Open Philippe-Arnaud opened 4 years ago
I've thought about this. Using the app to better understand the tide is a usecase I want to support, but I think actually making tidal predictions is out-of-scope.
I was curious about how to go about making predictions though and stumbled on https://www.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/faq4.html#60 (and also https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14698104/how-to-predict-tides-using-harmonic-constants).
It seems that geography plays a huge part in this. To use these algorithms you need "harmonic constants" that are periodically (re)calculated and published for individual stations. Its very location specific (and not something I think Suntimes can easily support).
I think a separate tide tables app (maybe an addon similar to SuntimesCalendars) makes more sense. It might focus on a single location, or a list of pre-defined stations, or ui for providing constants. The sun and moon position (and other info) can be obtained from Suntimes through its content provider.
xtide https://flaterco.com/xtide/ GNU GPL 3 or higher. would probably make a good starting point for a tide table supplement for SunTimes.
Libxtide has been in fact compiled on Android. Harmonics data availability is a problem however.. not much outside US
BTW there were .. long before smartphones not to mention smartwatches.. wristwatches with "tide prediction". Iirc Casio. Did anyone test any of those? Whatever they did for $30 in the 1990ies should be easilly doable.
The question would it be worth the effort?
Hello,
I'm very fond of your app and, since tide is closely related to the moon and sun position, I wondered whether you considered supporting tide reports in you app?
Cheers, PAH