Trackpoints from all over

[+mrp]

I've got a crazy idea, and I'm asking for some help. Whenever I'm just driving around (or even just walking around sometimes) I tend to leave my GPS turned on. I occasionally download the tracklogs and play with them. I recently took every track log I could find on my computer, and culled out just the lat/long/elevation information, and uploadded into a MySQL database so I could play with it. And just for fun I exported the data to excel, and plotted the results. You can download the excel file with plots from

http://www.sonic.net/~mrp/geocaching/tp030517.zip

This captures lots of driving around the bay area, as well as a road trip I took to Canada and back.

 

It occured to me that with enough data, you could try to infer all sorts of interesting things. A network a frequently traveled roads. The series of elevation profiles could be used to try to build a topographic model, maybe somethign more intereesting that I haven't thought of yet. I'd like to try to get as many tracks from people all over the world, and upload them all into the database. I'm hoping to make some sort of an interactive viewer (maybe a java applet) to allow you to browse all the tracks, and maybe even do some 3D perspective views ala gpsdrawing.com.

 

So, I'm asking for people to send me their tracklogs. My only request for now is that I'm like to keep the logs constrained to the ground (or at least, if you have airborne tracks, please note that when you submit them so I can separate them out. At this point all I'm going to use if the Latitude/Longitude and Elevation data. All time/speed data is currently being discarded. I'll check with those who submit it if I want to use it publicly later.

 

Right now, the easiest format for me to deal with is G7ToWin as comma separated values (I've got a PERL script to process those already), but if you can't do that, then I'll work with what you can provide. You can email them to me at trackpoints@spaceduel.com.

 

Thanks everybody,

-- Mitch

[+mrp]

When I mentioned this to a friend, he referred me to a slashdot article of a similar (though more organized and thurough) to make a collaborative map of Amsterdam.

 

-- Mitch

[+GOT GPS?]

I have some also, and I will post to this thread soon.

 

--------------------------------------------------

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My profile

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[robertlipe]

quote:

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Originally posted by Pneumatic:

 

Right now, the easiest format for me to deal with is http://www.gpsinformation.org/ronh/g7towin.htm

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Interesting idea.

 

Since the last release (I put betas up pretty regularly) of GPSBabel, it's learned how to do track formats for Mapsend and direct from the units including serial and SD flash files. It also does GPX format now, so I think that the various programs from read and write that (of prominence in this audience, the programs from Topografix) can be read. It can also do Garmin serial downloads but doesn't know how to read tracks from Mapsource files. So this should open a few more data doors for you.

 

I could add a g7towin format if that helps you and you can describe it.

[+GOT GPS?]

I have some tracklogs HERE and a picture there too.

The Picture shows the Tracklogs tracing out city blocks and each city block has been greyed out.

 

The text file is a G7ToWin file.

 

[This message was edited by GOT GPS? on May 20, 2003 at 08:29 AM.]

[+GOT GPS?]

Here is some Garmin GPS V Tracklogs:

GPS Files

These where done, by walking/running along sidewalks or edges of streets, and turning Tracking on and off. The picture shows that I greyed in each city block, that I ran. The Text file is a G7ToWin file.

 

Small Picture of what I did:

 

Previous post from yesterday had some errors in the links.

 

[This message was edited by GOT GPS? on May 21, 2003 at 07:39 AM.]

[+quakemap]

for quick .gpx track viewing use http://www.quakemap.com - just drag&drop any number of .gpx files on the icon or into the program's window, and it will zoom into the traveled area. It also has "break track into trips" function, so tracks do not look like a mess on the map.

 

http://www.quakemap.com - redefining Easy...

[+mrp]

quote:

---

Originally posted by GOT GPS?:

Here is some Garmin GPS V Tracklogs:

http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/geoffr524/lst?.dir=/GPS&.order=&.view=l&.src=bc&.done=http%3a//briefcase.yahoo.com/

---

 

Thanks Got GPS?,

 

Strangely, your g7toWin output looks different from mine (in the one I saved, all latitude/longitude data was just a signed floating point number, and all atitudes were in meters. In yours it uses the format HDDD MM.MMMM), but I can just write a perl script to parse it and do the conversions.

 

I worked a little this weekend on a java applet to view the data interactively, but I haven't made much progress, and probably won't until the term is over (2 weeks.)

 

Thanks for the data,

-- Mitch

[+mrp]

Here's an alpha version of the cumulative tracklog web application I've been working on. It still lacks some polish, and since it's hosted on my home box via DSL, it may be a little slow (database queries aren't optimized yet either.) Currently I have tracklogs from 4 people(including myself.) I don't have an automated submision system (yet.)

 

You can view a simple version here or a slightly different (and slower) version here that uses color to show relative elevation changes.

 

Basic navigation can be done through the coordinate entry pane on the top of the page, or using the direction buttons surrounding the image. Clicking anywhere in the image will recenter there.

 

Some interesting coordinates to look at

 

Lat: 40.875

Long: -124.05

Scale: 25

 

This shows a pretty clear picture of the streets in a little town called Arcata, CA. It's where I went to college. It also shows Hwy 299 heading out toward the very small town of Blue Lake, CA (where my dad grew up).

 

Lat: 37.85

Long: -122.38

Scale: 100

 

This is the northern part of the San Francisco Bay Area. You can make out three different bridges from this one. The Richmond/San Rafael Bridge, the Bay Bridge, and the Golden Gate (very hard to pick out.) Scroll around and zoom in, since this is the area I have the most detail for. (though if you zoom out far enough it will take a while to load, since there are lots of trackpoints to process in this area.

 

Lat: 37.978

Long: -122.329

Scale: 10

 

This shows the tracklogs I made driving around the local mall not too far from my house... The color trackpoint browswer shows interesting elevation information.

 

Lat: 30.29

Long: -98.43

Scale: 400

 

Southeastern Texas.. mostly in the San Antonio-Austin-Fort Worth corridor.

 

Lat: 42.434

Long: -83.295

Scale: 4

 

This shows the tracklogs that GOT GPS donated to the project, outlining several blocks in downtown detroit (I think). Zoom out a ways from this one to get a sense of perspective.