tle2czml released on PyPi

I released a python package, called tle2czml, which takes a list of Two Line Element's (TLE's) and returns a CZML file visualising their orbits.

CZML is a JSON format for describing a time-dynamic graphical scene, primarily for display in a web browser running Cesium, while TLE's are a data format encoding a list of orbital elements of an Earth-orbiting object for a given point in time.

This package uses sgp4.py to predict the satellites fututure postion, and a slightly modified czml.py to create the .czml files.

Installation

To install, all you need is python and pip installed on your machine, then open the command prompt and run the following command:

  
pip install tl2czml
  

TLE's

To generate the CZML, you first need a file containing the TLE's of the satellites you are interested in. These can be found at Celestrak, or you can copy and paste the example below (taken from the list of space stations).

ISS (ZARYA)             
1 25544U 98067A   18046.55817189  .00001353  00000-0  27714-4 0  9990
2 25544  51.6417 265.0608 0003589 103.0964 344.3049 15.54096060 99608
TIANGONG 1              
1 37820U 11053A   18046.58112813  .00094150  12300-4  13743-3 0  9998
2 37820  42.7514 126.9107 0017316  32.3682  67.8761 16.04338150366699
AGGIESAT 4              
1 41313U 98067HP  18046.57341670  .00209614  31071-4  29378-3 0  9994
2 41313  51.6292 173.0661 0005230 335.8780  24.1986 16.05344224117524
FLOCK 2E'-1             
1 41479U 98067HZ  18046.59084296  .00067088  00000-0  22534-3 0  9995
2 41479  51.6287 200.4285 0001834 261.2577  98.8221 15.89445123100275
FLOCK 2E'-3             
1 41480U 98067JA  18046.62549195  .00058065  00000-0  22549-3 0  9996
2 41480  51.6222 201.3651 0000797 288.7159  71.3758 15.86570970100255 
  

Usage

import tle2czml

# Creates a file in the current directory called "orbit.czml", containing the orbits of the satelites over the next 24 hours.
tle2czml.create_czml("tle.txt")

# You can specify the time range you would like to visualise
start_time = datetime(2018, 2, 1, 17, 30)
end_time = datetime(2018, 2, 1, 19, 30)
tle2czml.create_czml(input_file, start_time=start_time, end_time=end_time)

# You can also specify a different output path
tle2czml.create_czml(input_file, outputfile_path="path/to/orbit.czml")

Viewing File

To view the orbits, go to Cesium Viewer, and drag the "orbit.czml" file into the browser.
(Click the "Play" button in the bottom left corner to start the visualisation)

The source code can be viewed at https://github.com/kujosHeist/tle2czml and the package info can be found on https://pypi.python.org/pypi/tle2czml/0.1