ViStumbler Betas

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Post by arizonajon »

Hi Andrew -

Where we left off a few days ago, I was promising to try beta 12 and yesterday and today I did get that opportunity.

First, the setup again: truck computer is the Windows 7 Pro running on a dual-core Atom D2550 board, with 4 GB memory. The Wi-Fi setup is an Amped Wireless dual-band USB adapter, the UA230, with about 5 feet of LMR240 coax running to a Cisco high-gain dual-band omni on the roof of the truck. It's pretty sensitive. VS is configured to do the minimum work possible, many options are shut off, I don't attempt to reorder the list, etc.

So, on Thursday morning I updated to beta 12, and took the truck down to the airport, since I needed to fly over to LA for the day. The GPS tick was enabled, and was working relatively well. The AP sound was working relatively well. Loop times seem to be highly dependent on the number of APs encountered during any one scan loop, but that's not exactly obvious, either.

By the time I arrived to the parking lot at the airport, I probably had 1700-1800 APs collected. By then, VS starts to get pretty slow. However, it was tick-tick-ticking even as I was driving around in the parking lot at the airport. I found a spot, which happened to be about 1800' east of the runway 25R numbers. and there were no public APs in the vicinity. (I realized later that maybe, at the parking spot location, I might be lucky and actually hear a Gogo Wi-Fi AP from an approaching airplane, haven't checked to see if I snagged one yet.)

I returned to the truck after midnight, and the program was still running. At that time, I noted that there were 1853 APs captured. I don't know how different this was from when I arrived at the parking spot, since I didn't pay much attention in the morning. While driving through the parking lot toward the toll booth, I noticed that there was an occasional tick, sometimes two in rapid succession, but several second to 10-second gaps in-between.

After getting out of the parking lot, I had to drive west through the airport to go home. By the time I'd passed Terminal 4 and was almost to Terminal 3, I noticed I wasn't hearing tick sounds, but I was hearing AP sounds very intermittently. I was almost to Terminal 2, still no tick, so I thought VS had frozen up in some way and was thinking about closing and restarting. By the time I got past Terminal 2, suddenly I heard a tick and glanced down to see that the loop time had been about 114 seconds, or nearly 2 minutes. And it wasn't obvious that there had been a lot of APs, since the count was only around 1880 or so. I suppose it's possible that the GPS fix was lost while driving through the airport, but I don't know that right now.

Once I got on the freeway headed home, the GPS ticks were separated by 10's of seconds, then suddenly there'd be 2 in rapid succession, then 10-20 seconds, then another one or two, etc., for the next few miles. I decided to try shutting off the AP scan to see if that fixed things. As far as I could tell, it made no difference. By this time I was up to about 1990 APs. I had also noticed that the GPS time marks were sometimes 30-60 seconds behind the current time, and once I shut off the AP scan it started to catch up with current time, but even 20-30 seconds later it was still very slow and intermittent.

About 10 minutes before I would arrive home, I closed the program and let it start saving the vs1 file. It was really slow. Like 5-8 APs per second, sometimes slower. There would be pauses as well, where it would stall for a few seconds, then start up again. I've seen this many times before, so that's nothing new. Since I was driving, I couldn't check the CPU utilization, so I can't report that.

Anyway, about 15 minutes after I arrived home, it was done saving the file. File size is 3.1 MB. I started uploading it to WiFiDB at 2230 UTC. It seems to be working, as my GE window keeps moving around the airport using the Newest AP w/fly to function.

Cheers - Jon
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Post by ACalcutt »

To me that all sounds like a successful run. :-)

I Usually try to limit my scans to around 1500-2000 APs (maybe even 1200 if I have easy access to the device scanning). Performance with more just starts to get bad.

Times would likely be longer an when adding a lot of new APs into the list. once they are in there it should be faster, as the slowness seems to be adding a new row into the list. even with the recent improvements I added, autoit still seems to be slow adding to a list when it starts to get big.

The gps tick sound only happens when the gps position changes. if you were in a building you are pretty likely to lose gps position, so it would make sense for it to stop ticking. also, with your list getting big vistumbler was probably starting to get slow.

the pause when exporting are likely access points that have a lot of signal history. I noticed in the file you imported today (still importing right now) there are some access points with a lot of gps history, which are taking quite a while. from the logs the file is still importing, so it should finish eventually :-)

On a side note... are you asking for trouble...lol. scanning in an airport. that would be a fun one to explain...hahaha
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Post by ACalcutt »

also, Vistumbler has no capital S in the name :lol: . it's Vist, like Vista (the OS it was originally made for) :smilegrin:
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Post by arizonajon »

Well, Vist sure works better when I keep it under 1000 APs :D

Took Beta 12 for a drive this morning and every once in a while I saved the file and restarted Vist.

Is it possible to set up the autosave in some way to automate the save and clear list function? Then I could set it to do that every not to exceed nnn APs or mmm minutes/hours, and it would keep the files manageable.

If you saw my truck and all the antennas, two-way radios and scanners, computer, solar panel, cameras, the Wi-Fi scanning is the least of my concerns...

Cheers - Jon
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Post by ACalcutt »

If you saw my truck and all the antennas, two-way radios and scanners, computer, solar panel, cameras, the Wi-Fi scanning is the least of my concerns...
hahaha... when you put it that way
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Post by ACalcutt »

I do like the idea of having an save and auto clear. Right now vistumbler does have an auto save function that used the external Export.exe, but has no way to create a unique file name for each save and clear the list.
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Post by arizonajon »

ACalcutt wrote:I do like the idea of having an save and auto clear. Right now vistumbler does have an auto save function that used the external Export.exe, but has no way to create a unique file name for each save and clear the list.
Right now when it proposes a filename based upon Date/TOD, I always choose it since I'm driving and can't stop to type anyway. that's completely acceptable to me - maybe others do something else?

When I get home, I will sometimes copy then rename the file so that I can do some analysis without modifying the original file.

Cheers - Jon
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Post by arizonajon »

Had two GPS fail events today. Not sure why.

First was after a successful file collection on the way into downtown. Closed Vist and everything was good. When I came out about an hour later, started up Vist and no GPS reporting - was N0 E0. Could see GPS using putty. Had to cycle power to get back to a point where Vist would log GPS.

Once I got it running again, I collected several hundred APs over the next 10 minutes, and GPS was ticking. Then I stopped to grab a sandwich, and left Vist running. Came out, got distracted with driving, and didn't notice that apparently the GPS wasn't ticking any more. Drove all the way home like that. Also, when I tried to close Vist, I was able to successfully click the "stop scan" button, but the "stop GPS" button wouldn't respond. After a *long* time waiting, I tried to close the program. That didn't work either. Even tried to close using task manager, was stuck. Recycled power and Vist still didn't see the GPS, so did the power recycle again and the third time Vist was able to start logging GPS. Checked the connections to the GPS, all looked good.

This afternoon I went back for another drive, and had the same issue with GPS and Vist. Took another power recycle to get it to recognize it and log. The GPS has been on a USB / serial adapter for the past few days, had been working acceptably. I'm going to futz around with it tonight and see if I can figure out what might be going on.

It's a nice thing to have the GPS sound. Thanks for adding that!

Cheers - Jon
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Post by ACalcutt »

Are you still using Kernel32 gps mode, or did you switch to the Comm32 mode. Comm32 may be less stable and cause lockups if you are using that.
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Post by ACalcutt »

I put out 10.6 Beta 13 which has my first attempt at the auto save and clear list feature. I had to re-organize the setting gui a little to get room for the new settings. Settings for this feature are at (Settings --> Save Settings --> Auto Save And Clear) and it can be turned on and off with (Options --> Auto Save And Clear)

I added two options. One that saves the list after a certain amount of Access points and other that clears after a certain number of minutes.
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Post by arizonajon »

Wow! I restarted Vist this morning and all sorts of new features were there! I am experimenting with it now and will give you an update later once I've had the chance to make a few runs. Thanks for all this work!

In other news, I switched to a different GPS receiver this morning and am going to see also if that improves my system's stability.
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Post by arizonajon »

Darn. I just lost my entire post. I got a entry error and it was all gone...

In brief: Excellent new feature, this auto-save, clear and restart. Most nice!

I have it set to 500 APs for now, partially to see it work several times, but partially because my box is a little sluggish.

Thanks also for the new debug feature. However, I found what looks to be a new bug in that feature:
Vist_COM_Error_Box.png
Vist_COM_Error_Box.png (28.5 KiB) Viewed 147102 times
This error comes up as follows:
1) Start Vist.
2) Select Options>Debug>Display COM Errors
3) Select Scan APs
4) Error box starts popping up, at least one for every AP detected. Does not seem to matter whether or not GPS is enabled or not.
5) Only way to stop errors is to select scan Stop. Then there will be an error box for every AP record, so I have had to clear as many as 20-25 error boxes to get back to ok.

Cheers - Jon
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Post by pferland »

Hi Jon,
I let Andrew know about the problem, and he said turning off the new debugging feature should make that go away.


Also, I guess Andrew wasn't too clear, and not to be rude but, the name of the software is Vistumber. No abbreviations, no capitol S, just Vistumbler.

We are not sure where the ViStumbler name started, but its not right.
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Post by arizonajon »

pferland wrote:Hi Jon,
I let Andrew know about the problem, and he said turning off the new debugging feature should make that go away.


Also, I guess Andrew wasn't too clear, and not to be rude but, the name of the software is Vistumber. No abbreviations, no capitol S, just Vistumbler.

We are not sure where the ViStumbler name started, but its not right.
It's pretty funny when you misspell the name also :D

I'll call it whatever you want it to be called, as long as you're consistent. Vistumbler is a lot of letters, and the "mbl" is always a challenge for typists.
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Post by pferland »

It's pretty funny when you misspell the name also :D
Ahahaha, that is what I get for trying to correct someone.
I'll call it whatever you want it to be called, as long as you're consistent. Vistumbler is a lot of letters, and the "mbl" is always a challenge for typists.
Yeah the spelling is a tad on the tricky side to type out.
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Post by ACalcutt »

Actually,

That debugging feature isn't new...its been there for quite a while. I usually keep them disabled, but enable them if I am trying to troubleshoot an issue.

I'll have to look at that com error to see if its anything that can be fixed, but from now i would just disable the display com errors debug option
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Post by arizonajon »

Good evening, all -

Beta 13 has been plugging along very well for the past week or so, and is quite stable. The auto-save feature is smooth and quick; with a limit of 500 APs and 300-600 GPS positions, the save-restart operation usually only takes 10 seconds or so. My drive to and from Tucson yesterday was great, and listening to the tick-tick, the sproing, and the autosave sound (is that crumpling paper?) made it easy to know what was going on without having to look.

Feature requests:
1) The date/time in the autosaved file name and the date/time in the manual-saved file name are in different time zones - it looks like the autosave uses UTC time while the manual save is local computer time. Can it be made such that both use the same time zone?

2) Since I always use the autosave file method, and only do a manual file save if I am shutting down the program before reaching my usual 500 APs, can the phrase "Autosave_" be made optional so that in my saved file directory I have a uniform way using date/time to sort the files? See the attached image as an example.
screenshot-file-structures.png
screenshot-file-structures.png (32.26 KiB) Viewed 147063 times
The way it gets sorted in Windows Explorer mixes older files with newer files, only because of the leading "Autosave_" text. If that's gone, then all my files would be sorted by date/time, which would be very nice.

Cheers - Jon
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Post by ACalcutt »

Good to hear Vistumbler has been working well for you :-). I've seen all your imports in the wifidb and it looks like you've made a lot or progress mapping your area. its pretty cool to see such detail.
the autosave sound (is that crumpling paper?)
I was looking for a "swoosh" sound. I used this sound from freesound.org ( https://www.freesound.org/people/milkey ... ds/239648/ ) which says its a "metal pipe swoosh in air, edited and equalized". I looked at a bunch of sounds but this one seemed live the best I found.
1) The date/time in the autosaved file name and the date/time in the manual-saved file name are in different time zones - it looks like the autosave uses UTC time while the manual save is local computer time. Can it be made such that both use the same time zone?
I though I was using the same timestamp for both file saves, but i'll have to check that out. I would want them to match also.
2) Since I always use the autosave file method, and only do a manual file save if I am shutting down the program before reaching my usual 500 APs, can the phrase "Autosave_" be made optional so that in my saved file directory I have a uniform way using date/time to sort the files? See the attached image as an example.
I can probably add a file name prefix option to the autosave settings. that way it could be set to what you want (or nothing at all)
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Post by ACalcutt »

Both issues you mentioned should be resolved in 10.6 Beta 14.

Both types of save now use a local timestamp like the original save function.

I fixed the sorting issue a little differently than I was originally thinking. For now I just moved the "AutoSave" text in the filename to after the timestamp. this change should be enough to make it sort properly in windows.
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Post by arizonajon »

Surprised while driving down the street in Phoenix, Vistumbler said there was an update. Fortunately, I was in CoxWiFi coverage, it downloaded, and started up. Not sure what beta 15 does, but it's running now.
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Post by ACalcutt »

Beta 15 added Minimal Gui Mode (Options --> Minimal GUI Mode) which is the wardriving mode I was thinking of in the other post. This mode hides listview/treeview/graph. This (in theory) should give a performance increase since it doesn't need to write to the list and the tree.

I added a feature to always scroll to the bottom of the list ( View --> Auto Scroll to Bottom of list ).

I added a test feature for something a tried a few releases ago but ended up reverting because of bad performance when the list got big. The feature is (View --> Listview Batch Insert Mode) . This makes access points get added to the list in groups instead of one at a time. it should speed up adding to the list. I am hoping some recent changes I made will make this work properly now, but it needs more testing.


I am up to v10.6 Beta 16.2 at this time. This is mainly bug fixes for features added in Beta 15
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Post by arizonajon »

ACalcutt wrote:Beta 15 added Minimal Gui Mode (Options --> Minimal GUI Mode) which is the wardriving mode I was thinking of in the other post. This mode hides listview/treeview/graph. This (in theory) should give a performance increase since it doesn't need to write to the list and the tree.

I added a feature to always scroll to the bottom of the list ( View --> Auto Scroll to Bottom of list ).

I added a test feature for something a tried a few releases ago but ended up reverting because of bad performance when the list got big. The feature is (View --> Listview Batch Insert Mode) . This makes access points get added to the list in groups instead of one at a time. it should speed up adding to the list. I am hoping some recent changes I made will make this work properly now, but it needs more testing.


I am up to v10.6 Beta 16.2 at this time. This is mainly bug fixes for features added in Beta 15
It's like Xmas all over again!

thanks and I will take it out for a spin tomorrow!

Cheers - Jon
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Post by ACalcutt »

You have a chance to try out any of the new features?

I've tested Minimal GUI mode and it seems to help scan performance quite a bit. The only issue i noticed is the count isn't right when filtering is enabled (it shows 0 / 0 filter), but that should be a simple fix.

I haven't really tested the other features since they need the GUI that Minimal GUI mode removes. :-)
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Post by arizonajon »

Ok, here's the test results from the new feature which allows the GUI to be optional.

The video of the standard route is available at

http://jonadams.com/videos/tahoecam_201 ... t_Loop.mov

The route is almost exactly 1.0 miles long, it is a full circle, no stop signs, no lights, residential neighborhood, speed limit 25 mph (good because that's the lowest my cruise control can be set).

I entered the loop and parked. Rebooted the PC, waited it to settle down. Made sure all other processes (like video capture) were off.

The experiment was to make five (5) full loops of the course, and to log the total number of APs and number of APs per loop, using the two different GUI settings (minimal vs table).

The first trial was will full GUI. Note that I do not do anything about sorting or adding new APs to top of list, so it's should be relatively efficient.

Trial 1
Start Mileage 54.4
Loop 1: 222 APs, 55.4 mi
Loop 2: 300 APs, 56.4 mi
Loop 3: 330 APs, 57.5 mi
Loop 4: 357 APs, 58.5 mi
Loop 5: 380 APs, 59.5 mi
Here's the file for the trial.
2015-03-24 13-29-25.VS1
Trial 1
(133.26 KiB) Downloaded 654 times
Trial 2
Restart program, this time with minimal GUI.
Start mileage 59.5 mi
Loop 1: 240 APs, 60.6 mi
Loop 2: 300 APs, 61.6 mi
Loop 3: 359 APs, 62.6 mi
Loop 4: 382 APs, 63.6 mi
Loop 5: 404 APs, 64.7 mi
Here's the file for the second trial.
2015-03-24 13-42-37.VS1
Trial 2
(163.87 KiB) Downloaded 696 times
While no one should consider the two runs as definitive or as statistically sufficient, it does seem to suggest that there is a slight performance advantage to the minimal GUI mode, which would be expected.

Overall, I'd say that it's an improvement, so congratulations to you Andrew! I'd also like to thank the residents of the neighborhood for not calling the Tempe Police on me as I endlessly orbited their community (or if they did, I got out before they arrived).

cheers - Jon
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Post by ACalcutt »

I would think Minimal GUI mode would help the most when vistumbler detects a lot of APs at once or the list starts to get above 1000 APs. These are the times when adding to the list takes the longest...so this is when getting rid out the gui should help the most.

Going the same loop multiple times I would have though you would get about the same number of access points at the end since it has multiple chances to detect them, but it does seem you got a few more in the end. I think the first loops is the better indicator, since before when it was adding to the list it may have missed some other access points. now with less time taken to add to the list it should be polling more often. The first run of your data kind of shows this since you got 18 more access points the first run...then the next run they basically evened out since vistumbler had a chance to detect the ones it missed the first time.
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Post by arizonajon »

I made it to 55.55% of the overall database and am now slipping back a little as others start to add. Drat! :D

I have a question - is there a way to restrict scans to specific channels or a specific band (I have a 2.4 / 5.x GHz dual band client) in order to speed up the scan rate?

Cheers - Jon
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Post by arizonajon »

Oh, another request.

I'm lazy, and I hate having to upload manually the log files captured. In a perfect world, when my mobile setup got into a coverage zone, it would phone home to the database and see what files hadn't been transferred, then would transfer them.

Of course, that's a perfect world... :roll:
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Post by pferland »

Jon,
There is no way that I know of filtering the scanning in netsh, it just detects all AP's that are in its range.
Even with the native api, i dont think there is a way to filter it.

Also, Andrew is starting work on the auto-uploader. Not sure how far he has gotten, he has only been working on it for a day or so.
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Post by arizonajon »

Thanks for everything you guys do!
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Post by ACalcutt »

This is my first version of a WifiDB Upload program. Consider this an unfinished alpha version mainly for testing some ideas and new api.

This uploader lets you pick a folder that has VS1 files, it checks all the files status in the wifidb using a new api I made, then allows you to upload any files not found in the wifidb.

The source is on git here : https://github.com/RIEI/Vistumbler/tree ... B_Uploader
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Post by arizonajon »

thanks for this, Andrew. I am trying it out right now and it's asking for a WiFiDB Api Key. Is that my password? If so, I forgot it and requested a password reset at wifidb.net, but nothing happened, at least so it seems.
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Post by ACalcutt »

API key is not needed yet, but it may be needed at some point in the future.

If it is ever implemented it won't be the same as your password. you will get it by logging into the wifidb and there will be a place to get the api key (most likely in the user control panel).

Right now api imports basically use whatever username you set (which is the same as the import page) and api key is ignored. At some point we may require the api key for users who have accounts.
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Post by ACalcutt »

There are also some settings you can set in 'settings.ini'. like the default upload title and notes
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Post by arizonajon »

i was able to get it running - pretty interesting. However, I discovered that I had a bunch of bloated files in the directory, all at least 3 MB in size and over 300 of them. When you can, could you delete those from the input queue at WiFiDB? The dates will all be between 01 and 04 June.
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Post by arizonajon »

it appears that the first valid job is 4053, dated on the 22nd.
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Post by arizonajon »

the Uploader looks like it's doing what it's intended to do, but each time I start it the vistumbler directory is not remembered. I checked the ini file to see if that got saved, but it looks like that's not one of the variables.
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Post by arizonajon »

In the Uploader, I try to sort on "File" but the usual click on the title block doesn't resort the list. Also, for a bunch of files I collected today, the Uploader is reporting a WDB Status" of "error", with a status message of "File still not found after upload. It may be...". However, when I go to the site, I can see what I think are the files there. At least the filenames are the same.
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Post by ACalcutt »

Like i said, its an alpha. I've noticed in some cases the api upload is removing a "CRLF" at the end of the file and is changing the md5 of the file when it is sent to the server. I'll look into it more.
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Post by arizonajon »

I am finally starting to learn a little KML, based upon what Vistumbler does to render the RSSI as a function of location. That's extremely cool. I can't generate kml itself, but I'm snipping together a file of a run I did here measuring the RSSI of a land-mobile radio base station atop a local peak. I've attached my first attempt.
KML_Experiment_camera.kml
(65.85 KiB) Downloaded 812 times
I'm using the elevation above ground as an analog for RSSI, with the ground at -114 dBm (which happened to be the lowest value I measured during the run), and each meter of elevation 1 dB above that value. The point of view is a camera at the antenna height on the tower of the radio site where the base station is. The camera altitude, heading and tilt are manually estimated rather than calculated, for now.

Here's what I'd really like to do next - the height of the line above ground is the RSSI, but it's hard to tell what the absolute value is of the RSSI at any point on the line. Is there a way to make it so that if I rollover a point on the path that a description pops up with the absolute value of the RSSI (like -84.3 dBm")?

Thanks again. Oh, it appears that I've auto-uploaded some more bad files (many MB in size) and the uploader has been choked for the past week. Any file that is more than 2 MB is not a valid file, but I have no way to delete them now that they're in the queue.

Cheers - Jon N7UV
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Post by ACalcutt »

So the camera angle in this is from where the access point is located on top of this hill? That is pretty neat.

In visumbler I used colors in the signal map to give me an idea of rssi. Looking at the reference docs for linestring I din't see a way to add any extra data to display

However, they have an example for extended data on a track under "Example of Track with Extended Data" on the track reference doc that seems close to what your looking for. In the example they have a track and when you click it it shows a popup with some information in it. I wouldn't think it would be difficult to add a track under the existing linestring.
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Post by arizonajon »

Right now the software estimates crudely the center of the pattern (lat(max)-lat(min), lon(max)-lon(min)), and points the camera (atop the tower at the listed elevation) at the ground at that spot. It's crude, but I will continue to tweak.
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Post by arizonajon »

Got a bug to report on the Uploader. See image. First time I have ever seen this. This error occurs when I attempt to fire up Uploader. Any ideas? Do I need to reinstall?

Cheers - Jon N7UV
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Post by pferland »

Hmmm if I remember correctly (it's been a few months since working on the database code) we made a change to the API. Will give it a check when I get back home later today. Glad to see you are back Jon.
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Post by pferland »

I don't think we actually made any changes to the API to break anything, the change I did make, kept backwards compat, and was in a different part of the API. Have you tried uploading again?
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Post by arizonajon »

Hi Phil -

It appears that the executable was corrupted, so I reinstalled Uploader and it works again.

Andrew - I forgot to change the user name for the 7 files that the Uploader just pushed %^( So it says that you're the contributor. Is there a way that you can point their authorship to me? Jobs 297, and 1616 through 1631.

Cheers - Jon
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Post by arizonajon »

The auto uploader continues to rock, as it makes the process of getting the stuff from my computer to the server nearly completely transparent. I appreciate that tool. It's likely one of the important reasons I've been able to amass the amount of APs that I have, since it is so easy to get them pushed to the server.

Cheers - Jon N7UV
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Post by ACalcutt »

Someday I need to actually need to finish that auto uploader and figure out how to get it to match the md5 properly... it only kind of works right now...

The uploads with my username should be fixed.
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Post by ACalcutt »

Jon,

I've made a new version of the WiFiDB Uploader. I think I've fixed the issue where the MD5 was getting changed when uploading. I've also re-done the GUI to try and make it a little easier to use.

The new version can be downloaded here: https://github.com/RIEI/Vistumbler/raw/ ... loader.exe


Can you give this new version a try and let me know if it works better than 0.1
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Post by arizonajon »

Hi Andrew -

I have been running the new version of the uploader. Very nice. It's set up now to auto-do-everything when I start it.

Observations so far:
1) Once all the "auto" features are enabled, it really does make upload a "two-tap" operation. I like it.
2) Of there's no connectivity at the moment that it's started, it throws constant COM errors until connectivity is established. For instance, in approach to the house, if the Wi-Fi hasn't yet associated, there's an COM error dialog box that won't go away. But once the association occurs, the COM Error box can be successfully retired.
3) Can an "auto-close" feature be added, so that I don't even have to tap on the "X" to close the app once the files have been uploaded?

Cheers - Jon
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Post by ACalcutt »

I was thinking about adding an auto close. I was also thinking maybe an auto-archive that moves the list somewhere else after it is imported.

I'll have to look at the errors when there is no connection... this version wasn't really made with that in mind...
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