Online GPS track log viewer

[Dave Morrissey]

A while ago I posted a message about a flight planning site I'd built. I got a great response here, so following a suggestion from a user, I've added a new feature - a GPS track log viewer.

Plain text files exported from Garmin GPS units can be uploaded to the site and the track will be overlaid on a map. Graphs of altitude and groundspeed are also shown. By linking a track log with a route plan, you can see them side by side.

If you have Google Earth, you can add a network link to your goFLYING profile, so track logs and route plans will be shown on a 3D map.

Most of this functionality is available elsewhere, so I've also added the ability to share track logs and plans with friends. By marking one or more of your files "shared", you can let other people see them on the site or in Google Earth. Only you can edit or delete them.

Site homepage (http://www.goflying.org)

Examples:

2D map and graphs (http://www.goflying.org/nav/tracklog/tracklog.htm?trackLogId=6378234648)
Demo KML file (http://www.goflying.org/nav/googleearth_demo.kml) (Add this as a network link in Google Earth)
User homepage (http://www.goflying.org/users/goflying/homepage.htm)

It's very early days for this feature - I've tested it with all the available track logs but I don't know for sure that it will work for everyone - so I'd be very grateful for any ideas for improvements. I hope some people will find it useful!

Dave

[topcat450]

'chuffin 'eck. That looks quite neat some of the stuff on there, the ability to view a map... and click on it and ... ooooh I'm going to have to play about with that. Well done - looks pretty good. :ok:

[MyData]

Dave

Excellent site. And, by a quirk of coincidence you have saved me many hours of development as I sit here with my Google Earth and Google Maps API, writing my ASP.NET application to do *exactly* what you have there - even including the sunrise calculator ;-)

So, I'll down tools now and simply go to your excellent site for future reference.

How about a W&B calculator? That could also be useful.

[Dave Morrissey]

Great minds... ;)

I enjoyed doing the Google Earth/Maps stuff because their APIs are a pleasure to use. You should definitely give it a try anyway. It's all the code behind the scenes (currently 600 files!) that takes the time.

If there was anything you were going to do with yours that you think I should add to mine, let me know. The W&B calculator is a good idea, I'll have a think about that.

Thanks for your kind comments!

[bar shaker]

Dave

This could be very useful to the guys at AAIB.

[Dave Morrissey]

I'm intrigued - what would they use it for?

[Aussie Andy]

Dave, it's excellent - really impressed!

I have registered.

Andy

[MyData]

Dave

I'll mail you directly at goflying.org in the coming days to give some feedback and suggestions and stuff that I'm currently working on.

BTW - I'm currently having a play on my BlackBerry - Looks good!

[Aussie Andy]

How should I go about viewing the track-log from my GPS III Pilot? I have tried saving then uploading text files which come from somethign I d/loaded called "GPS TrackMaker" but these didn't work... is there some other piece of software I should use to extract the track info from the GPS III?

And it seems like there is no altitude info included with the track info I have extracted from the GPS - is that a limitation of the GPS III Pilot?

Thanks,


Andy :ok:

[Dave Morrissey]

Hi Andy,

The files you've uploaded aren't the same as the ones the site understands at the moment but they're easy to work with so I'll PM you when I've added support.

I don't know whether the lack of altitude information is a limitation of your GPS - does anyone else here have one?

[PeterJfrancis]

Hi Dave
I too have tried to upload a track from a GPSIII , I downloaded the track from the GPS into G7ToWin (www.gpsinformation.org/ronh/g7towin.htm)
and then saved it as a text file but I got the same error message as Andy.

Hope you can sort it as it looks like a very cool way of looking at were I've been !

Regards

Peter

[rotorcraig]

Each 3rd party GPS Utility is likely to store extracted data in it's own proprietory format.

Dave, what Utility should we be using to extract data in the format that your site currently expects?

Thanks for a great resource, by the way!

RC

[Dave Morrissey]

I'm suprised at the variety of different files that have been uploaded. I can write interpreters for them, but it will take a few days. I'll post updates here as I work on it and email people directly.

The G7ToWin format seems okay and won't take too long, but those that came from Pilot IIIs don't have altitude info. Am I right in thinking the Pilot III doesn't store it or were there just not enough satellites in view?

The current interpreter is based on logs recorded on a GPSMAP96 and exported as plain text files.

[Aussie Andy]

There were plenty of satellites in view during my flight yesterday - so I think it's a case of the GPS III Pilot not recording height information in the track log :(

Andy

[justinmg]

Does anyone know if alt data is STORED on the Garmin 196. It is displayed in the pilot III but not stored.

[IO540]

A very good site.

However, worth mentioning that there are various ways to display a GPS log. Navbox will accept data, as will Flitestar, Memory Map, Oziexplorer.

The most common data is just a text file containing what is called NMEA sentences.

[Dave Morrissey]

For those that use G7ToWin to save track files from their GPS, I have now added support. It won't interpret the CSV version (hopefully that will follow in a day or so) but works with all the plain text files I had to test.

I'll be watching for files that can't be interpreted and adding support for them.

[Aussie Andy]

Cool - just to confirm, is that the one that can be downloaded here: http://www.gpsinformation.org/ronh/g7towin.zip ?

Thanks,

Andy

[Dave Morrissey]

That's the one. Let me know if you have any problems, it's possible the format might be slightly different between versions but I can fix it easily.

[rotorcraig]

Thanks Dave, managed to get my GPS track uploaded using G7ToWin.

That really is amazing - excellent work. Thank you very much!

RC

[bar shaker]

Dave

I thought it might be useful in showing the paths and heights of one or more aircraft and being able to scroll around the tracks, viewing from different angles.

If terrain were also enabled, the view available to each pilot may be better understood.

[Aussie Andy]

Dave, I've got it working now with G7toWin! I have to say, the track displays are fabulous - what an excelletn site you have given us all!!! Congratulations!

Wishlist: I would like to be able to share tracks with friends, not necessarily pilots but more typically passengers (friends and family) who wouldn't necessarily want to have to login to your website: is there a way to share a tracklog such as http://www.goflying.org/nav/tracklog/tracklog.htm?trackLogId=8020312227 with a URL like this? It seems this gives an error if not logged in.

Andy :ok:

[Dave Morrissey]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for your kind comments!

You can share track logs by going to the "manage logs" page and selecting shared or public from the drop-down box. You've already done that for the log you mention, so it should be working - it does for me. If it isn't, can you tell me what time you tried to view the page so I can take a look at the server logs?

You can see a list of the files you've shared on your "user homepage", which will be at http://www.goflying.org/users/<yourusername>/homepage.htm

[Aussie Andy]

There you go! Working now :-) It was around midnight last night (sad, eh!?)

It would be intresting to learn what your plans for the service are, e.g. could you partner with someone like Navbox.nl to enable flightplans generated in their excellent software (which has airspace etc) to be uploaded to your system so one could do the detailed planning before leaving home, then for away-trips access the same plans via your website to use / amend when and as required? Better than taking a laptop with you!

And are you able to extend the coverage into France and the rest of the continent? I'd imagine the hard part would be getting and entering all the waypoint data for navaids, airfields etc and keeping it current - but again maybe if you partnered with someone who's already keeping that sort of database up-to-date.

You might have to charge for this! To benchmark it, the US website http://www.aeroplanner.com/ provides a similar service which I use when flying in the US (more aeronautical data as they have scans of all the US charts and full database) - for their basic service they charge US$49.95 / year or $4.95 / month. They do more than your sight does but it gives you an idea. They don't let you view your track logs online though!

Andy :ok:

[Dave Morrissey]

Hi Andy,

I haven't decided what I'm going to do with the site next, although I do have some more ideas for the log viewer.

The planner and log viewer were always intended to be free features, and because I'm using Google Maps I couldn't charge for them anyway! That does slightly limit how much time I can put into them.

I hope to provide coverage extending into Europe later on, but won't really seriously look into it until Google have done the same. I'll think about your Navbox idea and see if that's possible.

[172driver]

Excellent - congrats! As suggestion, any plans to add airspace ?

[Dave Morrissey]

I don't plan to add airspace in the near future because that would need a lot of maintenance to be kept completely accurate.

The maps either have to have all the features a CAA chart does, and be kept right up to date, or have none of the features so it can't be confused for a complete flight planning solution.

I've opted for the latter, and made it free. I hope that doesn't reduce its usefulness too much!