gps with google maps

in message <[email hidden]>, Simon Proven

(') said:

I did a tour last year (23-31 Aug). See the route at:

http://sproven.homedns.org/maps/route.php?id=16

Don't all look at once, you'll kill the server :-)

That really is very cool. In fact I'd say that Google Maps is one of the
really interesting new technologies of this year. What software are you
using for your GPS data -> googlemap conversion, and is it open source?

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; making jokes about dyslexia isn't big, it isn't clever and
;; it isn't furry.

Simon Brooke said:

That really is very cool.

Thanks. I'd been meaning to do something along those lines for a
while, once I realised the possibilities.

Quoted message said:

In fact I'd say that Google Maps is one of the
really interesting new technologies of this year. What software are you
using for your GPS data -> googlemap conversion, and is it open source?

Yes (for the most part). It can all be made entirely open source in
any case.

I had the GPS tracklog as a Tracklogs Digital Mapping route which I'd
originally uploaded from the GPS (Garmin eTrex Vista) back last year.
I converted that to .gpx using a shareware utility called GPSUtility,
but I believe open source is available for this kind of thing if you
were going from the Garmin format or whatever. I then used python
and pyxml to convert the .gpx into SQL queries, as I'm running MySQL
as the backend. That stage is rather slow, due to the slow XML
handling
and the speed of the box (it's an old pc converted to server/firewall
use) but it doesn't matter just now as it's a one-time thing. I
could use XSLT (but would have to learn it first).

Quoted message said:

From that, routes.php extracts the route names and indexes from

the database, and builds an html table to display a list of them,
and route.php extracts all the lat, lon points from the database
and spits out an html file. The conversion is then a matter of
building a GPoint array from the base arrays lats[] and lons[].

One thing I found was that the google maps stuff doesn't like very
long polylines. The js thus converts the route into segments of
at most 20 (it could be more, probably, I've not experimented yet)
and spits them out. The route in question is 5539 points (some
sections are from saved tracks, and the last bit is from the active
log so the points are more frequent).

I would be happy to share what I've developed, if it would be
useful to others, though it's all quite early stages just now.
One idea is to allow adding notes to the route, so it would become
a bit like a gps-enabled cycling blog. Pictures taken at points
on the route could also be served.

In the longer term I would have to move the server to somewhere
more practical too. What would be nice is if I could set up
a server and provide a route sharing service, based on the SQL
backend.

Simon

PS Since I posted I've had one hacking attempt so far that
I can see from the access logs, but it failed. I should move
to using a proper hosting service, but need to at least have
sql and scripting to access it.

in message <[email hidden]>, Simon

Proven (') said:

Simon Brooke said:

That really is very cool.

Thanks. I'd been meaning to do something along those lines for a
while, once I realised the possibilities.

Quoted message said:

In fact I'd say that Google Maps is one of the
really interesting new technologies of this year. What software are
you using for your GPS data -> googlemap conversion, and is it open
source?

Yes (for the most part). It can all be made entirely open source in
any case.

I had the GPS tracklog as a Tracklogs Digital Mapping route which I'd
originally uploaded from the GPS (Garmin eTrex Vista) back last year.
I converted that to .gpx using a shareware utility called GPSUtility,
but I believe open source is available for this kind of thing if you
were going from the Garmin format or whatever. I then used python
and pyxml to convert the .gpx into SQL queries, as I'm running MySQL
as the backend. That stage is rather slow, due to the slow XML
handling
and the speed of the box (it's an old pc converted to server/firewall
use) but it doesn't matter just now as it's a one-time thing. I
could use XSLT (but would have to learn it first).

XSLT is very, very wonderful, but takes a bit of getting your mind
around. In fact it ought to be fairly simple to write an XSL transform
which eats GPX and spits out HTML with the JavaScript for the GPoints in
it directly, without any need to go through the database.

Could you bung me a sample epx file to play with? My email address isn't
munged.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
;; Our modern industrial economy takes a mountain covered with trees,
;; lakes, running streams and transforms it into a mountain of junk,
;; garbage, slime pits, and debris. -- Edward Abbey

"Simon Proven" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Simon Brooke said:

That really is very cool.

Thanks. I'd been meaning to do something along those lines for a
while, once I realised the possibilities.

Quoted message said:

In fact I'd say that Google Maps is one of the
really interesting new technologies of this year. What software are you
using for your GPS data -> googlemap conversion, and is it open source?

Yes (for the most part). It can all be made entirely open source in
any case.

I had the GPS tracklog as a Tracklogs Digital Mapping route which I'd
originally uploaded from the GPS (Garmin eTrex Vista) back last year.
I converted that to .gpx using a shareware utility called GPSUtility,
but I believe open source is available for this kind of thing if you
were going from the Garmin format or whatever. I then used python
and pyxml to convert the .gpx into SQL queries, as I'm running MySQL
as the backend. That stage is rather slow, due to the slow XML
handling
and the speed of the box (it's an old pc converted to server/firewall
use) but it doesn't matter just now as it's a one-time thing. I
could use XSLT (but would have to learn it first).

Quoted message said:

From that, routes.php extracts the route names and indexes from

the database, and builds an html table to display a list of them,
and route.php extracts all the lat, lon points from the database
and spits out an html file. The conversion is then a matter of
building a GPoint array from the base arrays lats[] and lons[].

One thing I found was that the google maps stuff doesn't like very
long polylines. The js thus converts the route into segments of
at most 20 (it could be more, probably, I've not experimented yet)
and spits them out. The route in question is 5539 points (some
sections are from saved tracks, and the last bit is from the active
log so the points are more frequent).

I would be happy to share what I've developed, if it would be
useful to others, though it's all quite early stages just now.
One idea is to allow adding notes to the route, so it would become
a bit like a gps-enabled cycling blog. Pictures taken at points
on the route could also be served.

In the longer term I would have to move the server to somewhere
more practical too. What would be nice is if I could set up
a server and provide a route sharing service, based on the SQL
backend.

Simon

PS Since I posted I've had one hacking attempt so far that
I can see from the access logs, but it failed. I should move
to using a proper hosting service, but need to at least have
sql and scripting to access it.

I've been mucking about with it to. It'd be great to cover the official
tracks. e.g. you can see the Downs Link cycle here ...
http://fishpluschips.com/GPS/gpsmap.php

Simon Brooke said:

XSLT is very, very wonderful, but takes a bit of getting your mind
around. In fact it ought to be fairly simple to write an XSL transform
which eats GPX and spits out HTML with the JavaScript for the GPoints in
it directly, without any need to go through the database.

Indeed, it's been done already:

http://cse-mjmcl.cse.bris.ac.uk/blog/2005/07/26/1122414882406.html

Arnaud.