This page is the home of some scripts that deal with geographic information (GIS), especially related to the xplanet program (Version 0.9x only, for now). They allow you to display up-to-the-minute information on weather, earthquakes, hurricanes and more on your computer. You can see how the results look like on FlatPlanet which uses all the below scripts.
Stable versions at |
Development versions at |
All-in-one packages that should be unpacked into your xplanet directory (the directory with the images/ and markers/ subdirectories).
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Windows users please read this.
Announcements archive | Mailing list.
Program | Version | Updated | Usage |
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geo_locator | 2.1.5 | 02 May 2003 | determine geographic locations |
weather | 4.1.8 | 15 Jul 2003 | display weather icons and temperatures on xplanet maps |
forecast | 1.2.5 | 17 Jul 2003 | display the weather forecast for your location on an xplanet map |
earthq | 2.1.7 | 15 Jul 2003 | display earthquake locations and magnitudes on xplanet maps |
volcano | 2.1.5 | 05 May 2003 | display active volcanos on xplanet maps |
hurricane | 2.2.3 | 15 Jul 2003 | display current hurricanes / storms on xplanet maps, with magnification |
visible-satellites | 0.8.2 | 05 May 2003 | display satellites visible from your home |
xplanet-update | 0.9.7 | 15 Jul 2003 | update your xplanet marker files, satellite info and cloud images |
image-stream | 0.9.7 | 15 Jul 2003 | continuous background process, creates a stream of current xplanet images |
moonphase | 0.8.1 | 02 May 2003 | show the phases of the moon |
xplanet Linux RPM | 0.94-3 | 02 May 2003 | Linux RPM's of xplanet with various problems fixed |
Windows binary | 0.94-2 | 21 Feb 2003 | Windows binary of xplanet with various problems fixed |
Additionally, all source code published here is now under the GNU General Public License.
igeo.pl is an interactive version. It runs as a shell (using readline) and you can type your requests interactively, load different data sources or change the configuration.
geo_locator.pl is mostly a drop-in replacement for the tzcoord.pl that comes with xplanet, but is much
more powerful. The differences are:
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It gets its information from
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Last updated 02 May 2003,
Version 2.1.5: more robust; more code cleanup
Downloadable files:
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There are associated marker files
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This is a perl script which downloads weather
information from weather.yahoo.com
and weather undergound and
writes a marker file which
places those icons on the map.
You'll need to set one or two environment variables so it knows where to look, but its very cool!
Contributed by Joao Pedro Goncalves, and updated by me.
Please install the above geo_locator package before trying to install weather.pl. Last updated 02 May 2003, Version 2.1.5: Updated wunderground.com parsing Downloadable files: (Usage, documentation and ChangeLog inside the script file at the top)
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Europe at dusk: it's sunny and slightly hazy with 14-26 degrees celsius (centigrade) in Berlin and mostly clear with 11-19 degree celsius in Moscow. |
This is a perl script which gathers the current weather forecast for your location (home town)
from www.weather.com (example:
Golden, CO, USA
or
Berlin, Germany
)
and writes a marker file which
displays this forecast on your xplanet maps.
Please note that this script may create a markerfile with absolute positions ("position=pixel") of more than 360. This is of course valid - your screen is likely wider than 360 pixels - but the stock xplanet 0.94 chokes on this. If you encounter problems, you have two possibilities:
Last updated 17 July 2003, Version 1.2.5: 'title not found' bug fixed Downloadable files: (Usage, documentation and ChangeLog inside the script file at the top)
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Till Friday it will be cold and snowy, but will get drier and slightly warmer after Saturday. |
This perl script downloads information about
the most recent earthquakes
and
bigger earthquakes of the last month
and writes them into a xplanet-style marker file, to be displayed on your maps.
The idea and a reference implementation came from
Michael Dear,
integrated, updated and rewritten to Perl5 by me.
Last updated 15 July 2003, Version 2.1.7: filter out more errors in source data Downloadable files: (Usage, documentation and ChangeLog inside the script file at the top)
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In south- and east Europe, we see 4 recent earthquakes: one of magnitude 4.4 near the Black Sea, on of magnitude 4.6 off the coast of Greece and two near Sicily of magnitude 4.5 and 5.9. The 5.9 earthquake happened on September 5th. |
This perl script downloads information about
currently active volcanoes
and writes them into a xplanet-style marker file, to be displayed on your maps.
Last updated 05 May 2003, Version 2.1.5: parsing improvements Downloadable files: (Usage, documentation and ChangeLog inside the script file at the top)
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Popocatepetl near Mexico City is active... |
This perl script downloads information about
tropical hurricanes
and writes them into a xplanet-style marker file, to be displayed on your maps.
It can also generate a close-up inset of the area around the center of a
storm close to you.
Last updated 15 July 2003, Version 2.2.3: fix in inset name calculation - faster Downloadable files: (Usage, documentation and ChangeLog inside the script file at the top)
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Off the eastern coast of the US, we see tropical storm Gustav speeding ahead with 46mph and tropical depression 07 going with 29mph. Green tracks show the actual, past, path of the hurricane, while blue tracks show its forecast positions.
An inset example: hurricane Lili shortly before crossing the western tip of Cuba. It is progressing to the North-West with 92 miles per hour. |
This perl script downloads information about satellites that will be visible to you
during the night from Heavens-Above.com.
The satellites will be displayed at all times, even when they are not visible. However,
you can view how the trail of the satellites slowly moves towards your location, till
at the prescribed time, it is above you.
Last updated 05 May 2003, Version 0.8.2: more robust; code cleanup Downloadable files: (Usage, documentation and ChangeLog inside the script file at the top)
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Off the south-eastern coast of Australia, satellites TRMM and STS-107 speed eastwards. At 5:47pm and 7:22pm we will be able to see TRMM from our home. At 5:33pm and 7:6pm, STS-107 will be visible to us. |
This script is a direct successor of the xplanet.clouds.sh part of the discontinued xplanet-hans package. But unlike xplanet.clouds.sh it
Last updated 15 July 2003, Version 0.9.7: Unix: overriding DISPLAY with GEOMETRY on top of script
Downloadable files:
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This script is a direct successor of the xplanet.draw.sh part of the discontinued xplanet-hans package. But unlike xplanet.draw.sh it
Please install the above geo_locator package before trying to install image-stream. If you update image-stream, please also update geo_locator.
Last updated 15 July 2003, Version 0.9.7: Unix: overriding DISPLAY with GEOMETRY on top of script
Downloadable files:
| Current screenshots, out of the stream of images produced (big: 200kB - 300kB each!): |
Using moonphase, your xplanet desktop shows the moon at its current position
in its current phase. It also shows the dates when we have the next new moon,
half moon and full moon.
Last updated 02 May 2003, Version 0.8.1: new moonicons Downloadable files: (Usage, documentation and ChangeLog inside the script file at the top)
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Today, on the 13th of February, the phase is between half- and full moon, increasing towards the full moon which will appear on the 17th. The next (decreasing) half moon will be on the 23rd. |
<x> <y> "text" position=pixelwhere x and y are above 360. Might be necessary for forecast.pl
xplanet-0.94-3.src.rpm:
The source RPM to this package, containing the patches.
xplanet-0.94-3_8.0.i386.rpm:
The binary RPM, compiled under RedHat Linux 8.0.
Please write with any suggestions to Hans