A mapping tool better than Great Circle Mapper?
 

Although the Great Circle Mapper does a very good job (I assume) of charting distances, ranges and so on, the graphical result showing the flight lines and routes etc. is not very good IMHO. The map produced is very small, lacks any detail and is not very good unless mapping less than only a few routes. I want/need a mapper that allows multiple routes to be represented on either a Mercator and/or orthographic projection, but on a much larger size, with good detail and ability to expand the graphic without enormous distortion (even Photoshop cannot expand the Great Circle Mapper graphics without alot of distortion and loss of detail).

Any suggestions? Thanks!

There's bound to be a google maps application somewhere.

What is your end goal -- printing out or exporting the maps, for example?

http://openflights.org/ offers flight mapping on a zoomable Google Maps-type globe, but the routes are (presently) plotted as straight line segments, not great circle lines.

This one is my new favorite:

http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/calculators

It also uses google maps. The maps are decently sized and you get to zoom like you would in google maps. It does pop-up the map in a new window/tab, which is a bit weird, but fine for me.

greatcirclemapper.net
 

I recommend http://www.greatcirclemapper.net which uses google maps to visualize your routes on the map. Furthermore there is a big airport, aircraft and airline database and an iphone app will be available soon!

brgds

Is there any way to nuke the data widgets which take up something like 1/3 of the map?

Hi there,

looks great, but the google maps are kind of the usual stuff you get. Maybe you can try out to make your maps trying out airline mapping tool www.routegraph.com. They have some beautiful maps available, and you can plot your own route data.

Cheers
Mcfly

Routegraph is not free after your 30 day trial expires. Website says "call for quote" so I have no idea what it costs.

I think I'll skip it.

That tool needs a lot of work, in my opinion. Kind of trashed up appearance with too much hidden by the various widgets.

I entered an upcoming trip of mine (SMF DFW LHR VCE) and get "0 hours" for Flight Time on each segment and the total, for example. That was after getting several errors using three letter IATA codes and being told there was no such airport.

Then the page crashed? :rolleyes:

Perhaps you recommend it because:
You need to parse the airports asynchronously. I typed in "PIT ORD LAX OGG LIH SFO PIT" for an upcoming trip and it returned "no airport found". It took me a while to figure out that I had to type "PIT", wait for the AJAX(?) call to return a list where I could select the PIT airport, then type in ORD, wait again, select, type in LAX, wait, etc. ACK!

Also, I'm apparently flying Einstein Air, as my flight takes 0:00h

And put in statute miles. Very few folks in the US speak nautical miles or km.

And put a close button on the splash/welcome screen.

Good start, but keep working on it.

the behavior of the search bar makes it a site i won't return to. why should i have to wait for your slow lookup function to identify my airport code and make me select it? i type in LGA MCO and hit calculate before the site can return an error to me and then do nothing. this is a total usability killer.

Hi! Thank you for your feedback! I plan to rebuild the form. Many people are missing the possibility to directly enter a list of airports instead of using the autocompleter.

Regarding the flight time: right now it will only calculate a time if you choose an aircraft or enter the speed. I see this is not clear. There should be a default speed. How much should it be?

For the Windows I think there should be a button to slide it to the side.
Maybe also a print view?

Again, thank you for the great feedback! It's very helpful for me!

I built Great Circle Map.

It has two display modes: A Google maps-based projection which is nice since it lets you zoom in as much as you want, and an interactive 3D globe projection which helps explain the weird curves of the route paths :)
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6b1811f1b0.jpg
The website is really fast since it never reloads the page. If you type in a route, it will appear instantly.

It addresses some of the problems that have been mentioned in this thread:
* The search lookup function is instantaneous, so inputting routes is very fast even if you don't know the airport codes.
* For people who don't want search, there is a "raw input" mode which works like gcmap.com - just put in the airport codes like "JFK-LHR/AMS".

Cons:
* Mobile version is a bit clunky.
* Not the same breadth of display options as good old gcmap.com (ranges, ETOPS etc).
* A bit more difficult to export as an image - you basically have to take a screen shot.
* Airport database is not as complete as the one on gcmap.com

Looks good. One remark, it does not seem to understand a query like this: AMS-LHR LCY-RTM. In which case I would expect two flights to be plotted (not connected).

In raw input-mode (which is not available on mobile), you can simply write AMS-LHR, LCY-RTM with a comma and it'll work. If you're using the default search input you'll have to do two separate queries with one flight each (both will still be plotted).
Hope that helps!
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