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Weather website?
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[Deleted User]
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Does anybody know of a weather website that has the the actual forecast in .jpg format that could be used as a dynamic image? Every site I find has the temperatures in text with some nifty picture of the sky.
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By the way, it is not neccesary to limit to jpeg format only, you may use png... Of course, in this case so you have to use an html-to-png convertor...
You can check it out here:
http://www.weather.com/services/oap.html?from=servicesindex
I checked out the link above and at the end, I got a bit of HTML Code to insert into my webpage code.... as far as I can tell, that bit of code results in the weather data being displayed, but it is not a single jpg. With the use of the HTML->jpg converter tho this might be what you need.... but you will have to have a web server some where to run the script they give you.
If weather is a big deal to your client, you could always show them i!-Weather. I haven't had a chance to play with the module myself, but on brief inspection, it looks like you can trigger events based on the data from the i!-Weather module. Imagine shades closing when the sun is out automatically... or whatever
Jeff
I agree that i!-Weather is the best way to go, but if the customer has a PC that runs at (or near) the same resolution of the touchpanel(s) they are using, you could always setup an icon on the desktop and give them computer control on the touchpanel. If the PC is running as a "server" (don't recommend this on a real server) and is in the basement just housing pictures, you could have it always sitting on the weather website of choice. This is obviously not going to be as reliable as i!-Weather nor is it going to be as quick as a jpg based solution, but it may be an alternative for the client you are dealing with.
Just be sure to remind them that often times going with a cheaper solution that sort of works generally winds up not working properly and costing more money in the long run to troubleshoot. As a rule we try to avoid these sort of duct taped solutions in our projects because it always seems to be more trouble. The customer quickly forgets that they insisted on the "cheaper" solution and want to know why it doesn't work the way they thought it would or why it's costing more money to integrate the "cheaper" solution. I know I'm sort of going off on a tangent, but we are still dealing with a situation where we made it very clear that the "Cheaper and does more" solution was not something we would support in any way other than provide the A/V connections. Well, instead of ranting, anyone that is interested in specifics feel free to PM me. I will however start a thread in the ACE section of equipment that integrates well and equipment that doesn't
*breathes in the good air, breathes out the bad*
Jeff
Often local stations will have jpgs of their broadcast graphics. For example, in the bay area,
http://images.ibsys.com/bay/images/weather/auto/peninsula_640x480.jpg
and
http://images.ibsys.com/bay/images/weather/auto/forecast_400x300.jpg
They look pretty slick but aren't as timely.
-Bill
Ya, but who picks them up off the floor when you tell your client how much the i!-Weather subscription is. Or does everybody clone their dealer id and populate it throughout all of their installs? It is a great application but most people have a real issue with the cost.
I used to think the same thing, but I am starting to believe that we the dealers are more at fault in the rejection of the i!-weather app. The reason I believe this is because I was walking thru a local home decor chain store and saw some lame wireless weather station for a home selling for $300.00. The graphics were lame and the unit appeared to be of so-so quality. Upon a quick search of the internet, I found this:
Vantage Pro2 Wireless Weather Station
Includes Wind & Rain
Davis 6152
Only $536.00
[More Info]
at http://www.weathershack.com/
Obviously people buy these items and those items don't allow you to generate events based on weather forecasts, they don't allow you to see weather for more than one location and they often require battery replacements to continue to work throughout the year. Instead of approaching the sale from the perspective of: Well, you can just check weather.com for free, we as dealers should highlight the features and add value to the service by utilizing the i!-weather package as more the a simple weather report and let the customer decide if they want to spend the money.
But, that's just my opinion. I also could be remembering some features that aren't truely available within i!-weather, but I'm too tired to verify right now
Jeff
www.intellicast.com
This site has some nice usable radar images
that I have used for these type of applications.
I forgot to mention, I have yet to find a single location
that has all of the data I needed. I have had to utilized
info from several sites most of the time.
Cool site.
I would love to include something like this on a touchpanel http://www.intellicast.com/IcastPage/LoadPage.aspx?loc=usilct8295&seg=LocalWeather&prodgrp=RadarImagery&product=RegionalRadar&prodnav=none
but how do I find out the url of this dynamic image? Right clicking doesn't help.
It has been some time since I used this site, and obviously they
have changed their image format.
The weather.com site still uses the jpg image format for their radar images.
http://image.weather.com/web/radar/us_dtw_closeradar_large_usen.jpg
Sorry for the bad lead...
Probably had a problem with too many people leeching images :-o
Thanks for the info anyway. I'll stick with nbc weather.
and....
The nice feature about the weather.com site is this:
For their animated radar loops, they dont use a gif like most.
they use a series of 5 jpg's which you can have a dynamic image
for each individual image your TPD4 project.
Create a 5-state multistate button and make the assignments.
Now you have a radar animation on your panel instead of
a boring static image.
Sometimes its the little things that really wow the client.
If you look at the source for that page, you'll see that they're really using a "cloud' overlay .GIF with transparency on top of a map .JPG image - that would be hard to get onto your touch panel...
- Chip
weather.com is a great looking site for animated weather. I only wish their images could be requested other sizes. There is a 'large' which would dominate my panel and a 'small' which is very hard to read on an MVP-8400. Too bad TPD4 doesn't have the ability to scale dynamic images (or any images).
You have the option of scaling large dynamic images to a smaller size. Take a look under state properties.
Thanks again, I did not realize that this was possible. I searched the forums for how to do this and only thing I could find was a guy complaining about how it couldn't be done.
I think I'll work on making an animated weather button now...
Attached is a basic sample for the animated weather button
Thanks for posting that. The problem I'm having right now is that the animation never starts. I've set it up like you, with the Auto-Repeat and everything, but the button does not animate upon the start of the panel.
I find that I can get it to animate if I do ^ANI-37,0,5,10 from NetLinx, but then it just stops on frame 5 even though I have set it to Auto-Repeat. What else should I try here? I suppose I could always put ^ANI-37,0,5,10 in a named wait, if it comes down to that -- but I'm probably just missing something really simple. Help plz?
Thanks, that works swell.
currently the 5 images are identical except for the actual file name (" 1L.jpg") in this case.
http://image.weather.com/looper/archive/us_dtw_closeradar_large_usen/1L.jpg?1135357187796
since ultimately you want to have a button with 5 states, 1 for each image, then you can just use one of the escape sequences to pass along the currently displayed state.
http://image.weather.com/looper/archive/us_dtw_closeradar_large_usen/$STL.jpg?1135357187796
Notice the "1" in the "1L.jpg" has been replaced with the current state escape sequence or $ST. In this way you just assign this single dynamic image to a 5 state button and you will get the same results has 5 separate images.
This is not totally necessary in this case, it helps with organization and it is also easier to assign a single image to 5 states then 5 images to 5 states.
If you search the help file for "Escape Sequences" it will give you a list of all the available codes, the panel resolution, button resolution and button name codes are of particular interest, they were added for use with custom web applications so you easily know what panel was requesting and what size to make the images.
Thanks to Rob Whapham for the original idea for the weather images, and for being supersmart all the time.
...requires at least 128MB of SDRAM in the touch panel for a smooth transition between images. The CV12 and CV15 come with 64MB standard and can be upgraded to 256MB. Check the specs of your specific panel for SDRAM details.
This is true for all button animations that exceed 100K total pixels. The typical Weather Channel radar image is 600x405 for 243K pixels.
I like to use a fade between images.