OpenAthena for Android
An Android port of the OpenAthena project
OpenAthena™ allows consumer and professional drones to spot precise geodetic locations
🖼️👨💻 + 🧮⛰️ = 🎯📍
Use of this app requires loading a GeoTIFF Digital Elevation Model (DEM) file, stored as a GeoTIFF ".tif" file.
GeoTIFF files store terrain elevation (height) for an area of the Earth. OpenAthena™ performs a ray-cast from a drone camera's position and orientation towards terrain. This may be used to precisely locate any arbitrary point within a given picture.
For information on how to clip a GeoTIFF file of a customized area, see this link.
Load the DEM file, e.g. cobb.tif using the " ⛰" button (NOTE: during file selection, the thumbnail image preview for any GeoTIFF ".tif" file will be blank. This is normal.), and the app will display the size of the file as well as its Latitude and Longitude boundaries:
This app is compatible with images taken by select models of DJI, Skydio, Autel, and Parrot aircraft. The drone's position and its camera's orientation are automatically extracted from metadata embeded within the image.
After loading a GeoTIFF DEM using the " ⛰" button (see section above), use the "🖼" button to select a drone image containing the necessary metadata:
Then, press the "🧮" button to calculate the target location on the ground:
You can now tap on the result display box to copy the result text to your clipboard:
Alternatively, you may open the position in the Google Maps app by cliking on the blue hyperlink:
ATAK Cursor on Target
When the "🧮" button is pressed, OpenAthena will automatically send a multicast packet to udp://239.2.3.1:6969 . Under default settings, this will cause a marker to show up in ATAK at the target location:
Change the marker to its appropriate type (friend, suspect, hostile) then send the target to other networked users.
OpenAthena for Android allows the user to tap any arbitrary point in the image to locate it.
Tapping on any point in the image will move the marker and calculate the new location:
A new Cursor-on-Target message will not be sent to ATAK however until the "🧮" button is pressed:
OpenAthena for Android supports multiple output modes for target calculation, including:
- Latitude, Longitude (standard WGS84)
- Nato Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) 1m, 10m, and 100m
- CK-42 Система координат Latitude Longitude (an alternative geodetic system commonly used in slavic countries)
- CK-42 Система координат Gauss-Krüger Grid: ZONE, Northing, Easting (an alternative military grid reference system used by former Warsaw pact countries)
To change the ouptut mode of OpenAthena for Android, tap the kebab menu icon (three dots) at the top-right corner of the screen and select "Settings":
You will be taken to a new screen showing a list of possible output modes:
Select your desired output mode by pressing its button in the list:
Then press the back button or again tap the kebab menu icon (three dots) to return to the "Calculate" screen.
Finally, press the "🧮" button to re-calculate the target location according to your chosen output mode:
TBD
If you speak another language in addition to English, please consider contributing to the UI translation using the link below. The insights of a native-speaker are the only way to provide a good user experience for the program in a given language:
https://www.transifex.com/krupczakorg/openathena-for-android/
If you're interested in contributing to this project, feel free to make a fork. This project will follow the fork and pull model for third-party contributors