Superimpose Your Polar Plot in Google Earth

The polar plot above was made using the SBS Plotter software (top-left inset). The data was then massaged into a format that could be imported into Google Earth. The rest is some Photoshop magic. Here’s how I made the image above…

Gather Data

I use the SBS Plotter software to create the polar plot. This small application can save the plot for various altitudes and for your maximum range into a file format that is compatible with BaseStation outline files. From within SBS Plotter I selected File > Save “OUT” file. This will save the file in c:\Kinetic\BaseStation\Outlines (or wherever you have BaseStation installed).

If you open that file in a text editor, you’ll see a list of latitude and longitude co-ordinates, something like this:

{ trk=000 - d= 34.1}
44.427+-79.426
{ trk=001 - d= 42.6}
44.567+-79.407
{ trk=002 - d= 34.8}
44.438+-79.398
{ trk=003 - d= 35.3}
44.445+-79.384
{ trk=004 - d= 35.4}
44.447+-79.378

If you scroll down through the thousands of lines, you’ll see that there are actually several lists, one for each altitude range. For our purposes, we need the last list, which begins with:

{ Layer 29 = all data }
$TYPE=29

You’ll want to select and copy all of the text from the start of the list right to the end of the file, which should end with:

{ =============================}

Massage the Data

Massaging the data really means getting rid of the lines we don’t need and reformatting the lines we do need. I used an application called TextWrangler on my Mac, but for you Windows folks there’s an equally capable and free app called Notepad++ that you can use. What you need to do is delete every line that contains curly brackets

{}

In TextWrangler, choose Text > Process Lines Containing…. Enter { in the text field and check on the option to Delete Matched Lines. Click Process. In Notepad++, choose Search > Find, then go to the Mark tab. Enter { in the Find What field and make sure the option to Bookmark Line is on. Click Mark All and then choose Search > Bookmark > Remove Bookmarked Lines.

Also delete the line that says

$TYPE=29

This should leave you with just a list of co-ordinates like this:

44.427+-79.426
44.567+-79.407
44.438+-79.398
44.445+-79.384
44.447+-79.378
44.326+-79.368
44.371+-79.359

I’m in the Western Hemisphere, north of the equator, so my longitudes are negative and my latitudes are positive. Your numbers may be different depending on where you are in the world, so how you complete the next step may be a bit tricky. You’re going to do a find and replace so you can insert a comma between the latitudes and longitudes.

In either TextWrangler or Notepad++, choose Search > Replace. For the Find field, enter

+-

For the Replace field, enter

,-

Then click Replace All. That takes care of the longitudes. Now we need to add the + back to the beginning of the latitudes.

In TextWrangler, choose Text > Prefix/Suffix Lines…. Click Insert, then enter + in the Prefix field. Click OK. In Notepad++, choose Search > Replace again, and change the Search Mode in the bottom left to Extended. Then in the Find field enter

\n4

and in the Replace field enter

\n+4

Of course the number you use may be different depending on what your latitudes are — and the + may need to be a – — but basically you’re telling Notepad++ to replace a “new line followed by a number” with a “new line followed by a plus followed by a number.” Click Replace All. Now fix the first line of the text file by manually prefixing it with either + or – (the find and replace in Notepad++ didn’t do it because the first line isn’t preceded by a new line command). Also delete the last line that reads simply -1.

The last step in massaging our data involves adding a line at the beginning of the file:

lat,long

Now do a Save As and name the file with the extension .csv. We’ve just made a comma-delimited text file that we can use to convert for use in Google Earth.

Convert to KML Format

There’s a very cool website for manipulating GPS data. It’s called GPS Visualizer, and among it’s utilities is a way to convert GPS data for use in Google Earth. The page looks a bit intimidating at first but it’s actually very easy to use.

 

You need to set some fields to make this work:

• Google Earth doc name, which will be the name of the file created. Enter any name you want.
• Colorize by, which you should set to “none”
• Default color, which I set to Cyan because it’s an easy colour to isolate in Photoshop.

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Then you can either click Choose File and select the csv file we created above, or copy the data from your file and paste it into the form, as I did in the screenshot above. Once you’re ready, click Create KML file. The result is a link to a kml or kmz file that you can download to your local hard drive and open in Google Earth.

The Range Rings

You can plot range rings in the same way by creating a similar comma-delimited text file. You need to add two columns, though: one for name, because each range ring has to have a different name, and another column for radius, which will define the size of the range ring. The latitude and longitude for each ring will be the center of it, which are the GPS co-ordinates for your virtual radar station. My range ring csv file looks like this:

name,lat,long,circle_radius
50nm,43.8,-79.4,50 nm
100nm,43.8,-79.4,100 nm
150nm,43.8,-79.4,150 nm
200nm,43.8,-79.4,200 nm
250nm,43.8,-79.4,250 nm

The nm in the circle_radius refers to nautical miles. If we simply put “miles” it would default to statute miles. Convert this data to kml or kmz format using the same web form as above, download the resulting file and open in Google Earth.

EDIT: Image at top was revised with range rings at 50 nautical mile intervals. Instructions for mapping the range rings were modified to include nm in the circle_radius.