Adding Elevation Control to QSO Maps with ChatGPT and Cesium

When making our QSO skip maps one of the issues we encounter is that the lines from our station to the F2 layer don't always start right at the ground. This seems to be an artifact of CZML and the fact that the Earth is not a sphere, but rather an ellipsoid, and even then, there are all those hills and mountains.

The initial QSOs can wind mapped as up coming from underground:

or, they can wind up starting from above the surface of the Earth

In any event, it's been necessary with each map to adjust the elevation height of our station. I've yet to find a parameter to set in a czml that makes the starting point always be on the ground. "clampToGround" works for polylines that are always on the ground, but not polylines whose next point has an altitude greater than zero as the ground station to F2 layer polylines do.

I added a feature into the JavaScript mapping application this week that allows me to adjust the height of all of the QSO's starting points at once, and then, when I'm satisfied with the map, create a czml file with the edited elevation value. Here's a video of it in action

The code operates directly on the data set that was loaded into the map viewer. When I have the elevation where it should be, I click the 'Download QSO CZML' button.

JavaScript reruns the QSO query substituing in the new elevation, sends the query results to a czml template, and the resulting map is stored in the downloads folder.

I used ChatGPT to rough out the prototype code for these new features, and then refined the resulting code as I went.

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