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FOBS v0.7

Walk, draw, import, split and join a perimeter into an ATAK shape, live to a feed.

WildfireSearch & rescue

01 What it does

FOBS (Field Observation Survey) captures a perimeter or an area in ATAK by walking it, tracing it, or pulling it out of a track log, and turns the result into an ordinary ATAK drawing shape with area and perimeter. Built for wildland fire and search operations where the line on the map has to be the line on the ground: a fireline walked with a phone in hand, a road you can see and do not need to walk, a leg a teammate already drove.

Technical details features in full, requirements, network

Features in full

Everything FOBS makes is a normal ATAK drawing. It shows area and perimeter in ATAK's own details panel, shares over the mesh, edits with ATAK's vertex editor and deletes like any other shape. Nothing has to be created first; there is no survey object, no project, no server step unless you ask for one.

Capabilities, six tiles in a side pane

  • Start a GPS track: record where you walk or drive, with Pause and Resume. Fixes are filtered live for reported accuracy, impossible speed and standing-still jitter, and the count of rejected fixes is shown while recording. At End: keep it as a line, or make it a polygon.
  • Draw a track: drop points by tapping, or draw freehand with ATAK's own telestration tool; the scribble becomes a track when you tap Done.
  • Select element: turn a shape already on the map into a track -- a line or polygon from an imported KML, a telestration (one track per stroke, or joined in order), a freeform line or polygon, a route, a rectangle, a circle, or a Track History line.
  • Import a track: opens ATAK's Track History. Browse, search the server, turn a track on, and its radial menu gets a FOBS button that imports it, with the same accuracy filtering as a live walk.
  • Split track: long press any line or closed shape exactly where you want it broken. A line becomes two lines with a hairline gap, with Undo; a polygon opens into one line. The result opens in ATAK's vertex editor.
  • Join tracks: tap an end on one line and an end on another and they become one line; tap both ends of the same line to close it into an area. Or lasso several lines and they are chained nearest end to nearest end and closed into an area. Any open line on the map can be joined, not only a FOBS track.

Optionally, a GPS track can be sent live to a Data Sync feed on a connected TAK Server. The track grows on every subscriber's map as it is walked, and when it is made into a polygon the same feed item becomes the area.

A step-by-step user guide with screenshots lives at docs/USER_GUIDE.md in the repository, with the images under docs/screenshots/ (both excluded from the source submission zip).

Equipment required

Android device supported by ATAK-CIV 5.6, 5.7 or 5.8, with a GPS receiver for live tracks. No storage beyond the plugin itself.

Works with

Any Android device supported by ATAK. No additional or external hardware, no sensors, no peripherals.

Network and security

(This is important for ATO, networking, and other security concerns)

No inbound ports. No listening sockets. No traffic to any host other than TAK Servers the operator has already configured in ATAK.

Without a connected TAK Server the plugin makes no network calls at all and works with the device in airplane mode.

With a connected TAK Server, and only when the operator chooses "Send to feed" for a track, the plugin uses that server's existing connections:

  • The streaming CoT connection ATAK already holds (typically TCP 8089, TLS), through ATAK's own send path, to publish the track to the chosen Data Sync mission.
  • The server's REST API (typically TCP 8443, HTTPS, client certificate), through ATAK's own HTTP client with ATAK's stored credentials, for: listing missions, subscribing this device to the chosen mission, adding the track's UID to the mission's contents, and removing it when FOBS itself splits or joins the track away.

Importing a track from the server's track history uses the same REST API through ATAK's own Track History code. Password-protected missions are listed but not written to in this version.

More on GitHub →

02 User manual

Download the PDF · The same manual ships inside the plugin, under ATAK’s Tool Preferences.