Playing with N95 GPS data
Since the weather took a change towards the tolerable (by Finnish standards anyway), I took a stroll outside playing with the Nokia Research Center SportsTracker application. I performed a "Workout" (a walk around the house, really) with route tracking active, sent the recording to my MacBook in the Google Earth KML format and doubled-clicked it open. Lo and behold, Google Earth fired up and displayed my "Workout" overlaid on the Earth satellite imagery:
(Yes, Mr. Google, you could ask your spyplanes to fly over our locale once or twice in order to get a bit more than a blurry brown satellite image.)
When I venture outside again, I will try combining the route data with digital photos by using HoudahGeo. Keep tuned in for more geocoding geekery.
Comments
Not just for "sports" tracking
I've used it to successfully lay out the boundaries of my family's 400 acre tree farm using a Nokia N80ie with a Holux GPSlim 240 both of which were strapped to the handlebars of a dirtbike.
It mapped out the land and firebreaks so well my neighbors want me to do the same for them.
That's neat :)
In fact, my use tends to fall in the non-sports category as well. For sailing, the onboard navigation system is naturally more flexible and suited for the purpose.
I am mostly interested in geocoding images, so now I only need the necessary software extension to do that :)
I'll be interested to hear
I'll be interested to hear how you get on with Houdah. It seems that you have to process the pics before importing into aperture, which may be a bit of a pain as it means that you can't just use the Aperture import dialog in order to import images from a memory card. However, I suppose it's not too bad to just have to copy the images onto a local disk for processing before import into Aperture.
Do you know whether the N95 GPS logs are in the Garmin GPX format?
On Houdah
After a closer look, HoudahGeo does not really work for the purpose I intended as it seems to be able to only output (not read) KML tracks. I suppose I could make it work with my boat navigator (Raymarine C70) which can output NMEA tracks for HoudahGeo.
I am now searching for a geocoding application that will read KML (or the Sports Tracker's own XML) and encode photos with the data therein. I suppose writing one for myself wouldn't be out of the question, if none are found.
On an even closer look
On an even closer look, I realise that KML does not seem to contain timestamps. So, the only way forward would really be with the workout export from SportTracker itself, which seems to be more complete in that sense.
One thing I dislike about
One thing I dislike about Nokia Sports Tracker (which is otherwise a great app) is the fact that it doesn't compensate for the GPS errors. Sometimes (when I'm walking under a bridge for example) the GPS device gets confused and sends points that are way off (like I've moved with more than 300 km/h for a second). The Sports Tracker doesn't detect that this is simply impossible (unless I was riding a rocket, which is something very few people actually do ;-) ) and does not ignore the reading, thus rendering the whole route meaningless. Go under a bridge with the GPS and the Nokia Sports Tracker on and you'll see what I mean.
got the same speedy Errors ;.)
After the last update, the Setup Menu shows up a gps Filter ( what ever that means ) but
with these new Version i had no more Errors if i drove my Bike under Bridges ;-)
Greetings from Hannover/Germany
Bernd
Good tip
Thanks for the tip. Turns out I had already selected the filter.
I took the Sports Tracker for another spin (in a car around town), and the route was very accurate on Google Earth, even under bridges :)