Tracking your UAV in a 3D environment

NB: Edited earlier post with new link to script download site. Also, if you check the arcscripts site there is a flip book animator for the application that will iterate through georectified images in the order you set based on a timer, or manually (this allows you to move backward and forward), or you can click the image in the list to have it display. Allows you to set the transparency of the image so you can see the base layers beneath. Will post the live GPS feed task for ArcGIS explorer to ArcScripts in the coming weeks. Has support for Thales digital radios proprietary sentence. Hope some of you like it and can use it for your applications.

Hey Guys,
I'm a developer at ESRI and work on a product called ArcGIS Explorer. Its a free 3D mapping application you can download from the ESRI website. Now I don’t mean to plug ESRI here, but this application is free, and you have a clean entry point to add custom coding to it.
At our developer summit back in April I presented and wrote a sample app that positions a 3D glyph (model) of the millenium falcon above Area 51. I added some code to predict where you will be in a straight line based on your current lat / long, alt, speed and bearing. Running the task you are able to change its speed, bearing, pitch and roll. I didn't add code to overcome gimle lock however.
So, if you can provide the lat/long/alt and bearing, you will have an instant tracking solution for your UAV. The code for the sample is located here:
http://arcscripts.esri.com/details.asp?dbid=15900
and you can download ArcGIS Explorer from here.
http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/explorer/index.html
I made the code as generic as I could, its written in C#, and all of the drawing is in OpenGL. Take a look at the code and you should easily spot where to plug in the coordinates.

I've also written a live GPS task that we will release probably later this year (not source code however).
Few snap shots from Visual Studio

This parses NMEA and shows you your position bearing etc. I’ve added the ability to track your movement which creates pushpins on the surface. The added pushpin content is what we call a result. A result when double clicked will show you a popup. A popup can contain anything from text, to a web ref, or a locale file on disk. Here you’ll see I am referencing a picture of a car.

So, imagine not only your position being shown, but if you are taking stills, or capturing stills from a video stream, you could create a pushpin on the ground below your position, write the image to disk, then write the location and file name into the Popup’s description. Then as you see above you would have something that conveys a lot of information.
Also, I’ve written a Geotagging task that will be available later this year. Sorry but I have no control over the release times, except for sample code. Geotagging will enable you to send the image to anyone with mapping software that can open geotagged images, and it will place them exactly where the coordinates tagged to the image specify.
It would be interesting to hear from any of you interested in this, ideas, issues, let me know. Not knocking Google, I think its great (virtual earth rocks too), but a lot of this type of functionality you only get with the pro version I think.

Edan Cain