accuratesights on mac

[Bruce]

Marcus , I couldn't get either the down load or the c d to load onto the laptop kept saying that there was afile missing .

Got it onto the imac after some effort .


Might try throwing off vp on the laptop and starting again .

What do you think?


I don't think it is 100% on the imac either

[Marcus]

I've had trouble on mine too, but so has Colin with his copy that I recieved recently. I think Jim is looking into it. Chances are it's an installer issue, not VPC.
I'm waiting on my copy of VPC to come back so I can reload it.

[Kuru]

Bruce was it a VB file that was missing ? Don't know if I should say this as James will probably read this but I've ripped the cd apart and am starting to play around with the source code. I have started to re write some of the code in apple script. May start to use coca in the near future

[Marcus]

I doubt Applescript will do the trick. It's good, but just a scripting language.

I could build an online version. Cross platform!

Have you played with Realbasic Gareth? I think it uses similar code to VB and may be directly portable. You can get a free download and if it gets working we can look into getting a full version.

[Kuru]

Yeah I've fiddled around with realbasic. I have had more success with AA. It's code is pretty easy to rip just a hell of alot of source code. I'm hoping to have a working copy in a few months, still quite buggy but it I can manage to get it half decent I'll burn you a copy to play with

[James Park]

Gareth,
I am impressed you can recreate the source code! How well does it come out (I assume you get none of the comments, so can you tell what the different bits do?). I am quite happy to cooperate with an effort to get it to work well on Macs (afterall, I by no means expect it to pay for the groceries, and am much more interested in having archers able to score more through using it).
I think the key question is: which parts of Accurate Sights would you want available for the Mac? All of it, or just certain parts?
I would expect that the different variants of Basic would have much code in common, so it would be just things like writing and reading from files, printing, and graphics that would be different. The rest would probably be identical, no matter what the platform.

[Marcus]

I think the first key item would be to get the sight settings working. If this is buildable in Excell I can build it in Filemaker. Jim if you can send me your excel version I can make a cross platform Filemaker version. May even work on Palm too.
From there I think we would need a more collaborative effort.

[James Park]

The problem with Excel is that it is difficult to build in the traps for user errors and to make it print the sight tape. Otherwsie, it runs the appropriate algorithms quite readily. It is also difficult to embed the arrow data: hence when I wrote it in Excel I needed to use arrow diameter, and mass, etc., rather than just say "ACE 520".
__________________________________

Since I wrote the few words above I have gone and looked at my old Excel code: it is now well out of date and does not include quite a bit of the cleverness now embedded in the VB code. Hence, I think it would need a complete overhaul.

[Marcus]

Not sure about building the sight tape, however I can put checks into Filemaker as well as set up arrow data etc. Excel is a spreadshet while Filemaker is a relational database with calculational abilities. Hence it can do everything Excel can do, and also a hell of a lot more. Drawing images though may be tough.

[James Park]

If it is just the sight tape that is needed, the process is reasonably straight forward, and the data entry can be simplified.
The input data needed is:
- arrow length, diameter and weight, plus fletch length and height (so that the drag can be calculated)
- peep-sight distance and peep-arrow distance (so that the parallax can be calculated)
- the sight gap distance between two known sight settings (so that the arrow velocity can be calculated).

It is quite easy to create a program to ask for that data.
Then, you can calculate the arrow velocity that matches the above data. This is reasonably easy to do, but takes quite a bit of code.

The above code should be no problem in any version of Basic.

The more complex bit is in printing the sight tape itself, and this code may differ for different versions of Basic, but the relevant algorithms are straight forward.

Up to here, it is readily implementable.

The bits after that get harder, with the next most useful bit being the ability to store input data and to be able to get it back later (and this bit will almost certainly be specific to the version of Basic). Following that, the most useful bit is probably the settings for shooting on slopes - and for this the same algorithms as for shooting on flat ground are used, with the complexities again being the printing.

The gauging and tuning parts are quite complex (especially the tuning part), and are probably best not attempted, as are the trajectory and maximum distance parts.

[Kuru]

James I did get a bit of help thru a friend who is a software programmer so that helped. At this stage I'm just trying to get a personal copy done, ie just code for my specs. Marcus the idea of an online version sounds pretty good ! Could you use the code as a java script ? I'd like to develop a palm os copy of AS and try to intergrate something like target plot into it. I'm waiting on 3com to get back to me about a developers course as I've not done much code work with the palm os

[Marcus]

Gareth
No I don't use Javascript. It would be server side scripting so you enter the data, it does the calculations and returns the rsults on the next page. However it is a tough one to recover costs on unless it's subscription based and could eat into sales of AS.

[Kuru]

Could you have it on a password protected page and when people pay they can log onto it ?

[Bruce]

I ran some settings off the imac the other day and all seemed well . Although I was a bit sad to see that my bow was only doing 270 fps with the 360 gn arrow.

Tried to print out a sight tape and the settings and couldn't get either to work . they went to the print centre but didn't come out .

Also , on older versions of acurate sights in the settings part I am sure that you used to be able to pull out the settings for specific distances . This facilities seems to have gone or is missing on my machine . I used to like this facilitie especially for the Hunters in IFAA .

I used to draw my marks and then pick out the odd distances using this feature.

[Eberbachl]

Hey Bruce, 270fps at 360gn is pretty good, that's a fairly heavy arrow....

I guess that was your UltraTec? If so, I would have thought that speed consistent with other UltraTecs I've seen :wink:

[James Park]

Bruce,
Do you mean the part where you could enter a specific distance and get the setting for it? If that is the bit you find is missing you are correct. Reason was that I ran up against the limit of the number of things you can have on one form in VB. You can still get the settings for every metre or yard by printing out the list of settings from the "Settings" menu, so that should meet the need (if it doesn't then let me know and I will see what I can do about it).

[Bruce]

Yes Jim thats the bit I meant .

I will have to take my machine up to Davids and see if I have installed vpc properly . I can't get any prinouts form the damn thing .

I usually like to print out a tape and carry the settings as well for the odd distances .

[DrRalph]

Hi, I'm an experienced MacOS developer, and a new archer. I'd be willing to help make ports of the AA code to work in OS9 and OSX. In my day job I'm an astrophysicist, so I have physics and maths too. I mostly program in C.

What I'd really like to understand is the flight dynamics model that AA is using: how do you get accurate drag coefficients? How is the spin included? How much does the flight deviate from a parabola? Arrows come in a variety of shapes and sizes and the answers to these questions alone seem difficult (quite apart from getting it to all work in reality :D ).

Cheers
DrR

[Marcus]

ALRIGHT! Welcome aboard Dr Ralph!!!

(PS. This site is built and hosted on Mac OS X, nice to have like minded people around. :) )

[mike]

Dr Ralph, I believe you need to meet Jim Park. The maths and physics in Accurate Sights is impressive and I'm sure would prove interesting to you.

By the way, if you could put Accurate Sights into C then Jim would have solved the problem of intergrating it with TargetPlot (I am being a bit presumptuous here but I believe that target plot was written in C). You should ask Jim about it all (he is usually more than happy to explain the program to us, but for most of us it gets a bit much at the point where he describes the iterative process of accounting for gravity, drag...... :-? -- I am studying engineering myself and I have to say that the maths is WAY WAY over my head!!! )

[Bruce]

Yeh!!! another intelligent MAC user.


Marcus how is as working on your machine still can't getit toprint properly or install on the laptop.

[Marcus]

So far no luck, it just sits there.

geez I hate Windows :x

Is there a way to print the settings to PDF Jim? That would be good, would allow us to send to the Mac side to print.

[Kuru]

Bruce, can your printer save things ? then re open it in appleworks or mcoffice

[Bruce]

I don't know Gareth ,

I am just a humble fridge mechanic.:D
I will have to ask my apple advisor


David or Marcus, Can my epson printers save things like gareth asked

I don't believe they can

Bruce :D

[DrRalph]

Dr Ralph, I believe you need to meet Jim Park. The maths and physics in Accurate Sights is impressive and I'm sure would prove interesting to you.


Great, I'll try to contact Jim and see what happens. In the meantime I need to practise for a novice championship here in the ACT, and accurate sights are the *least* of my problems. :wink:

Nice to e-meet some mac users.

DrR

[Bruce]

Good luck with your shooting DrRalph.

Will you be having a look at the world Field shoot ?


Bruce

[DrRalph]

Good luck with your shooting DrRalph.

Will you be having a look at the world Field shoot ?


I'm hoping to help out as a volunteer, it should be fun.

DrR

[Bruce]

Marcus, how are you going using accurate sights . I still can't get the download version to work satisfactorily .

The c d copy works well but is very slow , should I try assigning more memory to vpc