MGRS – Truncate vs Round?

I previously posted a primer on how to read MGRS coordinates. One of the readers posed an interesting question regarding if we round or truncate MGRS coordinates. The short answer is that we always truncate MGRS coordinates.

Why? Continue reading after the break to find out!

Military Grid Reference System Primer

Purpose: To provide Primordial employees (and web surfers) a quick introduction and familiarization to the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS).

Direction: Read and understand this document and if needed, direct questions to Benjamin Post. (benjamin.post@primordial.com)

Motivation: Given Primordial’s product line and customer base, it is paramount that our employees understand how our customers reference locations in throughout the world. MGRS is the de facto standard for reporting coordinates in the United States military, and has also been adopted by NATO.

Primordial Attends TBOLC FTX

Back in May, several members of Primordial – Kyle Estes, Robert Dahlstrom, and myself – were invited to attend and observe a Field Training Exercise (FTX) for the Transportation Basic Officer Leader Course (TBOLC). Dubbed “Manassas Run”, the FTX ran from 12 May 08 to 16 May 08 and took place at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia. The primary objective for the TBOLC students was to conduct convoy operations to resupply fictitious units in their area of responsibility. While not a full train up for convoy ops in Iraq or Afghanistan, the exercise did give many of these new lieutenants a taste for what to expect while out in the “Sandbox”.

Primordial’s goals in attending the FTX were to learn more about the workflow of convoy operations and to demonstrate our integration of Ground Guidance with the Movement Tracking System (MTS).

A little history about Manassas and Bull Run.

Paul Wagner evaluates Ground Guidance Handheld 1.4.1

Immediately after the release of Ground Guidance Handheld 1.4.1 last Thursday, it was adopted by Paul Wagner, one of our insiders.  Wagner is an avid fisherman who often travels up to northern Minnesota and fishes with several guys for the weekend.  Many of the guys he fishes with are also avid fishermen and hunters.  They tend to have the disposable income to buy the latest and greatest in GPS technology, but tend not to be computer savvy, and quickly lose interest in anything that is not immediately intuitive and cool-looking.  Having such people evaluate Ground Guidance is crucial for making it easy-to-use and meet the needs of a significant part of the GPS market.

Last weekend, Wagner and his buddies went up to Wabana Lake and played around with the new release of Ground Guidance Handheld on a Magellan Triton 1500.  He was very impressed with how it compared to the previous version (1.4.0).  He said that the new version had the “Wow!” factor that 1.4.0 did not.    Also, three of his friends who saw the previous version, and were disenchanted by it, saw the new version and were immediately impressed with it.  Here are some of the improvements that Wagner touted:

·         The aerial imagery of the lake was extremely detailed.  There were sand bars under the water, invisible from the boat, that we needed to troll around.  The sand bars appeared in the imagery.

·         The physical buttons on the Magellan Triton were much easier to use then the touch screen on the Magellan Crossover.

·         The straight-down view The Magellan Triton was more intuitive than the angled view

·         Panning and zooming were extremely responsive.

 

Wagner also had a few suggestions for how Ground Guidance could be improved:

·         The user icon and the cursor icon need to be smaller as they obscure too much of the map.

·         Provide more contrast for the screen so that it more readable in broad daylight.

·         Support adding a place by a single button click.   Many fishermen like to mark the place where they catch fish, and when they catch a fish, they are too excited to want to go through several menu screens in order to mark the place.

·         The orientation of the map on the screen needs a more clear indication.

·         For fishing, it would be nice to have the GPS alert the boat driver that the boat is coming too close to shallow water or weeds.

Thank you again, Paul, for your feedback!  We look forward to making further improvements in the next version.

Ground Guidance Geocaching

As our Magellan launch approaches, we plan on performing periodic outdoor tests using Ground Guidance Handheld in realistic scenarios such as hiking, hunting, and geocaching.  To that end, we paired up and selected nearby parks to try our hand at geocaching.  Here are excerpts from the resulting trip reports.

Participants: Andrew Seelke and Andreas Robinson

Where did you go?

• Vadnais Snail Lake Regional Park, Vadnais Heights, Minnesota

What did you like?

• Trail data was extremely useful, and seemed to be very comprehensive.  Routes following trails performed extremely well.
• Route at one point cut across a marsh area between trails on opposite sides.  Shortcut was actually quite a bit faster than going around, however, only viable in the winter.
• Backtrack feature was extremely useful, as was ability to edit and route to locations.

What did you dislike?

• User interface could use some improvement.  Supporting a degree/minute/second format could be useful.
• A “North Up” option might be valuable.  Also, an arrow pointing North while the display is following the user might be useful.
• 100K topo maps are quite low-res and not as useful as the land-cover; perhaps when using those low res topo maps, the software should default to land-cover. 

Participants: Benjamin Post and Kyle Estes

Where did you go?

• Lilydale/Harriet Island Regional Park, Saint Paul, Minnesota

What did you like?

• Impressed with the routing itself.  On a 2km path, it kept us on trails for about 1.75 km, and the last 250 meters was out in a grass/marsh area.  In this area, it adhered to the map data and led us on what the map data was showing as grass.  It was all marsh, but this shows the limitations of having to rely on accurate map data.
• Another routing comment, really appreciated the fact that it routes around difficult areas to pass.  Additionally, it was able to route us to a draw that was not visible from our initial vantage point along the ridge.
• I found Ground Guidance useful as a “digital handrail”, where it guided me even if I wasn’t exactly following the suggested route, but rather taking the route as a general suggestion and making small navigational deviations to optimize footing and avoid small obstacles

What did you dislike?

• Display screen was too glossy and made daylight operations difficult.  Even shading the screen wasn’t enough.
• On the cost grid display, combination of the glossy screen and not enough contrast between the red and green made for difficult reading.
• Switching maps took a while, and caused other functionality of the device to halt until completed.

Participants: Erik Freed and Robert Dahlstrom

Where did you go?

• Kaposia Park, South Saint Paul, Minnesota

What did you like?

• If you use the generated routes more as a guideline rather than a strict course, it works great. The routes give you a basic direction you need to follow, and if you are willing to do a little improvisation, you can resolve the short range details like finding the choice path down a steep hill or an open pass through a thick grove of trees and brush.
• There was a time when we were walking along a trail, and could see our destination at the top of a steep hill, while the route went around behind it, out of visual range. We contemplated just tackling the hill outright, but instead decided to see what cards the software had to play. When we made the bend in the route we could then see a nice gradual slope up to the top of the hill, a much easier route, even when considering its was much longer.
• Displaying track was useful for showing general bearing and indicating that we were walking parallel to the route.

What did you dislike?

• The Magellan unit took over ten minutes to obtain a satellite fix. While it was warming up it provided no feedback as to what it was doing. I didn’t like the idea that we might get to the park and have to wait around, or have to return to the office.
• The generated routes often crossed difficult, steep hills, and did not seem to recognize a walking trail through the area. On a vehicle the routes given would be virtually impossible to follow strictly.
• One route required the user to pass over a small flowing creek, and then a few yards ahead, turn around, and go back over the creek in a slightly different direction.

Participants: Nathan Vanderby and Randy Milbert

Where did you go?

• Central Park, Roseville, Minnesota

What did you like?

• Majority of routes were good
• Ground Guidance estimated that our 1.1 mile route to the “Bump Set Spike” geocache would take 22 minutes and it actually took 18 minutes
• It took two to three minutes to enter geocache; that is not too bad

What did you dislike?

• No support for degrees and minutes coordinate format (e.g. “N 44° 58.704 W 093° 11.275”) used on the Geocaching (http://geocaching.com) web site
• Cannot road route to park parking lot.  Had to use separate Magellan device to plan route to park.
• Route did not regenerate when we were way off course.

Primordial Attends First Job Fair

Tim Oehler and I recently manned Primordial’s booth at the University of Minnesota Institute of Technology (IT) Job Fair on Wednesday, 30 Jan 08. We both graduated from the University of Minnesota with degrees in Computer Engineering in 2006 and know what it is like to be a student with graduation looming large. I hoped this fact would render us more approachable than the company reps I remember from previous job fairs I attended as a student. It didn’t hurt that our booth was sweet, with a nice centerpiece and two computer screens running our Ground Guidance Desktop software and the Floodwater video.

Our objective was to find candidates interested in filling our software engineering position. Decked out in our new Primordial shirts, we spent the next six hours gathering over 50 resumes from interested candidates. We figured a good outing would have been 10 to 15 resumes, so I think we did quite well. Even better, I have been blown away by the quality of the candidates from whom we have received resumes, and predict we’ll face one of those “good problems” where there are more highly-qualified candidates than we can hire.

Hunting with Ground Guidance

Primordial Insider Dr. Paul Degallier sent in this picture of a 10 point buck that he shot while using Ground Guidance. Notice that he has Ground Guidance mounted to the handlebar of his ATV. Paul told Primordial “I must say it (Ground Guidance) worked amazingly while deer and bear hunting.  I could drive my ATV right to my tree stand while it was pitch dark out and with the lights off on my ATV!  A real advantage.” Thanks to Paul for sending us this great photo!

Primordial Insider: Paul Wagner

Primordial met Paul Wagner through Minnesota Wire and Cable Co. where he is CEO. In the past, he has helped Primordial with user feedback on other products, and was part of our Primordial Soldier usability study that tested a military version of Ground Guidance for helping soldiers navigate in combat environments. Paul is an avid fisherman and hiker and is active in year-round outdoor construction. He has used car GPS for the past 4 years, and has additional navigational experience with maps, compass, and even stars.

Primordial Insider: Dr. Paul Degallier

Dr. Paul Degallier is an experienced hunter and has given Primordial some of our best customer feedback. Paul hunts a variety of animals: deer, grouse, pheasant, geese and bear. He is also an avid fisherman, whitewater kayaker, and hiker. He has used Garmin GPS devices extensively in the past, such as the Garmin E-Trex Vista and the Garmin Rino 530. These devices can be used with just one hand, which is one of Paul’s favorite aspects of them. He also likes that the devices do not have a touchscreen, which allows him to freely wipe dust and debris from the screen without interacting with the device. This feedback has contributed to several new features of Ground Guidance that allow the user to zoom and pan maps using hardware buttons on the Magellan Triton instead of using its touchscreen. In the past, Paul has used his Garmin GPS devices connected to his PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) in order to view more detailed maps. With Ground Guidance, he is able to view his position on a variety of detailed maps without having to use two devices at once. Paul’s interest in navigation has also led him to use a map and compass, and to do APRS (Automatic Position and Reporting System) with his ham radios.

Primordial Insider: Bruce Hanson

Primordial met Bruce Hanson through Minnesota Wire and Cable Co. where he is the Computer Operations Manager. He has provided frequent feedback to Primordial and uses Ground Guidance several times a week. Bruce has a great appreciation for both technology and the outdoors. He is a very experienced at hunting, hiking, backpacking, 4-wheeling, and geocaching, and does these outdoor activities as often as weather and family responsibilities permit. He bought his first GPS device a few years after they arrived in the commercial market, and has owned and used them for the past 12 years. He passed on his GPS expertise to his son during a road trip from Minneapolis, MN to the US Navy Submarine base in Groton, CT. Bruce’s experience was evident to his son, who remarked that he learned more about GPS from his father than he did during a week long Navy course. Bruce also has experience in using a topographic map and magnetic compass, but it is his GPS device that finds its way into most of his outdoor hobbies. He is a private pilot and sometimes uses his GPS while flying. He is even looking for a way to use GPS while scuba diving. Maybe Primordial will be able to help him with that in the future.