The Cool Apps awards are not just for consumer applications, they are also awarded when someone uses Delphi to help them do really cool things, and today’s selection is one of those. Today, we’re featuring a Balloon-based Aircraft Tracker from David Akerman. David had the idea to track the ADS-B transponder signals that aircraft use to transmit their location. He then went a step further by attaching an ADS-B receiver to a high-altitude balloon (HAB). In his words, “It would be interesting to see how much further the receiver can ‘see’ once above local geography and how well that improves with altitude as Earth’s curvature becomes less of an issue”
Armed with this raw location data, David wrote his web application in Delphi to parse that information and visualize both the balloon position and that of the various aircraft with the help of a Google Maps overlay. As you can see in the video and the screen above, his application is elegant, displays the data clearly and in real time, and also boasts an impressive range.
David goes into detail about his methods and development process on his website. I think it is such a cool thing for Delphi to be involved in projects like these, and I’m really impressed with David’s results. Check it out today and let’s all give a shoutout to David Akerman and his Balloon-Based Aircraft Tracker, today’s Cool Apps selection.
Learn more about David’s work here:
Cool Apps Sections are apps developed with our RAD Studio, Delphi, C++Builder, or InterBase. Did you make something cool? Submit a short description of your application with 3-4 screens, and/or a link to a YouTube Video with a demo. If the application is non-visual, feel free to describe more and if you want to include a code snippet or a diagram, anything that highlights the ingenuity of your solution. Please send your submissions to coolapps@embarcadero.com or you use this form to walk you through the process.