SURVEY IMPROVEMENT_IDEA

2 =========== Fred Splittgerber *AT* Minden, NV
Option for a geographic map overlay (particularly for the area: Minden/Bishop/White Mountains) -- this would be extremely valuable Alternatively: a geographic map (same size as BLIPMAPs) depicting the area covered in the BLIPMAPs

14 =========== ---------- *AT* Avenal, Ca
It appears that the elevation change for Blk mtn is shown on the ETA map but it does not appear to be on the daily map. Tha elevation grid for Blk mtn would be a great help since Avenal is almost directly due west of this topographic feature.

34 =========== ---------- *AT* Lake Elsinore CA
Maps definitly need better spatial resolution. Land marks would be helpful.

35 =========== Ido Millet *AT* Jamestown NY
Allow users to subscribe to an information push via e-mail on a daily/weekend and/or exception basis (e.g. conditions tomorrow are predicted to be better than 80th percentile for your region) basis.

43 =========== Miguel Flores *AT* Holllister, CA
Along with constant colors for W*, you might consider using a monochrome plotting scheme in which the hue is constant, but the saturation and/or luminosity changes. These kinds of scaling are much more intuitive than are changing colors. The NOAA sectional charts are a good example of using few color hue changes. On current BLIPMAPS I always have to look at the color legend to see if adjacent areas increasing or decreasing in the particular parameter being viewed. Ed Tufte's books cover this subject matter in great detail (www.edwardtufte.com)

50 =========== ---------- *AT* Peoria, AZ
I have difficulty determining when a blipmap was generated and for what time period it applies. I would like to see something explicit like "Blipmap generated at 0800Z 2 Feb 2004 for forecast period 1900Z 3 Feb 2004"

56 =========== Jaime Pinto *AT* SOSA Gliding Club - Toronto - Canada
Same colours for same absolute values, even across different days or regions are very good already. Just try to make them within one ofthe 64 "webcolour" patterns, so that they can also be easily displayed on PDA screens (as in SeeYou or WinPilot) Thanks

59 =========== Michael Higgins *AT* Fairfield, PA
I would love to see a 2-day (36 or 48 hour) prediction. This would greatly help in planning soaring trips. All and all, the BLIPMAP is wonderful! Great job.

68 =========== Bill Drury *AT* Benton, TN
See above

75 =========== ---------- *AT* Salida, CO
Use constant map colors for BL Depth.

76 =========== Julian (Tim) Tuck *AT* Gatineau Gliding Club, Ottawa, ON
It would be nice to be able to get an estimated tephigram for any point in the model, at any of the model times.

81 =========== Ron Gleason *AT* Groveland, FL plus many others around the US
At times the color coding is difficult to interpert, I do see color speration well. I have wondered if using black and white shading may be more useful, or numberred regions. This is a personal issue and not one that may affect alot of users.

92 =========== ---------- *AT* Spokane, WA
I would like to see BLIP MAP predictions for 1-3 days in the future. You were working on that for awhile. I should of read ahead!!

103 =========== ---------- *AT* Hammonton, NJ
1. Forecasts for a given day made available as far in advance as possible. I often use READY forecast soundings (ETA 40, NGM, GFS) to get an earlier indication of soaring conditions, but these are time consuming and don't provide the area coverage that BLIPMAPS do. 2. NE forecasts for times of day other than 18z.

106 =========== ---------- *AT* Morrisville, VT
Besides the constant colors it would be nice if the color "wheel" would not go around twice, making the same color in different areas can mean opposite things. This can get very confusing near fronts etc.

109 =========== Gary Rubus *AT* Buena Vista, CO
Some of the colors (especially the purples) are too close together. Hard to tell small differences. Anything you can do to maximize the contrast between adjoining bands of color would be useful to these old eyes.

120 =========== ---------- *AT* Waller TX
The verbiage and layout of the website should be simplified and clarified so as to be less daunting for the user. I would also like to see plain language explanations about how the maps are created and about the limitations of their predictions.

136 =========== ---------- *AT* Marshall peak, CA
Ability to "zoom in" on certain areas, for example just Southern California. With the entire CA/NV area on one screen, it's difficult to see details.

142 =========== John H. Bisscheroux *AT* Hawkesbury, Ontario, Canada
Can't think of anything.

145 =========== ---------- *AT* Avenal, CA
Yes yes yes. A consistent color scheme would REALLY help W*. I've also noticed that convergence seems to have some very close colors for the near 0 values and is hard to differentiate colors. Take a look at that color spectrum, some are just a bit too close to tell the difference sometimes.

152 =========== Chet Meyerson *AT* Chilowee TN
The most important feature would be the overlap. Benton is right on the edge and I'm sure other sites are as well.

156 =========== Larry Ortega *AT* Blair, NE
Thanks for the really excellent work you do. This is some extraordinary technology. This may be a strange request, but, have you thought about glider pilots that are color blind. I am an ex-military flier and was surprised to find that a lot of glider pilots are glider pilots because they are color blind and there is no restriction for them. You may want to view your "color" blipmaps in black and white to better understand if the gradiations in brightness are still viewable by people who are color blind. MInor, I know, but with some minor color shade tweaking, you could make this even better for many people.

191 =========== ---------- *AT* Pendleton On Canada
the possibility of adding terrain information ( Nrth of the Ottawa river cloud base is almost always 500 to 1000 feet higher due to the hills in that area for exemples)

200 =========== Tony Gaechter *AT* Truckee
predictions out to 36 0r more hours in advance as planned for the ETA model

201 =========== Kirk Stant *AT* Turf Soaring (P48), Peoria AZ
Change the underlying map to make it easier to visualize the areas covered - the contours used are so big that they do not correlate easily with the real world. Perhaps show major cities, roads, RRs, rivers, airspace, instead of terrain (as an option). As proposed earlier, if selected BLIPMAPS could be quickly downloaded into SeeYou and displayed there (as a rastermap, perhaps, or a 3-d overlay like aispace) that would be really cool...

217 =========== ---------- *AT* Harnett County Apt, Erwin, NC
What about adding some ground features such as major cities and highways to allow easier determination of location of intended flights?

222 =========== Greg Chapman *AT* GHSA Houston,TX
Constant colors would be appreciated.

228 =========== ---------- *AT* Fairfield, PA
There is a great deal of information being offered, all in the same format. It might be helpful to combine certain images...perhaps utilizing different formats so a large amount of data may be effectively rendered in a single or two images. The process of grabbing 12 images and then correlating them can be time consuming as well as confusing.

232 =========== ---------- *AT* ASE
your color presentation is easy to understand and if fine with me

239 =========== ---------- *AT* Minden, NV
As above, more hand holding info on each of the screens . . . other than the obviouse ones of course.

241 =========== Alan Hoar *AT* Black Diamond, Alberta, Canada
W*, CAPE, Cumulus cloudbase

245 =========== Rick Culbertson *AT* Kelly Airpark / Elbert, CO
I would like to see the addition of a few ground features such as lakes, main highways, cities and or towns shown on the map. I know it can get cluttered so perhaps just a few to assist with visually pinpointing specific areas associated with positive or negitive soaring conditions.

261 =========== ---------- *AT* Truckee/Minden
Talking of colors sometimes it's hard to tell what shade is which.

272 =========== Sam Fly *AT* Texas Soaring Association TA11
Us flat landers need all the help we can get.

275 =========== ryszard krolikowski *AT* Blairstown,NJ
Getting Bmaps home with cable internet connection is easy but durning contest with dialup almost imposible.Only in New Castle contest I would see published during morrning briefing multitime Bmaps.I hope others will follow.

276 =========== Doug Levy *AT* Warner Springs, Ca
a few map locations- Mt Whitney or Bishop for example. Some thing to reference the data better than state lines.

282 =========== Jim Hays *AT* Air Sailing, NV
plot a few of the turnpoints or other ground references. Often the blipmap shows something I desire to locate, but cannot. I use CA/NV, and a good example is trying to etimate where say, Austin, or Tonopah is in relation to a certain weather feature shown on the blipmap.

284 =========== Jim Skydell *AT* California City, CA
I am colorblind, and sometimes have trouble telling map values based on colors, particularly when shades are close. I can usually figure them out, by looking at adjoining colors (and parameters. Is there any way to assign colors differently that might help me?

288 =========== ---------- *AT* airsailing, reno, nv
Need some alternative for color-blind pilots. The lavendars, turquoises, and light blues all look the same to me. Would suggest the use of "black" and also of "white", or colors which are not so difficult to identify. Or perhaps drawing lines from the color code bars to an area on the map of the identical color. (A color deficient person has difficulty in comparing the color code bars to actual colors in the blipmap.)

299 =========== ---------- *AT*
I would most like to see a point and click fsl plot map with drop down boxes to select time and an animation feature to view 18, 21, 00 one after the other. I dont know if this is practical from your standpoint but it would be way cool instead of lat,lon and airport id codes. I wrote bill moninger at fsl long time ago about the idea but his reply was lack of resources. Recently i inquired about whether the eta or gfs dataset could be accessed on the fsl javaplot website for the longer term so more people could fly on the better days.

307 =========== ---------- *AT* Elko, BC
The consistant colors would be a great improvement. Say 400 to 500 fpm always the same color.

310 =========== Steve Ford *AT* Truckee, CA
Add a few more "landmarks" to the blipmap. I can figure out where Lake Tahoe is, and I can roughly figure out where the border of California and Nevada runs going south, but it would be nice if you put in a few landmarks. Might I suggest the following for the California Nevada map: Mt. Whitney, Bishop, Boundry Peak, Mono Lake, Minden, Pyramid Lake, Susanville. That sorth of "landmark density" would help figure out where the blipmaps correspond to the terrain.

311 =========== Larry Hood *AT* Williams
slightly longer range (like the eta) would be great... 84 hours???. Also the greater resolution will be very helpful given the large difference in topography in our area.

312 =========== ---------- *AT* Ely MIA Contests Alamogordo, US
Show againg the lift aeras on the moving map display on Winpilot. It would be great to be able to down load a Blipmap with the different thermal strenghts to the moving map display on winpilot. It would then be great to be able to choose the areas which have the lift I want on Winpilot to display. Maybe you and Jerry can figure something out.

321 =========== ---------- *AT* Wallaby Ranch, FL
I, as many male pilots ( about 10% of male population) , have a partial color vision defeciency...mine and typically red/green. Any chance of avoiding use of these colors especially in light shadeings.

326 =========== ---------- *AT* fd40
PLease note that intensity shading has been proven to be more easily interpreted by the human mind then several bright colors. Also note that about 3% of us are color blind and so the use of red and green in the same plot is a poor choice

330 =========== Cliff Hilty *AT* Turf Soaring Peoria, AZ
I would like to see the same color scheme in relation to positive results in other words red being always better than blue when it comes to better soaring conditions. I realize that this is not plssible in all of the blipmaps but some of the more critical ones could be done on the same color scheme.

332 =========== ---------- *AT* Crazy Creek, Middletown,CA
Constant colors is a good idea. Wind direction is hard to relate to colors without an arrow on the BLIPMAP showing what directions correspond to colors. I find wind direction by color too confusing and potentially misleading. Can you put a few direction arrows on the wind direction map relating color to an arrow. Maybe a few arrows colored the same as the colors on the map. Higher resolution would be nice if it is possible and would be accurate. Having the "evening before" forecast is highly desirable for me.

336 =========== David Grah *AT* Bishop, CA
Although improvements are always possible, the information provided right now is outstanding. I think the biggest improvements could be made through improving the ease of toggling between times and parameters. Unysis has an excellent system for doing something similar at: http://weather.unisys.com/aviation/12h/avn_500_12h.html

338 =========== ---------- *AT* Ridgley MD
Some of the Buoyancy/Shear Ratio (B/S) colors between 1&6 and 12&16 are very close in shade making them difficult to differentiate.

343 =========== ---------- *AT* Owl Canyon Gliderport Wellington, CO
Leave as is, to much variability in sink rates.

347 =========== ---------- *AT* (BSB) or S_Butte_ID
Boy, out of all the parameters to highlight, you picked one of little use. I look at wind velocity and direction at various altitudes, B/S,cloud OD potential,and sfcLCL primarily.

351 =========== ---------- *AT* Sky Soaring / Hampshire, IL
Many men are color blind in shades of red and green (that would be me). This is extremely common and makes it difficult for us to "see" the maps accurately. If there was a way to include a number or pattern instead of just color to differentiate the maps, that would be helpful.

359 =========== David Denman *AT* Flying 10 - Gainesville FL
The constant color would be great benefit. Sometimes also difficult to determine which shade of color it is.

360 =========== Ian Cant *AT* Tehachapi CA
Yes. On some days, there is ambiguity between the direction of the gradients [is that the yellow-green of 4000 ft or the green-yellow of 16000 ft ?] This occurs typically when the Sierras are showing 10-12000 ft and the deserts and central valley are grossly different and the intermediate contours are too close together to be completely shown. Could these occasional ambiguities be prevented ?

362 =========== Milton Hare *AT* Williams, CA
Basic BLIPMAPS via email. Ability to view two major parameters at the same time (ie W* and BL Top). Two BLIPMAPS can fit side-by-side on many monitors, and this would allow easier comparison of the two related parameters. Ability to view a 'loop' over time of these two parameters would great.

365 =========== Steve Koerner *AT* Turf and Estrella, Phoenix AZ
One thing I've thought about is that it would be nice to open the blipmap page for a region and click for the desired products without having to scroll. It would also be nice if we had a click switch that would turn on or off the position of either cities or airports on the map. That would allow easier orientation to position on the map.

368 =========== ---------- *AT* Hinton, OK
Lines and arrows vs. colors would aid interpretation of wind direction, and could be used to consolidate wind speed on the same graphic, which would also help.

374 =========== Paul McClure *AT* Decatur, TX
It's not clear what colors represent which updraft rate for example. I haven't used it since last fall but I recall this not being clear. The value labels should be clearly over the center of the color bar or on the border. Even better would be gurould (sp) shaded, continuous color contours.

375 =========== ---------- *AT* Soaring Society of Houston, Navasota, TX
maps should show either major cities or major airport identifiers so that interpreting location of weather features would be easier.

381 =========== Ben Rogers *AT* hernandez
make the color scale bar smaller and place if vertically next to the image.

395 =========== Bob Fidler *AT* Ionia/MI
ssa needs to support your venture

421 =========== Dr. Hugo Vifian *AT* Hollister
If there is a way not to have to scroll and see the legend as well as the entire map, I would prefer that. Having a high resolution on the map is not that important to me but I find it anoying to have to scroll to see the legend. I also wonder if there is not a way to use a sensible gray scale to show the range.

441 =========== ---------- *AT* La Grange, GA
Constant color, YES PLEASE! Also, I find it hard to distinguish between the pastel colors and the bright colors. I think one single (finely graded) color spectrum would be much easier to read.

445 =========== Dave Piotrowski *AT* Was Wurtsboro, NY
I would like a better understanding of when (time of day)that I can access the latest forecast...(maybe a better way to say it would be "when does the forecast update - time of day") so I can plan my schedule and go/ no go decision.

457 =========== ---------- *AT* Mt Magazine Havana, Ar.
Would like to see a temp map. Surface temp for each hour would be ideal if the accuracy is there. Need accurate hourly temps for the Skew-T.

463 =========== Jeff Melin *AT* Alexandria, IN; formerly Zionsville, IN
Great improvement!

467 =========== John Medley *AT* Crystalaire Llano, CA
Constant color scale would be a godsend for my weak memory of previous days comparisons. I could then do relative comparisons in my brain .

468 =========== ---------- *AT* Austin, TX
Yes: Pressure affects the texture of the air considerably. I don't know how this effect might be perceived in a sailplane, if at all, but the texture and turbulence of the air is definitely affected by pressure. Also affected is the ability of usable thermals to form on marginal soaring days. In fact, if I were a scientist wanting to really understand the structure of thermals, my test vehicle would be a paraglider because we fly so slow, have a turning radius so small, and we can literally feel differencens in the air across the span of our wings. Another measure I'd like to see is a measure of turbulence potential, which is of great concern to paragliders. Pressure affects this, but so too does windspeed in the boundary layer. The B/S ratio is useful for predicting workable thermals, but the combined windspeed and pressure measure would seemingly give a greater measure of overall turbulence.

473 =========== ---------- *AT* Boulder, CO
I sometimes have a difficult time interpretting Blipmap info due to the many colors and especially the fact that a specific color on one map will have a different meaning on another map. If you could try to make the colors represent the same thing from map to map, it would be a bit less confusing.

477 =========== ---------- *AT* Ridgely, MD
Timeless is everything to me. I really only trust a 6 - 9 hr forecast and must decide to fly immediately on getting the info. I wish FSL would get their act together for prompt output everyday (especialy wkends)!

481 =========== Bob Maronde *AT* Crystalaire, CA
Yes. I would like to see only one color used instead of having the colors repeat themselves like in "wind direction." For example, 80 and 260 are shades of the same color yet it's sometimes hard to differeniate which one it is. Note: The Blipmaps are so good that I feel reluctant to say anything that sounds like a criticism.

486 =========== Martin Hellman *AT* Hayward, CA
It would be nice to make it harder to lose the "list saved." Somehow, mine got deleted a while back, and it took a while to reconstruct my list. Maybe I accidentally hit "list save" button before I had downloaded my list and so it saved no maps for me?

489 =========== ---------- *AT* Mountain Valley Airport, Tehachapi, CA
I'd love to receive a pre-determined set of plots by e-mail each day as they are generated, perhaps the morning's RUC and ETA, plus the next day's ETA in the PM. I'd be willing to pay extra for this, and have the bandwidth to receive the data by e-mail, or could set up an FTP download. I'd like to have my personal settings saved (say, background desired for the plots, time and type of plots, etc.) so I don't have to re-enter the same data I look at day in day out, and risk missing an important plot because I'm in a hurry or just waking up...

491 =========== Doug Haluza *AT* Julian PA
Using wind flags instead of colors to represent winds. This would require higher resolution maps.

515 =========== Ramy Yanetz *AT* Hollister
Please make constant colors for BL Top too (up to 20,000 ft). Provide email notification when new blipmap is available.

517 =========== Mike Parker *AT* El Tiro Gliderport Tucson, AZ
It is sometimes difficult to correlate colors with values. This is especially true if the colors wrap around. Some way of determining the actual values on the map would be useful. I am VERY excited about your move to ETA! Longer forecasts into the future is the biggest improvement that you can make for me. Thanks.

518 =========== George Hamilton *AT* Rancho Murieta, CA
The colors on some of the maps are very similar. It is hard for me to distinguish adjacent colors sometimes- and I am not color blind!