/rtl-ais-docker
| hrishi wrote:
| this is awesome, will definitely be checking it out.
|
| ADS-B is definitely more popular than AIS, and I've always
| wondered why. Perhaps it's that airplanes evoke more wonder,
| and is more accessible over land than poor old ships?
|
| Do DM me if you're looking for a position, or if you'd just
| like to chat about vessels, AIS and anything maritime.
|
| We're building maritime intelligence at Greywing (https://grey-
| wing.com), and I'd love your input. In fact we have a Launch HN
| post up right now, so if you have any thoughts do drop them in!
| mik3y wrote:
| Neat product! I'm a novice in this space but I'll definitely
| keep eyes on.
|
| On adoption.. I think your hunch is at least part of it. I
| think another part, one that is very solvable, is there are
| not a whole lot of instructions for DIY hardware & software
| setups out there.
|
| My impression is most AIS hobbyists use kits & proprietary
| hardware shipped from commercial providers (eg
| MarineTraffic), while rtl-ais is pretty obscure. Documenting
| what I can as I go to change it.
| floathub wrote:
| While we don't have a standalone AIS hardware product, we
| do have hardware and software that lets you relay AIS data
| both to us and out to other vessel monitoring systems. More
| data here:
|
| https://support.floathub.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/360001334348-...
|
| software only version here:
|
| https://github.com/floathub/sfh
|
| drop a note if you want any more info.
| skeletal88 wrote:
| What are you using to display the S-52 and S-63 charts on the
| web? I worked on a VTS product (a small vendor, not any of
| the big ones), and there I learned that:
|
| 1) The sea charts are hugely expensive, the chart sellers
| want to sell you a subscription for a limited amount of time,
| that would just disappear when the time is over. "safety" is
| their justification for it 2) There are no open source
| libraries for drawing charts, the desktop chart drawing
| libraries are expensive, and it seems that the web products
| that output WMS are even more expensive.
| giantrobot wrote:
| ADS-B you can pick up from just about anywhere since planes
| are flying. AIS requires you be near enough a decent sized
| body of water/waterway.
| dan_quixote wrote:
| Do you know of any APIs hosting ship AIS data for free? I did a
| bunch of digging on this a few years ago and essentially came
| up empty-handed.
| cinbun8 wrote:
| 10 points to you if you were able to zoom in correctly on the
| Suez Canal
| Black101 wrote:
| https://i.imgur.com/uGHmeOI.png ... The 6th of October gave it
| away....
| argvargc wrote:
| https://myshiptracking.com is an alternative without as many
| paywall restrictions.
|
| (Note that initial load of ship data can be slow.)
| spockz wrote:
| What astounds me is that we have ships ferrying things from all
| over the world which are available nearby as well. Take this LPG
| Tanker, taking lpg from Egypt to the states and now its way to
| Singapore. You would think there are less roundabout ways of
| getting lpg ...
| rob74 wrote:
| What's even more mind-boggling to me is that container
| logistics are so cheap that a pair of jeans now goes from
| Kazakhstan (cotton) via Turkey (spinning) via Taiwan (weaving)
| via Poland (dying) via the Philippines (sewing) via Tunisia
| (finishing) to finally be sold in Germany (or elsewhere in
| Europe) - see http://competendo.net/en/A_Pair_of_Jeans . So,
| because shipping costs next to nothing (or, at least, it used
| to), you can optimize your supply chain and find the cheapest
| alternative (probably also with the laxest regulations) in a
| global race to the bottom. Capitalism at its best...
| slowhand09 wrote:
| Also https://marinetraffic.com
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(page generated 2021-03-29 23:01 UTC)