ADS-B Exposed - Hacker News

Posted by keepamovin 8 hours ago

https://github.com/ClickHouse/adsb.exposed/

Show HN: ADS-B visualizer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39990346 - April 2024 (76 comments)

218 points | 54 comments

madethemcry 2 hours ago|

I missed the "About" link in the footer but still found my way to the repo [1], where the project is briefly explained including a ton of great example images. Thanks for that!

> This website (technology demo) allows you to aggregate and visualize massive amounts of air traffic data. The data is hosted in a ClickHouse database and queried on the fly. You can tune the visualizations with custom SQL queries and drill-down from 50 billion records to individual data records.

[1] https://github.com/ClickHouse/adsb.exposed/

dang 6 minutes ago|

Thanks! we'll put the repo link in the toptext too, along with the Show HN from last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45583734

dkenyser 5 hours ago||

Very cool project.

Little bit of trivia regarding the "strange hole near Mexico City"[1] from the README.

This is a 12-kilometer exclusion zone around the highly active Popocatépetl volcano to prevent incidents stemming from volcanic activity.

[1] https://adsb.exposed/?zoom=9&lat=19.1139&lng=261.3813&query=...

adolph 26 minutes ago||

Another strange hole over Havana

https://adsb.exposed/?dataset=Planes&zoom=10&lat=23.0304&lng...

And interesting spotted patterns around some air force training bases (Vance and Sheppard):

https://adsb.exposed/?dataset=Planes&zoom=7&lat=34.7605&lng=...

dylan604 1 hour ago||

that's interesting how it's not really centered like my mind assumed it would be

lexlambda 4 hours ago||

This is certainly missing some kind of legend explaining the colors of the lines, and what data is actually shown.

Is "red" high or low velocity? And as an example, I do not understand what the "Boeing vs. Airbus" selection is trying to represent, as well as how "Altitude & Velocity" are supposed to be displayed at the same time.

Project certainly requires a bit more care if any discussion should happen around it.

amiga386 2 hours ago||

Boeing vs Airbus:

    count() AS total,
    sum(desc LIKE 'BOEING%') AS boeing,
    sum(desc LIKE 'AIRBUS%') AS airbus,
    sum(NOT (desc LIKE 'BOEING%' OR desc LIKE 'AIRBUS%')) AS other,

    greatest(1000000 DIV {sampling:UInt32} DIV zoom_factor, total) AS max_total,
    greatest(1000000 DIV {sampling:UInt32} DIV zoom_factor, boeing) AS max_boeing,
    greatest(1000000 DIV {sampling:UInt32} DIV zoom_factor, airbus) AS max_airbus,
    greatest(1000000 DIV {sampling:UInt32} DIV zoom_factor, other) AS max_other,

    pow(total / max_total, 1/5) AS transparency,

    255 * (1 + transparency) / 2 AS alpha,
    pow(boeing, 1/5) * 256 DIV (1 + pow(max_boeing, 1/5)) AS red,
    pow(airbus, 1/5) * 256 DIV (1 + pow(max_airbus, 1/5)) AS green,
    pow(other, 1/5) * 256 DIV (1 + pow(max_other, 1/5)) AS blue

    SELECT round(red)::UInt8, round(green)::UInt8, round(blue)::UInt8, round(alpha)::UInt8

The redder the pixel, the more Boeing planes there.

The greener the pixel, the more Airbus planes there.

The bluer the pixel, the more non-Boeing/Airbus planes there.

The less transparent the pixel, the more planes in total.

White means all planes fly there, yellow means Boeing and Airbus dominate, red means Boeing dominates, green means Airbus dominates, cyan means Airbus+others, magenta means Boeing+others, etc.

keepamovin 4 hours ago|||

I see you highlight that, but I believe the visualization is designed to be intuitive once you interact with it a bit—no legend stricty needed if you calibrate against what you already know.

Pick a flight you know (maybe one near yer home) and play with the options -- what patterns emerge? Red draws attention, “Boeing vs. Airbus” compares data, while “Altitude & Velocity” combines them. Explore hands-on; discovery often makes insights click better than instructions.

huflungdung 2 hours ago||

[dead]

cozzyd 4 hours ago||

We have a an ADS-B receiver at Summit Station in Greenland which we use to track airplanes that produce RFI we see in our experiment. I've considered sharing data (since nobody else seems to have data there) but the feeding instructions always scare me (run this script that downloads a bunch of random crap as sudo... no thanks).

Please just give me a cURL command I can run... (perhaps some services have that, I haven't looked that hard).

toomuchtodo 3 hours ago||

https://airplanes.live/get-started/

(other sites are corporate or have sold out [adsbexchange], happy to contribute reasonable costs to get a feed, no affiliation, I just like sensor feeds, thank you for the offer and consideration)

cozzyd 2 hours ago|||

I appreciate the information! And yes, the fact that most sites are corporate makes me really distrustful of running random scripts from them.

This is sort of an example of what I'm talking about though, this script seems to install a bunch of random stuff but what I really want is an API to incorporate into our own recording process. As far as I can tell from a brief look, this binary (?) is downloaded from somewhere and run: https://github.com/airplanes-live/feed/blob/main/scripts/air... but I just want to incorporate it in the system we're using already when I finally get to improving it from a 10-minute hack job from when I set it up as a side project that ended up being really useful (https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.17522)

toomuchtodo 21 minutes ago||

I have to dive in a bit more to give good and specific guidance/context, but fundamentally, your system will require a shim to "speak" $UAT_SOURCE and the output this would expect, assuming the source was an sdr. Want help writing the code for this? Specs to build requirements RNO-G in -> SDR out are welcome.

https://airplanes.live/hardware/

https://sdr-enthusiasts.gitbook.io/ads-b/ might also be of value.

ikmckenz 2 hours ago|||

What's the story behind adsbexchange selling out?

toomuchtodo 1 hour ago||

https://old.reddit.com/r/ADSB/comments/10l2euc/adsb_exchange...

https://www.jetnet.com/resources/press-releases/jetnet-acqui...

https://old.reddit.com/r/ADSB/comments/17pq14p/best_adsb_fli...

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23963235-golden-hamm...

btreesOfSpring 3 hours ago|||

Check out https://adsb.im

evil-olive 1 hour ago|||

sdr-enthusiasts [0] produces some very nice self-contained Docker images as an alternative to the `curl | sudo bash` style of install script that plagues a lot of the ADSB ecosystem.

most likely all you need is their "ultrafeeder" [1,2] image.

0: https://sdr-enthusiasts.gitbook.io/ads-b

1: https://sdr-enthusiasts.gitbook.io/ads-b/foundations/deploy-...

2: https://github.com/sdr-enthusiasts/docker-adsb-ultrafeeder

rootusrootus 3 hours ago|||

You can get containerized feeders for services like fr24 (e.g. liggy1/fr24feed) but that may not meet your requirements since it's really intended to handle everything from the sdr to the API, not siphon off data you are collecting some other way and then feed it.

cozzyd 3 hours ago||

Yeah I definitely don't want to run an opaque container either. We're already collecting and storing the data... I am happy to throw the data over via a udp socket or http request, but I don't want random software that we don't control running...

jonah-archive 1 hour ago||

I had the same concerns awhile back and ending up running a slightly modified version of https://github.com/wiedehopf/mlat-client -- not quite as simple as an http push, but much simpler than a containerized feed client.

NoiseBert69 3 hours ago||

ADS-B is easy to receive with an 'rtlsdr' and opensource tools.

cozzyd 3 hours ago||

Yeah we are receiving it and dumping it into a sqlite database per day, but we're not sharing it.

zX41ZdbW 4 hours ago||

Thanks for posting!

I've recently added more datasets, "Places", "Birds", "Photos", and "You".

Also, a hint - the rectangular selection tool lets you generate custom reports for a location.

bwestergard 2 hours ago||

This is super cool.

Where is the bird dataset coming from? I assumed ebird at first, but these datapoints don't map on to ebird hotspots...

Also, where did you get the collection of creative commons licensed bird species photos?

metrix 2 hours ago|||

what's going on around colorado springs with these shapes?

https://adsb.exposed/?dataset=Planes&zoom=9&lat=38.2165&lng=...

cluckindan 38 minutes ago|||

The ”race tracks” are left- and right-hand traffic patterns for arriving aircraft and touch-and-go training, typically used by smaller aircraft. The polylines going from airport to the surroundings are IFR (instrument flight rules) STARs (standard terminal arrival routes) for inbound/outbound planes; each vertex in the line corresponds to a so-called navigation star which usually has a 5-letter name.

compass_copium 2 hours ago|||

Possibly training flights; they will often do racetrack shapes like that for long periods to maintain proficiency with the aircraft type.

etskinner 3 hours ago|||

What is "You"? I tried reading the query to understand but couldn't figure it out

zX41ZdbW 3 hours ago||

I'd like it if you try to guess :)

But it is easy to figure it out from the source code. The source code is here: https://github.com/ClickHouse/adsb.exposed/blob/main/index.h...

etskinner 2 hours ago|||

Apparently my 'easy' isn't the same as yours. There's nothing I could find in the code that describes what it is. You'd have to make a pretty big logic leap to figure it out. All you can see in the code (in config.js, not in index.html) is the dataset url (random string) and the description "this website", which tells you very little.

For anyone who just wants to skip to the answer, I found it in the pull requests / issues: https://github.com/ClickHouse/adsb.exposed/issues/47

dkenyser 3 hours ago|||

Interestingly it seems to line up quite well with population density maps.

CamperBob2 2 hours ago|||

Awesome work, but please consider providing some contrast options. You can't see the country or continent boundaries unless they are full of tracks (or at least I can't.)

keepamovin 3 hours ago||

Haha, great! Honestly where did you get some of these datasets? Birds????? :)

zX41ZdbW 3 hours ago||

A writeup: https://clickhouse.com/blog/birds

+ There is an attribution in the top-down corner of the map.

paulirish 2 hours ago||

Over in r/ADSB, someone recently posted a 3D visualizer of live ADS-B data: https://objectiveunclear.com/airloom.html. A nice alternative to the standard 2D maps we're used to.

ctippett 57 minutes ago|

Reminds me of the galaxy view in No Man's Sky. Very cool. It's also the type of visualisation I'd imagine would be perfect seen through the lens of a Vision Pro or similar.

ronbenton 5 hours ago||

URL makes this sound like it’s supposed to be scandalous

lelandfe 4 hours ago||

"ADS-B Massive Visualizer" is the right title per https://github.com/ClickHouse/adsb.exposed

keepamovin 5 hours ago|||

I know! I think the creator, brilliant as they must be, is not an English native speaker. Or perhaps they simply enjoy the controversy / provocation heh :)

ascorbic 2 hours ago|||

I think it's just a fun tld with the "adsb" domain available.

kevinsundar 2 hours ago|||

Eh I think the name kinda works from the perspective that it exposes patterns in adsb data. If you just glanced at adsb maps you wouldn't really see many of these patterns unless you stared at it for a very long time.

pradeepchhetri 3 hours ago||

Very cool project indeed!

I tried to check the kind of flights they flew in the world's dangerous airport (Lukla, Nepal)[0] and found they use ATR-72 series.

[0] https://adsb.exposed/?dataset=Planes&zoom=12&lat=27.7136&lng...

blakesterz 6 hours ago||

It took me a little while to figure this out, but it's pretty cool. Try the A-380 limit in the examples and it starts making sense pretty quick.

Also, .exposed has been a TLD since 2014? I'm not sure I've seen another .exposed site.

zparky 6 hours ago|

float.exposed is fun

nickysielicki 2 hours ago|

I love how you can clearly make out the VFR EAA approach going into Oshkosh from Ripon. It’s only one week out of the year, but there’s so much traffic in that week that it still stands out.

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