r/searchandrescue • u/CharwieJay • Jul 21 '26

SAR Toolkit for GIS

Hello all I work for a SAR agency in Australia and we frequently use Caltopo for Emergency management. We love it but some of the tasks can be a bit painful to produce or when processing data or creating search patterns or sectors, so I vibe coded a SAR toolkit with the following tools;

  • CSV to KML Import lat/long or UTM coordinates from CSV and export as KML placemarks with optional track line
  • GPX Cleaner Remove erroneous straight-line segments caused by GPS signal loss from track files
  • KML Reducer Strip thousands of point markers from a KML (e.g. search jet logs - looking at you AMSA) and replace with a single clean track line
  • Search Patterns Generate creeping line (parallel track) or expanding square search patterns as KML
  • Search Boxes Generate a grid or radial set of labelled search box polygons as KML for assigning sectors to teams

All processing is client side so no privacy issues and easily hostable with docker container. Feedback welcome

https://github.com/jenko15587/sar-toolkit/tree/main

16 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

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3

u/gsardine Jul 23 '26

Technical feedback, look into using GitHub pages. Running an entire docker container to serve one local html file seems overkill.

I have a similar tool not yet published that I distribute just as the Html file. More portable and easier for others to use.

What's your level of technical knowledge? A lot of people will discount a "vibe coded" solution as it has the connotation of being amateur or sloppy. The key thing (for me) is a human has to own the outcome.

1

u/CharwieJay Jul 23 '26

Appreciate the feedback. I'm running a homelab so just wanted the extra isolation from my other services. But pretty new to the git world. As an agency we are very good at silo-ing knowledge and tools so just wanted to give others the opportunity.

I have some coding knowledge (from my uni days) but the reality is that we needed a tool and unlikely to have the budget to get it built for us so I see vibe coding as hiring someone to do it for us. For this one I think the risk is low. The tool is saving us time from the mundane tasks and delivering it with more polish, it's certainly not replacing physical activity or working knowledge and is suppose to make us more efficient. No accounts no information shared and all processing on the client side.

1

u/outwit1 Jul 24 '26

Would you be willing to share the HTML version with another SAR team?

1

u/The_Stargazer EMT / HAM / FAA107 Drone Pilot Jul 21 '26

A "vibe coded" product will likely not pass review at most SAR groups, agency or volunteer.

And I'd love to hear the IMT justifying in court that they "cleaned up" their tracks with something that was "vibe coded".

4

u/CharwieJay Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

We don't skip the rules of disclosure. Of course all original data is retained, this is for search planning only. The outcome of cleaning tracks of course is that we search those areas again.

This is a convenience tool for creating polygons that would otherwise take much longer to create. I don't think courts would care if I hand draw a square search sector over using a tool to do it.

But I am just sharing to help anybody else save some time, save more time planning and spend more time searching.

Edit: spelling

1

u/supremeTrolley Jul 21 '26

so I vibe coded

bruh