A companion app for outdoor navigation that bridges the gap between what classical orienteering teaches and what modern hardware (phone, watch, GPS) can do. Built for theSkadi Squad Arctic winter trainings, where the difference between knowing your position andbeing at your position can be life-altering.

What it does

• Coordinate conversion — UTM ↔ WGS84 ↔ MGRS, with the boundary cases navigation purists actually hit (zone transitions, polar regions)
• MilRad bearings — military-style angular units for fast manual triangulation
• Magnetic declination — corrects for the geomagnetic offset, updated against the IGRF model so your compass reading matches your map even at high latitudes
• Map reading aids — distance/area calculation, slope from contour lines, visibility-aware terrain analysis

Why Java

Most outdoor navigation libraries are written in Python or JavaScript. Both are fine choices but ship as web apps with cloud dependencies. The companion app isoffline-first and runs on phones, embedded devices and the occasional laptop in a tent — Java gives a single binary path for all three.

It’s also a deliberate proof-of-concept: that the JDK is enough for serious geospatial work, no PostGIS server required.

More about the trainings and the philosophy atSkadi Squad.