Allow directly setting KML altitudeModes

[jidanni]

Allow directly setting KML altitudeModes

On https://www.gpsbabel.org/htmldoc-development/fmt_kml.html

floating option
Altitudes are absolute and not clamped to ground.
When this option is nonzero, altitudes are allowed to float above or below the ground surface. By default, this option is zero so that altitudes are clamped to the ground. Specify floating=1 to allow them to float.

OK, that's great, but why not also give full control to the user to
pick the many possible allowed KML altitudeModes?

That way he needn't post process the KML file with e.g.,

for($dom->findnodes('//altitudeMode')){
    $_->unbindNode for $_->childNodes();
    $_->appendText('relativeToGround');
}

So -o kml,altitudeMode=relativeToGround
(User is responsible for what string and how to capitalize.)

[GPSBabelDeveloper]

This was all that existed when this flag was added. "Floating" was so that recorded flight tracks showed a plane's elevation. (There was an open request for "floating, except don't go under the ground" so that landings and takeoffs didn't disappear underground, but I think that never took off. (Ha!) Still, There are only three such states in IGC KML today: clampToGround, relativeToGround, absolute Most GPS-like systems where you want to draw data on a map and want the data either on the ground, regardless of what the (notoriously inaccurate) GPS alt says, above the ground, or above MSL I don't think we cover that middle ground. That's not "many". There are some gx:extensions that were introduced during the Ocean effort in Earth 5, I think, allowing distances relative to sea floor (for an item neither floating nor totally sunken) and one that was initially internally called "clamped to crust" for objects at rest on water's bottom. It's unfortunate that in a KML->KML conversion we damage this, but we mangle a LOT of KML in this way and haven't incurred much grief over it. Maybe instead of 'floating' being a bool we could make it effectively an enum {0, 1, 2} with 2 being relativeToGround. That wouldn't balloon our UI/doc. Does that get you to a happy place? RJL

…

On Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 2:11 AM 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson ***@***.***> wrote: Allow directly setting KML altitudeModes On https://www.gpsbabel.org/htmldoc-development/fmt_kml.html floating option Altitudes are absolute and not clamped to ground. When this option is nonzero, altitudes are allowed to float above or below the ground surface. By default, this option is zero so that altitudes are clamped to the ground. Specify floating=1 to allow them to float. OK, that's great, but why not also give full control to the user to pick the many possible allowed KML altitudeModes? That way he needn't post process the KML file with e.g., for($dom->findnodes('//altitudeMode')){ $_->unbindNode for $_->childNodes(); $_->appendText('relativeToGround'); } — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1040>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AC3VAD2CM6TBIS4SFOUJ3MLW5VCKHANCNFSM6AAAAAAWGFYL7A> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[jidanni]

Well I didn't check what these all do

and maybe more will be on the way. So I was just thinking of a maintenance free solution... but some of them would need a gx: in the front... so one cannot win...