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Toys Hardware Technology

How to: Use a GPS watch, XML and Satellite photos 98

Posted by timothy from the before-these-things-are-manditory dept.
ptorrone writes "Engadget.com has a How-to article about using a Garmin Forerunner 201 watch and XML to export a runner's tracks and place them over Hi-Res Satellite photos. The author plans to run 10 miles, in 10 cities over the next 10 weeks and print out all the images."
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How to: Use a GPS watch, XML and Satellite photos More

How to: Use a GPS watch, XML and Satellite photos

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  • Sounds like a perfect way… (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 24, 2004 @10:15AM (#8958640)
    ...to ruin a good run. I find running to be a perfect time to check my type-A personality and my obsession for order and understanding at the door and get good and meditative. You can embrace your inner geek the other 23 hours of the day.
    • Agreed.

      I mean, "why"?? Does he run in really complex patterns so he can't remember them and draw them on a map by hand? What's he going to use the maps with his joint cartilage destroying routes superimposed on for?

      Obsessive-compulsive disorder is an ugly thing. Combined with a fetish for electronic gadgetry it gets expensive, too.

      Then I RTFA, and saw that it was an art project, and it all makes sense (well, it's explained anyway). Maybe this little detail could have been mentioned in the Slashdot story?

      • Re:Sounds like a perfect way (Score:4, Insightful)

        by TheDancer ( 43497 ) on Saturday April 24, 2004 @10:52AM (#8958809)
        Because this device allows you to time your splits to make sure you're running at your target pace without "pre-measuring" your course. Granted, to some people this isn't important, they're just running of the joy of it. Others--while also running for the joy of it--are running to train for upcoming races, and making sure you're on pace become very important. However at the same time it's fun to run different routes so you don't get bored with the course. This let's you run any course (provided you can get Sat signal) and stay on pace.

        Plus you can do all those other geeky things in the 23 other hours, like automatically download the XML tracks, and plot it on sattelite imagery.

  • oh great... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by trick-knee ( 645386 ) on Saturday April 24, 2004 @10:16AM (#8958641) Homepage
    I used to sell GPS units at REI, and they are just about the most stupid things. people would take them into the back country, leaving a map at home, and then use their cell phone (they sometimes work) to get themselves rescued.

    okay, so there are other uses. I'm not really meaning to troll, but GPS has stuck in my craw ever since.

    • Re:oh great... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dr Reducto ( 665121 ) * on Saturday April 24, 2004 @10:26AM (#8958696) Journal
      True that. I bring a GPS, LandSat Compass, and Map with me when I go out into the wilderness. I rarely use the GPS. I maily only use it to compare my estimated position to my actual position. I can usuall y find my position pretty accurately using landmarks and their relative bearings to my position. And when I do it, I understand where I am on the map even better than when using a GPS.

      Admittedly though, if you remember to set a waypoint for where you started, you can get back quite quickly by just running in a general direction, and checking how I am doing every 2 minutes or so.

      • Re:oh great... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by lommer ( 566164 )
        I find myself in the same position as you - until last year I refused to carry a GPS with me for pride's sake. Why should I bring a GPS when I am perfectly capable of navigating by hand with a compass and map? However, I was on the mamquam glacier (in BC, Canada) last february during a complete white-out, and we had to move. We definitely used the old fashioned way of finding our bearings with a compass and then ensuring our path with trailed ropes and such, but it was VERY reassuring to have a GPS to confi
    • Nahhhhh, that's not what a GPS is for. It's for figuring out where you were when you get back. If you don't know where you are all the time, you really don't belong out of sight of a main road.
      • > Nahhhhh, that's not what a GPS is for. It's for figuring
        > out where you were when you get back.

        well, *you* know that and *I* know that, but you'd be surprised at how many knuckleheads there are who will use it as their sole method of orientation.
    • It's funny. I've got the same sort of hate for GPS. My father is a land surveyor, and has an uber-spiffy ultra accurate unit he uses for work(good to like 6 feet with enough sats). He'll tell me "Well, I'll be at [northing, easting], but that doesn't help you because you don't have a GPS unit."

      But I have my orienteering compass, and a knowledge of USGS maps. So I have no problem finding him. Funny thing is, when he was my age, he could do the same thing.

      I prefer the old-school method of navigation.
      • > I prefer the old-school method of navigation.

        I like that also. very little can go wrong.

        my other pet peeve involves the expense and ruination of the wilderness experience caused by people who have to get "rescued".

        I think that we should have certain areas designated as no-save areas: if you get into trouble, you have to get yourself out. that means self-evacuation if you break your leg, for instance. it'd keep a lot of people out of those areas that have little business being there.

        of course, y
    • I bought one for mapping some wardriving stuff, and was pleasantly surprised at how handy it's been. Driving in NY (poor signage at 80 mph) has become infinitely easier, and now I can chart a couple of different routes home to see how much traffic will affect me.

      In the woods, I use it more for mapping out honey-holes than getting rescued. It's a tool, like any other. It depends how you use it.

  • How Long (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Saturday April 24, 2004 @10:16AM (#8958643) Homepage Journal
    Hey, how long before someone creates a video game with one of these things? That'd be a lot of fun to design.
    • we could have a networked marathon race! run simultaneously in 10 major cities! (just gotta make sure that the courses are all about the same.)

      the eOlympics....
    • See wallhacker.
      See wallhacker run.
      Run, wallhacker, run.
      See wallhacker break nose on wall.

    • Re:How Long (Score:2, Informative)

      by ukiah ( 125689 )
      It's called geocaching. Kinda like treasure hunting with a GPS. One of my favorite activities. Check it out here: www.geocaching.com

  • Portable defibrillator (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 24, 2004 @10:16AM (#8958647)
    If the guy running is like the average geek, he's going to stop every 100 feet and get his heart started again. 10 miles? He'll need to be rebooted more often than Windows 95 with a bad video driver!

  • Running for Geeks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hrbrmstr ( 324215 ) * on Saturday April 24, 2004 @10:17AM (#8958654) Homepage Journal
    If it looks like Running for Geeks [slashdot.org] and smells like Running for Geeks [slashdot.org] then it must be a Running for Geeks [slashdot.org] reformatted dupe.

    It would have taken all of 1.5 minutes to check that.

    And I never usually bother, but when I saw the Engadget article myself a day ago I almost knew this would happen.

    Give timothy a break tho...it *is* Saturday.

    • Re:Running for Geeks (Score:5, Informative)

      by dr bacardi ( 48590 ) on Saturday April 24, 2004 @10:56AM (#8958839) Homepage
      If you (and your mods) had RTFA, you would see that this is an extension to the original. It's even in the first paragraph on the page, "I've received a lot of emails about a project on my running for geeks web site, so I thought I'd show how I make high resolution maps of the places you jog, with the tracks overlaid on top." More appropriate for a slashback? Sure, but not a dupe (for once).
      • (a) they are not "my mods", they are /. mods and it's their mod points to blow if they so choose. you'll notice that the system takes care of itself and the highly unwarranted positive mods i received early on were balanced out quite nicely (though i would hesitate to call my post "flamebait").

        (b) i didn't do a byte-by-byte comparison, but it's pretty much a dupe with some extra bits. Not even sure if it's worth a slashback.

        (c) i'm desperately hoping the good moderators with points to spare mark this and
        • (a) correct, I didn't mean to imply ownership :) only that they appeared not to have read the article, because...
          (b) it wasn't available at the time of the original article, therefore not a dupe, which, around here is *almost* worth arguing about ;)
          (c) this I can definately agree with. I hadn't had my coffee yet is my only excuse, so I'm sorry if I came across flaming, but I would rather reply (even in haste) than mod down.

          -dr b
          • no apologies necessary. the only reason i might have come across a bit whiny was that i've been trying to get a belkin 54mb pci wlan card working in a dell 8300 with xp sp2 for about 3 hours now.

            as for (c) - major kudos! the level of wrong moderation due to not following you bit of wisdom is, unfortunately, rising. maybe the changes cmdr taco is planning will help. time will tell.

            it ought to be fun seeing what the mods do to this.

  • Motorcycle use (Score:5, Interesting)

    by weave ( 48069 ) * on Saturday April 24, 2004 @10:17AM (#8958658) Journal
    I can see a lot of benefit of using this on motorcycle trips. I often go riding with no destination in mind, taking randon turns, getting lost, then finding a familar main road and working way back again. I often wish I could retrace my route on a map later to find out exactly where I went.

    • Re:Motorcycle use (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jamonterrell ( 517500 )
      I do the same, but I certainly would NOT want a GPS with me when I do it. The whole point is to have fun trying to find your way back home. I mean really if you're REALLY lost and you REALLY need to get home, just stop and ask for directions, it's usually quicker and more accurate anyway.

      • Re:Motorcycle use (Score:4, Interesting)

        by weave ( 48069 ) * on Saturday April 24, 2004 @10:29AM (#8958714) Journal
        No, you misunderstand, and I agree with you completely. The fun is getting lost and trying to get back. I'd throw the GPS in the glove box, not use it during the ride, and only pull it out after the trip to retrace my steps for curiousity sake.

        You ever come across something real neat, like a covered bridge in the middle of some great mountainess terrain, and have never been able to find it again?!

    • I've been wanting to do the *exact* same thing. So far I have my iPaq 4155 and a bluetooth GPS receiver. I'm just having a hard time finding the software to plot my GPS data onto a map. Tried searching the war driving pages, since they somehow get their data onto a map, but couldn't find what I was looking for. This is close - but I'd rather have it on a Mapquest-style street map.

      Anyone got any ideas? I'm going to give USAPhotoMap a try, but would love to know how to get the data onto a street map. (

  • Do This (Score:1, Insightful)

    by illuminata ( 668963 )
    We need somebody else to do the same exact thing in the same exact cities, but only have your trail surround his.

    Then, you'll go down in history as the person who won the largest simulation of Tron light cycles ever!

  • GPS my cat (Score:5, Funny)

    by tau0 ( 774148 ) on Saturday April 24, 2004 @10:27AM (#8958707)
    What I really need is to be able to GPS my cat (who typically is a couple of feet away hiding under a bush contemplating whether or not to respond to my calls).
  • great. so, i can walk into any sports shop, buy one of these 'health-obsessed consumer' toys, strip it of all its livery down to bare silicon, bag it up in gummy and duct tape, and make myself an easy GPS logging device for application in any one of several hundred thousand different devious ways ...

    cool. rock on Consumerica!

  • GPS are fun... (Score:5, Informative)

    by kiwioddBall ( 646813 ) on Saturday April 24, 2004 @10:52AM (#8958812)
    This technique of overlaying GPS trails on maps are the basis of most moving map programs, e.g. Oziexplorer [oziexplorer.com]

    I recommend Geocahing.com [geocaching.com] for more fun and games, as well as other games : GPSGames [gpsgames.org]

    My little yellow Garmin, my Palm m130 and I keep ourselves quite happy thanks... GPS has quite a following in NZ - GPS.org.nz [gps.org.nz]

  • GPS units can do a lot (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SsShane ( 754647 ) on Saturday April 24, 2004 @10:57AM (#8958844)
    Most GPS units will stream their data to a standard format that can be captured with Hyperterminal or something similar. Writing a Python script that parses the data and converts the coordinates to Lat/Long decimal degrees is very easy. I wrote one for our Lowrance GPS/Depth Sounder to plot course, position, and depth data for our many small lakes. With a few control points to find the current water elevation before sounding the lake, a failry accurate digital terrain model can be generated using some good GIS software. I'm sure techiniques like this could be used in many situations; the XML output is a neat idea and something I'd like to look into. Since Python has great string manipulation capabilities however, its nice to use for the amount of customizing that can be done (the data string can carry rediculous amounts of information like depths (mentioned above), ground speed and lots of other stuff, depending on the type of GPS unit).
    • Lat/Long is obsolete - I find it much easier to use a more modern system like Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM). I consider it to be the metric equivalent of lat and long. Where in lat/long you have subdivisions of 60, UTM is all divisible by 10, has grid lines drawn on all maps (at least on those produced by the USGS and the Canadian equivalent), and is very easy to work with at widely different scales. For more of an explanation see http://www.nps.gov/prwi/readutm.htm [nps.gov]

  • Call me jesus (Score:5, Funny)

    by ehiris ( 214677 ) on Saturday April 24, 2004 @11:15AM (#8958952) Homepage
    According to this [hiris.com] I ran over my neighbours houses and over water. I'm good.
  • Check out Viking [sourceforge.net] on SourceForge.

    GTK-based program that will overlay tracks and waypoints onto TerraServer images. Development has been coming along nicely...

  • I've actually been onto PT's running page for a couple of weeks now, and his efforts (and combination of tech) have inspired me to start a running program of my own (that began this morning, actually). Cheers and thanks to PT!

  • Alpine skiing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ToadMan8 ( 521480 ) on Saturday April 24, 2004 @11:35AM (#8959082)
    There was a company that did this as long as 5 years ago in Vail, CO.
    You'd wear a GPS antenna on your shoulder and a unit in your pocket would record where you were at what time. Then they'd print it on a topo map styilized for 3D and color code where you were going and at what speed. They'd also calculate your top speed, average speed, vertical feet, etc...
    I think they're out of business now, sadly, but they were good people and it was a cool idea, for sure.
    • Winter Park, CO had this when I was there last month. They call it SlopeTracker [skiwinterpark.com]. Seems like a nifty idea though I never really bothered to check into it since I figured it'd probably cost a small fortune like everything else there. That and I doubt I'd actually stay upright on the skis long enough for it to get a lock.

  • Plotting on aerial photos, topo maps etc (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bushcat ( 615449 ) on Saturday April 24, 2004 @11:40AM (#8959116)
    This is trivial beyond belief with an outstanding application called "USA Photomaps". I won't provide a link so only the truly interested will track it down.

    It downloads Terraserver aerial photos for a selected region at two resolutions, the associated topo maps, and allows seamless zooming/switching between all images and topos.

    Check out the Nevada testing grounds for some outstanding pics. I've used the system to plot all the missile silos in the western US: after a while, it's almost possible to guess where they'll be.

    Another interesting route is the Ridge Route from Castaic.

    A hobby seen in the UK (and I assume, therefore, elsewhere) is to define jogging and cycling routes that draw the outline of an animal or other object on an existing urban road network. Some people have way too much time.

  • There is a quirky mapping tool that will let you take GPS tracks and waypoints and plot them onto Terraserver aerial photos.

    It's not open source and only for Windows, but it's free: USAPhotoMap [jdmcox.com]

    I wrote about it a couple monts ago in my blog [boonedocks.net]. It may be better now...haven't had a chance to try it lately. My main complaint at the time was that the Terraserver maps were not publishable, legally speaking, but I later learned they are.

    Any open source tools out there that do something similar? I'd love to build
  • Looks like there are not many GIS geeks in the /. Overlaying a GPS tracking on a map is routine work for many applications look this links, ESRI [esri.com]
    ERDAS [leica-geosystems.com]

  • It reminds to me... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lonoak ( 38287 ) on Saturday April 24, 2004 @12:37PM (#8959450)
    ... the Degree Confluence Project [confluence.org].
  • Say I didn't want the watch (limited storage ...) and just a GPS device that sits in my backpack and does nothing but log data for later use - can someone recommend a good and inexpensive choice? Perhaps something that uses a CF/SM card? Ideally it doesn't even need LCD or any advanced features. I'd like to use it when travelling and recall the data when back home.
    • actually, this watch is exactly that. the storage isn't limited, it'll track a few thousand miles and months of data, it's about $120 so it'll be hard to beat. plus it gets 15 hours of battery life.
  • If you have to process datasets like this I would say XML is a perfect fit. We use it at work all the time and it's just great. If you have to process satellite photos XML is great because it's extensible. If you running 10 miles than XML is perfect because of it's flexability. Can you imagine another technology that could help you with super imposing GPS telemetry and satellite photos? No! But XML is perfect for that. As an unexpected benifit because there are 10 cities you can use XML for all 10 and it wo
  • Mentioned in the article's footnotes as "SVG web application": GPS Visualizer [gpsvisualizer.com].

    Its free, and platform-independent. (Unfortunately, Adobe's SVG Viewer doesn't get along well with Mozilla for Windows, but it's fine in WinIE or in any browser in OS X.)
  • Easier way to do all that in USAPhotoMaps:

    1 - Go to GPS, Comm port, and select the com port your Forerunner is connected to,
    2 - Go to GPS, Protocol, and select Garmin
    3 - Go to GPS, Route, Receive

    And that's it. You can import your waypoints that way also.

    What's even cooler is that can even send locations that you can mark based on topgraphic maps that USAPhotoMaps can download for you if you switch to topographic mode by pressing T.
    • Yes, but USAPhotoMaps only has maps available for the US (as the name already suggests). GPS Visualizer has aerial photographs for the US and other parts of the world plus street maps for the US and also other parts of the US...
  • what linux software does everyone run for this?

    i just got my gps and havent had time to make it work with my laptop yet. i look forward to netstumbler.

    myren
  • The author plans to run 10 miles, in 10 cities over the next 10 weeks and print out all the images.

    If it was 8 miles in 16 cities over 32 weeks I might be interested. Decimal is so outdated...

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