Topic: Lat/Lon to MGRS with 6, 8, and 10 digit grid support (and back) + moar

My subject says enough about my primary need in this extension. I'd prefer to work in the editor and in game with MGRS coordinates, of varying lengths (6, 8, and 10 digit inputs), and have the rest of the mgrs grid (i.e. The 15R AQ portion) to be filled in by either my current position or my target grid position (with the option to choose which at entry time) so that I can focus on the 6, 8, or 10 digit portion in my inputs, obviously with the ability to enter the whole thing manually via a separate method if I must.

As you can tell, I deal primarily in MGRS coordinates, but I also use custom downloaded map data rather than real-time over the net maps, as my maps are custom overlays on top of base maps in many cases. I'd like the ability to mark on them and have my markings transferred to the texture (in working memory only) if possible to save battery life when sitting at a single grid for a while on screen.

Also, something like grid ticks around the display area for a grid square's first 2 digits (every 1000 meters), with each tick being 100 metres, would also be extremely useful, as well as a special tick for every 500 metres. I need to be able to glance at my map to swiftly see how far away I am from a given target at any time. This sort of feature would really kick @$$ to have around.

A compass feature would also be great if possible, especially if measured in both mils and degrees.

A final request -- is there any way to map out some roads on a separate layer or something, but render them onto the textures you display? Would it be faster to simply draw a line instead? I would think that on a mobile device, it would be less cpu intensive and therefore less battery draining to have my custom maps appear as part of the texture after being loaded into memory the first time so that no separate drawing layers/calls aside from the basic tile textures would be necessary until new tiles are loaded or the old tiles need to be reloaded. Does this make sense?

This seems like a really promising extension, but I really need these features to be able to make full use of your work. Do you think you'd be able to help me out with these requests please?

Re: Lat/Lon to MGRS with 6, 8, and 10 digit grid support (and back) + moar

Hello.

Sorry for the long answer, we need to understand what is MGRS.
This is a very specific thing, and we do not plan to add that.
You can implement it yourself.
Example of conversion (JS):
http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/l … -mgrs.html

Online Maps supports the compass (degrees).
I could not find what is «compass in miles».

Some providers have a road on a separate layer.
You can use this as an overlay.
And of course it will be much faster than the Drawing API.

Kind Regards,
Infinity Code Team.

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Re: Lat/Lon to MGRS with 6, 8, and 10 digit grid support (and back) + moar

English isn't your first language, correct?

In that case, I will try again.

MGRS is the "military grid reference system" used by the US military, as well as many other modern military and ex military forces. It is a widely used grid system (even used by civilians) due to its ease of use and simplicity, especially in America. It would be wise to support this system, as it would be a great selling point to offer a grid system that isn't sphere-based (mgrs is a spherical map projected onto a plane, unlike lat/lon which is simply a point on a sphere).

Bottom line is, there's a .Net library you can add freely to the engine that would allow this conversion 'built-in' so that MGRS, as well as others, could be used, all for free with very little work from you, other than simply adding the functions in to quickly swap the lat/lon positioning you currently use with another coordinate system.

I am considering buying this asset, but it feels like you don't really seem to want to seriously consider even one very simple request before you've brushed them all off, and that says very much about your philosophy on continued customer support (it sounds like you're saying "look, buy my asset as is, because it works for my own idea of your purposes -- you, my potential customer, your *actual* purposes for using my asset don't matter to me -- you can do any extra work yourself if it doesn't fit the use case I imagined." Which is completely lame and not very 'supportive' at all. Out of principal I am considering not supporting your asset in return, since it seems like you're ready to call this done and aren't willing to help. MGRS is a very common and general use coordinate system, a feature most apps have (such as Alpine Quest) .feature/function of maps, especially mobile ones, so it would be in your interest to support the .net library I mentioned if you want to increase your customer base, otherwise, just take it from me, you'll be shooting yourself in the foot financially. With a system as promising as this one is, that's a real shame. It looks really useful if it only supported the coordinate system I need. sad

Re: Lat/Lon to MGRS with 6, 8, and 10 digit grid support (and back) + moar

Hello.

Yes, you are right, English - this is not my first language.

It is a widely used grid system (even used by civilians) due to its ease of use and simplicity, especially in America.

I do not know you're right or not, but you are the first who asked about MGRS.
Google Maps, Bing Maps, Yandex Maps... no one has built-in support for MGRS.

Bottom line is, there's a .Net library you can add freely to the engine that would allow this conversion 'built-in' so that MGRS, as well as others, could be used, all for free with very little work from you, other than simply adding the functions in to quickly swap the lat/lon positioning you currently use with another coordinate system.

There you are wrong. We can not use third-party libraries. Unity Asset Store forbids it.
We can only give instructions on how to use it with our asset.
I'm not saying that it's some big problem to implement these methods in Online Maps.
But if you can use these methods from third-party .NET library, then why you can not do it?

I am considering buying this asset, but it feels like you don't really seem to want to seriously consider even one very simple request before you've brushed them all off, and that says very much about your philosophy on continued customer support (it sounds like you're saying "look, buy my asset as is, because it works for my own idea of your purposes -- you, my potential customer, your *actual* purposes for using my asset don't matter to me -- you can do any extra work yourself if it doesn't fit the use case I imagined." Which is completely lame and not very 'supportive' at all. Out of principal I am considering not supporting your asset in return, since it seems like you're ready to call this done and aren't willing to help.

Here you are again wrong.
For our purposes it was created Online Maps v1.0 (more than two years ago).
Everything else for customers.
A simple example: Online Maps v2.3 released December 16. Today, April 2, and the current version Online Maps v2.4.0.29. It is about 1 update every 4 days.

Currently we have no plans to add support for MGRS in Online Maps.
But if at least 2 customer will write what they really need this feature, we will add it.

Kind Regards,
Infinity Code Team.

Boost your productivity a lot and immediately using Ultimate Editor Enhancer. Trial and non-commerce versions available.

Re: Lat/Lon to MGRS with 6, 8, and 10 digit grid support (and back) + moar

Just wanted to jump in here...honestly, the support here is pretty splendid, but he's also not gonna write your project for ya.

I'm former US Military myself so I get right away where you want to go with your project...but I also think it's a pretty limited customer base for Alex to be focused on in the long run--there are a lot of other areas that would be more benefit for more people.

If your project is in Unity and you want to have a starting point for real maps, this is by far the best Asset available to you. Yes, you're going to have some work cut out for you getting MGRS up and running, but a lot of the groundwork is already done for you wink

Just a satisfied customer's point of view, hope it helps.

Re: Lat/Lon to MGRS with 6, 8, and 10 digit grid support (and back) + moar

@stephen

I suppose I was indeed too specific with my request, but I do appreciate your input. I can easily take care of this stuff myself, but I was simply thinking that MGRS support (natively in Online Maps) would be an important feature to many users who would rather not reverse-engineer some of the code.

While I agree that former military is a limited audience, I would like to stress that offering a different coordinate system like MGRS, even if it is to simply say "Hey, my system supports multiple coordinate systems!" on the Asset Store page is definitely not a wasted effort.

Even if one were to never use it, it would give the potential user not only a sense of "I'll have it if I ever need it" as well as a vote of confidence in the favor of the developer as he is familiar with the potential needs of his audience to the level of a science.

After many other unsupported assets have fallen by the wayside, a vote of confidence is becoming necessary. Many have wasted money on assets that just don't fit their needs because they bought it thinking they could just alter the asset only to come to find out that the author's code implementation is horrendous or that they just cant work with the way that the author implemented the solution, so they're forced to scrap it altogether and are out a lot of money and still have to roll a solution themselves. This kind of thing sucks, so forgive me if I asked something too specific -- I only want to be sure that my use-case is supported one way or another and I can't risk throwing away money on a system I'm not sure I can easily modify right now.


@Alex Vertax

I'm sorry for requesting something so specific, but author support is also very important to me. I hope my reasoning has been better explained, and I hope that someone would indeed speak up for MGRS support to this system, as this is not necessarily a common use-case, though having it (or even something similar) available would definitely be worthwhile in the confidence it would provide users to view your asset as the go-to solution for everyone -- especially if you consider that you'd be on top if you were to ever face competition in the Asset Store again. A potential competitor would have to work twice as hard to compete with you if your asset has twice as many difficult-to-add and/or user-centric features in your product. Just some food for thought.

Thank you for your time. I hope you'll seriously consider adding support for different coordinate systems in the future. Keep in mind that a lack of knowledge in these other systems might very well be what differentiates you from your potential competitor.

Re: Lat/Lon to MGRS with 6, 8, and 10 digit grid support (and back) + moar

For Coordinate conventions between many different coordinate types, including MGRS, you can use the coordinatesharp.
https://coordinatesharp.com/DeveloperGuide

You can import it directly in your unity project and it is very easy to use.

It also has Solar and Lunar times(moonrise moonset sunrise sunset and many more)