HN Explorer

30 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 43.0 ms ] thread
blakesterz
It took me a little while to figure this out, but it's pretty cool. Try the A-380 limit in the examples and it starts making sense pretty quick.

Also, .exposed has been a TLD since 2014? I'm not sure I've seen another .exposed site.

sryNot_
Issue with adsb is that very few outside Europe and the US share their signals, so any app will have partial validity, unless you use satellite feeds.
computerfriend
I have had no problem accessing ADSB data for various parts of Asia.
ronbenton
URL makes this sound like it’s supposed to be scandalous
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
dkenyser
Very cool project.

Little bit of trivia regarding the "strange hole near Mexico City"[1] from the README.

This is a 12-kilometer exclusion zone around the highly active Popocatépetl volcano to prevent incidents stemming from volcanic activity.

[1] https://adsb.exposed/?zoom=9&lat=19.1139&lng=261.3813&query=...

dylan604
that's interesting how it's not really centered like my mind assumed it would be
themafia
Area 51 similarly stands out in Nevada.
zeristor
I wish there was an Aztec goddess of tea drinking called Pollyputthekettleon.

Not that the Aztecs had tea drinking, if only the Chinese treasure ships had connected up across the Pacific…

lexlambda
This is certainly missing some kind of legend explaining the colors of the lines, and what data is actually shown.

Is "red" high or low velocity? And as an example, I do not understand what the "Boeing vs. Airbus" selection is trying to represent, as well as how "Altitude & Velocity" are supposed to be displayed at the same time.

Project certainly requires a bit more care if any discussion should happen around it.

keepamovin
I see you highlight that, but I believe the visualization is designed to be intuitive once you interact with it a bit—no legend stricty needed if you calibrate against what you already know.

Pick a flight you know (maybe one near yer home) and play with the options -- what patterns emerge? Red draws attention, “Boeing vs. Airbus” compares data, while “Altitude & Velocity” combines them. Explore hands-on; discovery often makes insights click better than instructions.

amiga386
Boeing vs Airbus:

    count() AS total,
    sum(desc LIKE 'BOEING%') AS boeing,
    sum(desc LIKE 'AIRBUS%') AS airbus,
    sum(NOT (desc LIKE 'BOEING%' OR desc LIKE 'AIRBUS%')) AS other,

    greatest(1000000 DIV {sampling:UInt32} DIV zoom_factor, total) AS max_total,
    greatest(1000000 DIV {sampling:UInt32} DIV zoom_factor, boeing) AS max_boeing,
    greatest(1000000 DIV {sampling:UInt32} DIV zoom_factor, airbus) AS max_airbus,
    greatest(1000000 DIV {sampling:UInt32} DIV zoom_factor, other) AS max_other,

    pow(total / max_total, 1/5) AS transparency,

    255 * (1 + transparency) / 2 AS alpha,
    pow(boeing, 1/5) * 256 DIV (1 + pow(max_boeing, 1/5)) AS red,
    pow(airbus, 1/5) * 256 DIV (1 + pow(max_airbus, 1/5)) AS green,
    pow(other, 1/5) * 256 DIV (1 + pow(max_other, 1/5)) AS blue

    SELECT round(red)::UInt8, round(green)::UInt8, round(blue)::UInt8, round(alpha)::UInt8
The redder the pixel, the more Boeing planes there.

The greener the pixel, the more Airbus planes there.

The bluer the pixel, the more non-Boeing/Airbus planes there.

The less transparent the pixel, the more planes in total.

White means all planes fly there, yellow means Boeing and Airbus dominate, red means Boeing dominates, green means Airbus dominates, cyan means Airbus+others, magenta means Boeing+others, etc.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
zX41ZdbW
Thanks for posting!

I've recently added more datasets, "Places", "Birds", "Photos", and "You".

Also, a hint - the rectangular selection tool lets you generate custom reports for a location.

cozzyd
We have a an ADS-B receiver at Summit Station in Greenland which we use to track airplanes that produce RFI we see in our experiment. I've considered sharing data (since nobody else seems to have data there) but the feeding instructions always scare me (run this script that downloads a bunch of random crap as sudo... no thanks).

Please just give me a cURL command I can run... (perhaps some services have that, I haven't looked that hard).

nickysielicki
I love how you can clearly make out the VFR EAA approach going into Oshkosh from Ripon. It’s only one week out of the year, but there’s so much traffic in that week that it still stands out.
jmux
this is super cool!
madethemcry
I missed the "About" link in the footer but still found my way to the repo [1], where the project is briefly explained including a ton of great example images. Thanks for that!

> This website (technology demo) allows you to aggregate and visualize massive amounts of air traffic data. The data is hosted in a ClickHouse database and queried on the fly. You can tune the visualizations with custom SQL queries and drill-down from 50 billion records to individual data records.

[1] https://github.com/ClickHouse/adsb.exposed/

swills
Highlighting an area, I see in the sidebar: Time: 2022-02-01 00:09:20.136 — 2023-12-07 22:46:41.480. Would be nice if it had newer data.
volf_
"Elon Musk" as a filterable option.

A++. No Notes.