meshO Manager

Appearance

The event map and radio placement ​

Audience: Event organisers setting up the map, and anyone planning where the radio controls and meshO Prime will go.

Manager can hold one map image for each event. Once it's calibrated — tied to real-world positions — it becomes the background of the live map, it shows where a control sits when you edit it, and it lets you plan your radio network the night before: which controls carry a radio, and whether each of those radios can actually get its punches back to meshO Prime.

This page covers the Map page (uploading and calibrating the map) and the Radio control placement screen that's built on it.

The Map page ​

Open the event and choose Map in the Event data section of the side menu. The page is titled Event map.

Uploading a map ​

The Upload map card takes two files:

  • Map image (PNG or JPEG) — required. Export the map from your mapping or course-setting software as a PNG or JPEG. The limit is 50 MB.
  • World file (optional) — the small companion file your software can write alongside the image, with the extension .pgw, .pngw, .jgw, .jpgw or .wld. It says exactly where the image sits on the ground, so Manager can calibrate the map for you.

Click Upload. The card then shows Current map: a preview, the format (PNG or JPEG), the image size in pixels, and a chip with the calibration state.

PNG and JPEG are the only formats accepted. If you have the map in another format (OCAD, PDF and so on), export it to one of these first.

Tip: Export the image and its world file together from the same map, at the same time. If you're using radio placement with a Purple Pen course file, export the image of the map the courses were set on — a different crop is fine, a different map is not.

Calibrating the map ​

The chip beside Current map tells you where calibration stands:

ChipMeaning
Calibrated (world file)Calibrated automatically from the world file. Nothing more to do.
Calibrated (manual)Calibrated by hand with Calibrate manually.
Awaiting locationA world file was supplied, but it's in UTM coordinates and Manager needs a rough idea of where in the world the event is. See below.
Not calibratedNo world file. Calibrate by hand.

Awaiting location. A UTM world file only makes sense once Manager knows which part of the world the event is in. The map calibrates itself as soon as one of these happens:

  • a meshO Control reports a GPS fix for this event;
  • courses are imported from IOF XML with control coordinates;
  • you click Pick rough location and click roughly where the event is on the world map — anywhere within a few hundred kilometres of the venue is close enough — then Use this location.

Try auto-calibrate asks Manager to try again straight away with whatever it now knows.

Calibrating by hand. Without a world file, click Calibrate manually. The Calibrate map manually dialog asks for two anchors, Anchor A and Anchor B. For each, choose a meshO Control unit from the list, then click Place / move and click where that control is on the map image. Only Control units that have reported a GPS location are listed, so at least two need to have a GPS fix before you can calibrate this way. The further apart the two anchors, the more accurate the result. Click Save calibration.

Once the map is calibrated, the button reads Re-calibrate, and you can redo the calibration at any time.

Replacing or deleting the map ​

  • Replace uploads a new image (and world file) in place of the old one. Positions you've already worked out for the controls are re-derived under the new calibration. If the new image is a different size from the old, you'll be asked to position the controls again on the radio placement screen.
  • Delete removes the map image and its calibration, after a confirmation. This can't be undone. Any positions the controls already have are kept — they are real places on the ground whatever happened to the image.

Note: Duplicating an event brings its map and calibration with it. See Creating an event.

Where the map is used ​

  • Live view — a calibrated map becomes the default background of the Live view map, under the meshO Prime, the meshO Control units and the tracked athletes. Pick it there as the Event map layer, and use Opacity to blend it with the street or satellite layer beneath. Open in new tab opens the same map on its own page, for a second monitor.
  • Edit Control → Location — when a control has a position and the map is calibrated, the Edit Control dialog gains a Location tab: where this control is on the event map, with nearby controls shown faded.
  • Radio control placement — planning the radio network, below.

The map is a tool for you and your team. It isn't shown on the spectator pages or the TV screens.

Radio control placement ​

Click Radio control placement on the Map page. The button appears once the map is calibrated. The screen is for setting up, typically the day before: it answers "if I put radios on these controls, will their punches reach meshO Prime?" before anyone carries a unit into the field.

The work goes in three steps — the first time in this order, afterwards in any order:

  1. Position the controls on the map.
  2. Choose the radios — click controls to switch them on or off.
  3. Read the links — every radio is coloured by how well it's expected to reach meshO Prime, and you add relay radios where it won't.

Map at the top left takes you back to the Map page.

Warning: If the event has started, the screen says so. Switching a radio on or off here changes the live screens straight away, exactly as it would on the Controls page.

Before you start ​

The screen tells you what's missing, if anything:

  • No map uploaded or Map not calibrated — go back to the Map page (Go to the map) and finish that first.
  • Map needs re-calibrating — the map image isn't the size its calibration was made for (usually because the image was replaced). Re-calibrate it on the Map page, then come back.
  • No controls to place — none of the event's controls has a position. Click Import and import the courses from a Purple Pen (.ppen) or IOF XML file. The course file records where each control is printed on the map, which is what lets the whole set be placed in one go. See Importing event data.

Positioning the controls ​

A Purple Pen file knows where every control is on the paper, but not where the paper sits on your map image. So the first time, the screen opens in a positioning step:

  1. Every control from the course file is drawn in its course-file layout — the start triangle, the finish double circle and the numbered circles — as one shape.
  2. Drag the controls as one until they sit on the printed circles. You can still pan and zoom the map to line them up precisely.
  3. Click Save positions (or Cancel to leave things as they were).

Manager then works out every control's real-world position from that one drag. To adjust it later, use Reposition controls at the top of the screen.

You often don't need the drag at all:

  • An IOF XML course file that records the map sheet, where the uploaded image is an export of that very sheet, places the controls automatically — the course file and the image already agree. A position you've placed by dragging is never overwritten by this.
  • An IOF XML course file with real-world coordinates for each control puts them straight on the map, with nothing to position.

Note: Re-importing the Purple Pen file keeps the positions. Manager re-applies your drag to the freshly imported controls as part of the import, so updating the courses the night before doesn't undo the positioning.

If the map image is replaced by one of a different size, the screen asks you to drag the set onto the printed circles again.

A control the course file doesn't know about — one you added by hand, say — has no position on the paper. It's not dragged along; it appears under Not on the map in the side panel, as no position, or as outside the map image if its position falls off the edge.

Choosing the radios ​

Click a control on the map to switch its radio on or off. It's the same Is Radio setting as on the Controls page, so whatever you choose here shows there and vice versa — including controls already marked as radios.

The Radio controls list in the side panel has a button for every control you can switch, starts first and then by code. Clicking a button does the same as clicking the control on the map. It's the easier way when controls overlap on the map, and the one place to see the whole set at once.

Some things are fixed:

  • The finish and meshO Prime are always part of the network. You don't (and can't) switch them on: the finish is where the Prime usually sits, and making a finish a radio control would add it as a split on every screen.
  • A start can be a radio; a finish or check cannot. Their radio punches still come in: Manager reads them through the event's Finish and Check codes.
  • A faulty control is drawn as faulty and can't be switched on.
  • Nothing chooses radios for you. The screen shows what your choice would do; the choice is yours.

meshO Prime on the map ​

The Prime is drawn as a P. Until you place it, it sits five metres east of the first finish and moves with it. Drag it to where you plan to set it up; that position is kept with the event.

On race day, if the real Prime connects without a GPS fix of its own, it starts at the position you planned here.

Lines between the radios show what each link is expected to do, and each radio is coloured by its best route back to meshO Prime. The Link quality legend in the side panel has three levels — hover the information icon beside each for the exact figures:

LevelColourWhat it means
GreatGreenA clear line of sight, under 100 m.
OKOrangeA clear line of sight from 100 m up to 500 m — or a shorter line that passes through a little building: up to about 25 m of building at 50 m apart, 10 m at 100 m, 5 m at 150 m.
DoubtfulRedMore building on the line than an OK link allows, or further than 500 m. Do not count on it.

The line styles differ as well as the colours, so the levels are readable without colour.

A radio's colour is the weakest link on its best route to the Prime. Its punches can hop through other radios, so a radio with no direct line to the Prime can still be green if every hop on its way is green. Manager picks the route with the fewest OK links, then the fewest hops. A radio with no usable route at all is red.

When any radio is red, the side panel names it: Doubtful link back to meshO Prime: followed by the controls concerned.

Only each radio's strongest route back to the Prime is drawn. Drawing every possible link would cover the map and hide the answer — so a link that isn't drawn isn't necessarily missing. To see more:

  • Hover a radio (a control, the finish, the Prime or a relay) to show all of its links to the rest of the network, including the doubtful ones.
  • Hover a control that isn't a radio to preview what switching it on would do: its own best route back, the colour it would get, and a ring on every existing radio whose route it would improve. A control that would help no other radio shows only its own route; one that would itself be red shows nothing.
  • Turn on All great links to draw every Great link between radios.

Red radios that can see each other but not the Prime are drawn joined to each other, with one dashed red line from the group to the nearest radio that does reach the Prime — the gap you need to close.

Hover any line for the details: the two ends, the distance, the level, and for a line through buildings, how many metres of building it crosses and how much is allowed at that distance.

Relay radios ​

Sometimes the best fix for a red radio isn't another control but a unit in between — on a corner, a roof or a post where no control is. That's a relay radio.

  1. Click Add relay radio.
  2. Move over the map. The network re-colours under the pointer as you go, showing what a relay there would reach.
  3. Click to place it. Esc (or Cancel) stops without placing one.

Relays are drawn as an R and named Relay 1, Relay 2 and so on. A relay is always part of the network. Drag one to move it — again the network re-colours as you drag, before anything is saved. Remove one from the Relay radios list; the rest are renumbered so there are no gaps. Dragging the Prime previews the same way.

Checking each course ​

The Courses section of the side panel has one row per course (with a sub-row for each variation of a forked course):

  • The number of radios on the course, not counting the start and finish.
  • A strip in three parts — the first, middle and last third of the course — with a tick for each radio, so you can see at a glance whether a course reports early, in the middle and late. Hover it to see how the thirds were measured (by measured leg length, by straight lines between controls, or by control count when a leg has no length). A score course has no fixed order, so it shows the count only.
  • Hovering a control on the map or in the radio list highlights it on every course that uses it, and where along each course it falls.

Click a course to show its route on the map: purple lines from start to finish, each control labelled with its number on the course over its code. Other controls fade. Click it again to clear.

Other display options ​

  • Control marks — show or hide the control circles.
  • Show buildings — shade what Manager has read as buildings on your map. Turn it on when a link's colour looks wrong, to see what Manager thinks is in the way.
  • Map opacity — fade the map image under the network.
  • Zoom in, Zoom out, Fit map and Fit controls — Fit controls frames just the controls, not the whole sheet with its legend and margins.

How "blocked by buildings" is worked out ​

Manager reads the buildings straight off your map image. On a sprint map (ISSprOM), a building is drawn as a solid mid-grey fill with a black outline, and nothing else on the map is that shade of grey, so Manager treats the grey areas as buildings. A wall or fence is a black line with no grey beside it — radio passes walls, so a wall doesn't count.

For each pair of controls, Manager draws a straight line between them and measures how many metres of building that line crosses.

Two things are worth knowing when you read the results:

  • It leans towards "blocked". Getting it wrong one way costs you one extra radio; getting it wrong the other way costs you a dead link on the day. So a line that only grazes the corner of a building counts as blocked, not clear. The tooltip shows how many metres of building were found, so you can see when "blocked" means a corner clip of under a metre.
  • The figures are estimates. The 100 m and 500 m distances and the amounts of building an OK link is allowed are a starting point, not measurements from real events. Treat Great as "expect it to work", OK as "probably", and Doubtful as "don't count on it" — and test the network on site.