Thursday, September 13, 2007

RF propagation modeling with SPLAT! for Windows



Many are probably familiar with John Magliacane's RF Signal Propagation, Loss, And Terrain analysis software (SPLAT!). This software is useful for visualizing terrain and performing Longley-Rice path loss and coverage prediction using the Irregular Terrain Model. It had been only available for the Linux OS. I was able to compile it for Windows with a few minor modifications. This is a command line program, freely available under the GNU GPL. I would be happy to include the source code if you are so inclined.

http://people.missouristate.edu/jmcmellen/software/splat-1.2.3-win32.zip

There is a PDF version of the instructions for the Linux version, which is pretty much exactly how it works in Windows too. Some utilities are included as well as instructions for downloading free terrain data for your area. I have only tested it in Windows XP SP2, so if you have any problems, let me know.

Fixes for Windows Port

  • 11-12-07 - Fixed error in srtm2sdf.exe that caused it to not work with hgt or bil files.
  • 11-15-07 - Fixed error in splat.exe that caused it to generate coverage maps without any loss data plotted when analyzing sites with anything other than default settings.
  • 11-15-07 - Changed a trailing "/" to a "\" in the data path option. This never caused a problem in my setup, but might have in others.
  • 2-15-08 - Successfully ported the usgs2sdf.exe utility to Windows. Now those who prefer the USGS DEM's as raw terrain data can convert them to Splat data files.