This monday brought many changes to the Site, we worked on over the last weeks.
They will solve issues of lost vessels Ids and missing assignments of images, our users reported.
[*] introduced complete new database and recieving scheme for AIS data
[+] extended evaluation of AIS types and messages (Class-B, Stations, SARs etc)
[*] adjusted all modules for new unique vessel ID
[+] Added new Coverage Flag in Vessel-Lists
[*] Vessel image thumbnail view updated.
[+] Added new Vessel Image Detail page.
[+] Added image alert on detail page.
[*] Fixed bug on URL redirect, leading to 404 pages for Users
[-] changed User page speaking URL (attention: bookmark adjustments could be neccs.)
Today is a big day for us, we will bring a completely remodeled database online.
We will try to keep the site running inbetween, in the best case you want notice the switch, in the worst, the site will not be available at all :-)
So please excuse any disturbances over the day, we are still working hard.
It was already hard work over the last weeks, what will this update approve? Speed, Class-B tracking, a multi level scheme for vessel identification (no unassigned records anymore) and the ground for feautures like zone alerts, port tracking and destination lists.
We will give you another report, when today works are finsihed.
Always good to talk about new Stations in the network covering more maritime areas. Over the last weeks we covered the ports of Lisboa in Portugal and closed some reception gaps on the river Weser with an Antenna in Bremen. The Port of Antwerp is now covered with three stations to give you the track of vesel traffic for this long entrance.
A new antenna in Kiel will finish the last bit of the Kiel-Canal between Rendsburg and the Kieler Förde, coming next Weekend. Thanks to Jose, Stevo and Bernward and Bernd from Navkom (please use the links to visit their projects and companies).
We are welcome very much, every attempt to share AIS signals with DS, or open new antenna stations in regions worldwide.
We are working hard on the new database scheme, it will be released next week and brings blasting speed and much better reliability (known issues with overwritten data will be solved). We also extended the reading of the complete AIS set, to be open for Class-B and all other messages. It is fun to follow the SARs objects in real time (much faster then the ordinary ship) :-) We adjusted the start view of the vessel search to reflect the most actual changes in traffic. There is also a new flag for beeing inside the coverage right in the list.
I will fly to Istanbul tomorrow, to have meetings and will give you some impressions over the next days.
Thomas and me are planning a new DS database for a while, which will be able to add different kind of data around vessels, even ships, we haven’t tracked yet via AIS.
Also the new Fleetmon - client is in the works and better community features for the site. This will be a major step for this website and there is a lot of background work neccessary. Hope to see the results in May, we are trying hard (in our small amount of spare time). Done already is the rebuild of the Vessel Gallery, with photographers credits and comment options.
In between you could try the new comment feature for Vessel-Images, the option to flag images in question and the new counter of comments, shown in all Ship-thumbnails. We have extended our Forum and the Blog. Now it is possible, to upload or link images also in your posts / comments. This will make live easier for all of us, when talking about ship images.
I will use this new option to start a discussion with you, about image quality and workflow and hope for feedback. Have a nice sunday…. Lars
Over the last two weeks we opened new AIS stations on Digital-Seas to extend the coverage.
There are now Antennas in Harlingen-NL, Samothraki-GR, Wismar,DE and another part of the river Elbe right above Hamburg,DE connected.
Thanks to Sebastiaan, Ralf, Dennis and the port of Wismar.
We are now working on AIS tracking in Portugal and Spain and yes, a little bit more of the States :-)
We’ve created a solution to show live traffic in the Baltic (on several big screens) for a newly opened place here in Rostock called “Pier7″. It is located right at the Port entrance of Rostock and it’s a crowded place with a shop and a restaurant and lot’s of space to hang out and have a drink during spotting. They were asking us to develop something like a “Schiffsbegrüssungsanlage” (ship welcome point) and we made some suggestions for having a live view on maritime traffic. On the big screens inside and outside the area, it is now possible to follow the action, watch AIS traffic, get to know the next days arrivals, look at live webcams and nice for us: know when to take the next shot (with a coffee on the table if you like to…)
So everybody who wants to come to Rostock-Warnemünde and spot some ships, do not miss the Pier7 spot and relax at this nice located place.
By MindOpen, Wednesday, March 18, 2009 | 4 comments
today we released a way to comment on user images.
I wanted to express my opinion on images I like and a way to do this right here on the site.
Would be glad to exchange opinions, experience and ideas about spotting ships.
Everybody is welcome to do the same now.
See for example this interesting shot of Miraflores: the Tug ATLAS II
with Varna in Bulgaria beeing online, we are also covering a nice port in the Black Sea thanks to Peter of VTExplorer. The view of the Bosphorus in Istanbul gives you great maritime live and with the help of Mehmet there, we will also get some vessel images right from this wonderfull place. Sinisa shared his signal from Split in Croatia with us and we opened our new station today with the help of Andreas in the port of Limassol in Cyprus.
Thanks also to Henrik who managed to put the North of Denmark online and Lars in Malmö for his great “Swedish” coverage.
Look up in the North of Norway, the Ports of Riga in Latvia, Tallin in Estland or Kotka in Finnland. There is much better coverage now for GB and Ireland. Samothraki in Greece will be our next shot this month :)
With all those new places to cover, there are around 2000 vessels per day more to handle.
We will work hard to release the next version of Fleetmon with much improved performance soon.
with Varna in Bulgaria beeing online, we are also covering a nice port in the Black Sea thanks to Peter of VTExplorer. The view of the Bosphorus in Istanbul gives you great maritime live and with the help of Mehmet there, we will also get some vessel images right from this wonderfull place. Sinisa shared his signal from Split in Croatia with us and we opened our new station today with the help of Andreas in the port of Limassol in Cyprus.