yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] matthieu60:
Live logging with GPS Cycle Computer software

Hello Andy,

Thanks for the great application, i use it on moutain bike :)

I have a problem with live logging. See the following email send to the support [a] crossingways.com.

If you have an idea

Hello

I use the GPS Cycle Computer software in France (SFR operator with wap data connection)

I create an account on your website and i can log it.

When i want to verify my login/password (the same as crossingways website) on GPS Cycle Computer software, i have the error message : "90 can not etablish connexion..". My data connection is on and i can surf on intenet. I use a HTC Diamond phone

If i try the same manipulation with my HTC Diamond connected to the PC with activesync, i dont have this error and the login/password are correctly validated.

Can you help me?

Thanks

Best regards
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] Airseir:
Hi and Thanks

It has taken me a while to read through the history of this product - fascinating evolution and I see (as with any programming project) there is no shortage of ideas.

I have downloaded the source code and started to play around with it - thanks for making that available.

I have written down a lot of the outstanding ideas and there are several I would like myself (Calorie counter being one of them combined with a different log file for different activities)- so I will play around with these and let you know if I come up with anything worth sharing.

My next dilema is - how do I play with the code, extend and enhance to get my own bespoke solution and also get all the latest cool bits - lol

I am using a Pocket PC 2003 and also a Treo 750w smart phone - both with a separate Bluetooth GPS Unit.

I will be using this for Hiking, Cycling - and also recording where I went on a lake while fishing - perhaps help me get back to some good deep areas on the lake.
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] Airseir:
Interesting results

The following comments are not intended to be criticism - but hopefully good feedback.

I was very impressed with the code and readability - it didn't take me long to find my way around and I am currently working out the best way to calculate approximate calorie usage.

I ran a very simple test today on version 3.84.

I left my device and GPS unit alone on the desk for half an hour in a running state (While I picked my way through the code). The results were a Max speed of 8Km/h and average of 54Km/h, time excluding stop time was 29 minutes 10 seconds and I watched the altitude difference vary plus and minus 24m

The time excluding stop time was easy to fix - I see you use the speed from the GPS and look 0 to identify no movement - the satellites seem to vary on the information and provide a background noise of anywhere around 0.8Km/h so I changed the ==0 to <30 - this seemed to work nicely. If I am walking or cycling this slow then I am effectively not moving.

The max speed I am assuming comes from the initial establishment of my location as it triangulates data from various satellites - so should be easy to deal with - I will look at some delay until it establishes a fairly consistent location.

The altitude - mmmmm that's interesting as I see that comes direct from the GPS. 48m difference is a lot when it is sitting still especially for people who live in relativly flat areas. I have altered my version slightly to include actual altitude and altitude difference on the same front screen - never figured out which is more meaningful for me so thought I would have both.

The average speed - looks like something seriously wrong.
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] davey1980:
think i found the prob, omnia gps needs speed to get connection, once its connected it works fine but takes a good 15mins normal walking b4 gps connects.

uploaded files.

started programme on bus, when i got off bus sig drops, picks up again on train and seems to stay connected after with the 15mins walk to work.

so warm up ride to get connected be fine i guess.:)

ps..hope these r rite files, :confused:
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] anweledig:
I'm running an omnia and seem to have the same problem. The gps seems to provide the P and T records but no speed so you don't get a lock when stationary. However a 7 minute drive to the local garden centre and the gps locks and all is well until you stop for a few minutes. I wondered if there is a minimum distance requirement before a lock is registered? That could account for the problem

Fantastic program though :)

Thanks
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] markcheng:
Airseir,

You've probably found the reason why the average speed is always way too low. Assuming speed less than 0.8km/h being stationery is a fair assumption. At least, Garmin GPS works that way. Changing the software from absolute zero to this minimum may improve the stop time calculation and hence the average speed. I hope Andy can look into this and implement it in the future release.
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] AndyZap:
Many thanks for running these tests! - I think I need one more file, which is the GPS log generated by that custom DLL. The log is called "GpsCC_debug.txt", and it shall be located in the very top folder of your phone (the one which is "/").

Also make sure that you deleted the custom GccGPS.dll (it was one of the files you send in the zip, so you know where it is located) - and re-install GpsCycleComputer.CAB - so you do not have that GPS log file written anymore. Otherwise, that GPS file will grow and grow each time you run the tool, so it could fill all memory on your phone. Send me a private message if you have any questions.
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] AndyZap:
.

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

Re: use G-sensor to measure slope angle: I do not think the sensor is so accurate - if I am not mistaken, it has accuracy about 5 degress or so. I think it is better to use the altitude values over the last e.g. 100-200 meters of the track to calculate the slope. I know that the absolute altitude values might not be accurate as well, but hopefully the relative altitude values shall be OK ( plus I can filter-out some odd points, e.g. when GPS starts)

Re problems with live logging: unfortunatelly I do not have much experience with the mobile internet, so cannot help much. So please wait for the crossingways website support to sort your problem. The only idea I have is maybe to do something with the data connection configuration - I remember seeing "GPRS" and "WAP" profiles on someonelse' phone - so maybe you have "WAP", which is not letting you to have a full data access, but just some limited web browsing?

Thanks to Airseir! - for spending time working with the code and testing it. I know that it might not be easy to coordinate and merge work from different people - probably if you could wrap any new code into separate functions (or even separate file) - then it would make the merging task much easier.

Omnia problems - and also Airseir' observations about poor GPS speed reporting - I am thinking to remove reading the speed data from GPS, and compute it myself, from the position values. Also I can add some averaging/filtering on the position data, so the small fluctuation of the position, specially when stationary, do not contribute to the speed. Then we can get a more accurate max/current/average speed values and solve that Omnia problem as well (as the speed will not be required to get a lock).
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] Mandragore:
You could be right, but have you tried Teeter? ;)

Just in case you would consider using the G-sensor, you might want to take a look at Kai's Bubble Level to get an idea of the refresh rate and accuracy. If I slowly tilt my device in any angle this application shows me every degree. And if I tilt a bit faster, the bubbles respond smooth and natural. According to the developer the accuracy is 0,18° (360°=2000 steps).
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] AndyZap:
Thanks - I think I got the number wrong - instead of 1/5 degree I remembed 5 degrees accuracy.... But for the "cycle" slope measurements still it might be better to use the altitude, as you are more interested in slope on "large scale" (over 100-200 metres), not the instant slope of the cycle?
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] Airseir:
Calories

This doesn't look to bad after all. The trick is to find out the Metabolic Equivalent Intensity level for the associated activity. This bit is easy.

For any-one coding - I will share what I do when I have ran a few tests. I am intending on putting it into the GetValuesToDisplay function and use average speed and duration excluding stop time. The average speed will of course cause slight inaccuracies - but this can only ever be an approximation anyway - so no major deal.

I need to add a list of activities people may use this device for - so can anyone see anything missing below? I have the official METs for each of these according to the official Journal of American College of Sports Medicine. These are the standards used in commercial Pedometers, cycle computers and even most web sites that calculate calories burned etc.

Cycling - an obvious one

Hiking and walking

Golf

Horseback riding

Rolerblade skating

running

cross country skiing

downhill skiing

snow shoeing

canoeing /kayaking

Fishing and hunting
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] markcheng:
Is it possible to have 2 types of cycling - MTB (or Singletrack) and Road since they are requiring different effort. I can easily cycle 40 miles on the road but 20 miles MTB will feel a lot more difficult. Altitude should be in the calculation as well.
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] markcheng:
Viewing KML (generated by GCC) in Google Earth

I recorded by GCC while my friend was using his Garmin. The tracks were generally identical. However, when I zoom in with Google Earth, the GCC track deviates from the actual track and move to the other side if I drag it screen across. After studying the differences between 2 KML files, I found GCC KML file coordinates only have 6 decimal places while the Garmin carry 10-14 decimal places. I guess this may be down to the accuracy of the 2 devices unless the coordinates were truncated during the file conversion.

Andy, is there any way to increase the GCC accuracy?
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] AndyZap:
Thanks for pointing this - I will add more digits to KML output - probably 6 digits was not enough to output.

In gcc file itself, I store coordinates in metres, i.e. the accuracy is 1 meter or better. But I think this is good enough for many GPS.
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] AndyZap:
Thanks - think is a good idea. The only problem is where to put it on display, I guess we need an option to replace one of the values with "calories", or, to have a swtichable value, as you click on this part of screen. - But for this feature I was going to add "enlarged" display, i.e. as you add on e.g. speed, you have a speed value displayed for the whole screen... Looks like getting the GUI right is more difficult than to add the feature to the code itself...
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] 00Amorphous:
I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this, but I have been using this app for a few weeks now for kayaking and love it. It is amazing. I read above that you plan on having a full screen mode to display speed, that's great as its one of the thing features that I thought this app needs.

I see that people are adding to the wish list for this app. Personally something that I would really like to see is a visual representation of speed on the map. I imagine the best way to do this would be a colour gradient scaled from 0 to max speed overlayed on the standard map/route display (similar to that used for temps on thermographic cameras).

Keep up the good work!
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] markcheng:
Andy, thank you for the v3.90. I think the "track-to-follow" opens up a lot more potential uses and it is matching what Garmin can do.

There are a couple of suggestions for your consideration:

1. Colours of lines/dots and background colour in "Map" view - Most of the maps generated by Google Earth are greenish. For the activities the users are using for general outdoors and under the sun. The main screen is fine and very visible but it is always difficult to read the "Map" screen. I suggest to change the background colour in "Map" view to black. This will save the battery life as well. You may consider adding some bright line colours as well. Generally, brighter the better. Any suggestion to make the Map screen more readable is always welcome.

2. It would be nice to be able to change some settings (such as map location and load track to follow) while in recording or pause. It happened to me twice that the GCC was pointing to the wrong map location. I only noticed this an hour into the ride. Choosing between breaking up the recording and riding without map, I just left it without the map. This could happen more often as we may want to load a different track to follow.

Thank you for increasing the co-ordinate precision to 10 decimal places. However, the line is still changing sides from the actual track when I drag in Google Earth. It improves a little bit if I add the "Terrain" layer. My Friend's Garmin KML file does not have this problem. Do you have any idea?
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] AndyZap:
.

Thanks Mark and 00Amorphous for suggestions!

- Regarding the color-coding the track line according to speed/altitude: I was thinking about it, but then decided that the line might not be well visible, i.e. it is better to have it in solid color (besides, now we have second line to follow, so it will be even more confusing). I am planning to add usual x/y graphs for altitude/speed over distance, and a feature to mark the points on one of the graphs to see it on maps (and vise versa). Hope this is OK.

- Re black background for maps - yes, was going to add this, as it matches other screens (but can be changed if custom back/foreground is loaded).

- Re changing setting when logging - I will try to add this when pause is pressed, to make sure it does not interfere with logging (i.e. I do not want to change setting when it is running).

Re more decimal places in KML/GPX - well it seems the reason is not in the number of digits, but in the GPS precision - looks like Garmin has a better GPS... (which is probably not strange)... The only way to beat it is to get a very good Bluetooth GPS ....

Also want to add a caution (do not want to start a new post for this) - I saw quite a few downloads of the custom GccGps.dll, the one which writes GPS log into main phone memory - make sure that you do not use it all the time (i.e. delete it, and reinstall original CAB - better delete, as I am not sure that it will be deleted during un-install, as it was not a part of the insrtall) - because it write a log file into main memory, and it will grow and grow! Do not forget to delete the log as well, specially if you generated a large log!
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] markcheng:
Andy, I put the Garmin KML file up in case you would like to have a look. You are better qualified than I am to do this. If you are too busy, forget it.
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] S_Hammer:
Timestamps with the waypoints

Hello,

I have a request if I'm allowed to?. I would like to use your exelent tools to add geotags to my fotos. Therefore it would be excelent to have timestamps with the waypoints and not only one timestamo with the track.

I would like to use Zoner Photo Studio to do the job and would love to have those informations in the gpx format. But I would be able to transfer the data to any format by using gpsbabel so it would be ok to have a simple common format with the info's

Maybe have the structure like this :)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?>

<gpx xmlns="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1" creator="byHand" version="1.1"

xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"

xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1/gpx.xsd">

<wpt lat="39.921055008" lon="3.054223107">

<ele>12.863281</ele>

<time>2005-05-16T11:49:06Z</time>

<name>Cala Sant Vicenç - Mallorca</name>

<sym>City</sym>

</wpt>

</gpx>

Br Martin
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] AndyZap:
I was also thinking about adding photos to KML files, but I wanted to do all these bits on PC . I am going to write a PC application, which reads GCC files and can have more features than the WinMobile one. To add photos, I can use a timestamp of the photo jpeg file, and align with the same timestamp in gcc file - then save this info in KML (or GPX). Also can mark different parts of the track for hight, speed, etc.
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] schreda:
I didn't tried it yet, but it seems to be a good App for me

I created a CAB Installation, add it to your first Post i you want!
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] S_Hammer:
Sounds good :)

I was thinking a little bit in another direction. Not to include the photos in a kml file, but to add the geotag to the exif information of the jpeg.

Is it possible for you to do a first shot on the pc application before end of september. I travel to Australia in the begining of October and would like to use your apps there.

Br Martin
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] riki1:
Thank You for goooood program (I was walking) :

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[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] Taajuus:
Looks like cool software to map my motorcycle runs and display them afterwards on GE.

Thanks, will give it a try on my Touch Pro! Wonder if this works if I have also Route66 navigation software running same time? Well, have to try...
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] carloshdez:
Does anybody have issues when the backlight is off? It seems that the GPS stops working correctly, it doesn't fix, and when I turn it back on, instantly fixes again
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] Taajuus:
This software is great, love it already.

Used it while riding my bike today, just had tracker running on my Touch Pro background, then used Route66 as normal GPS navigation. When I came back home, I had nice tracking data available for Google Earth :)

I will mostly use it like this, but I still have one feature request - Could you make option so that tracker will keep backlight on while tracking? Just like in GPS navigation softwares. Just thinking if I just ride without navigation, it would be nice to keep tracker on and see all GPS info from it (like my actual speed and tops :cool:).

Anyway, great software.

With Another GPS Tracker, Google Earth and Google_Maps_in_GE.kmz I can produce nice route maps like these:
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] AndyZap:
Thanks everyone for the feedback!

Re backlight issues: I have the required function to prevent the light from switching off (and going into suspend as well), this is executed every 15 sec (to do this correctly, I should have read the registry setting for your suspend time, but decided that it is unlikely you have less than 15 sec). SO, if you have the bklight/suspend timer set to less than 15 sec, this might be a problem. Also this function (keep bk light on) is only active when GPS is logging, I thought that if you are not logging, then it is better to save battery power!

So far I have not seen problems with logging when the bklight is off - of course, if I switch the backlight with the software button on the tool, not to suspend the phone with the power button (I have standard UK Diamond with standard ROM). I.e. I always swhitch off bklight with soft button and turn it back with hardware power button.

Re development plans for PC application - this might take a bit of time (it is not a one day job) - but this is just post-processing, where more and more features can be added with time. What is important is that the log file format seems not going to be changed, so provided that you have your .gcc logs, you will not loose your holiday trips data!
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] AndyZap:
Thanks to expo7, the tool have completely new interface + you can create your own.
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] expo7:
The best GPS Tracker :D

easy to use!
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] HansZimmer:
The new design is great !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow, what a tool !!
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] HansZimmer:
One question : When do the tool saves the gps data ? Just after pressing save button , or ? In my opinion it would much better, if you FIRST decide the format, and thenif the tool would save and update the file AFTER each gps position location. In this case you would have a gps file even if the tool or the battery shuts down suddenly. If it collect all data in memory and you forgot to save, all data is lost.

hans
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] PJ6363:
Great stuff!

Very nice.....excellent contribution and thanks :)
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] AndyZap:
How tool saves gcc files.

Yes, the tool opens a temp file and save the data after each new point. The temp file is called "\tmp.gcc" and is located in the very top folder (root) of the device. I thought that it is better to write a temp file into main memory, than into internal storage (assuming main memory has faster/more reliable access). As you press Stop, the temp file is copied into gcc file with requried name. So you should be able to get the log data from this temp file, if the system/tool crashed. The only problem is that file output is "buffered", i.e. you do not get the file updated instantly as you write to it from inside the program - i.e. some data at the end of the log is likely to be lost.
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] willumpie82:
Does anyone know why it stays on GPS off
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] cozzykim:
Superb app, thanks

This is a fantastic little app!!

It works perfectly on my O2 Ignito (once I read the instructions properly and got used to NOT switching the power button off)

I love the stylish interface.

I'm hoping this is goin' to free me from the Logbook in my cr@ppy Navigon MN6.

I'd like to have the option to 'name' each log/trip (e.g. like "Home to Work") and to also save to .csv (or .xls ;) )

Congrats as well on the open source approach, the source code could be really useful.

Thanks again AndyZap,

Kim
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] knight14th:
Thank you for providing this nice gps logger. I really like it. More thanks for giving the source code!
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] dreamer2008:
I love this application!

I've tried Luis Espinosa's TrackMe application before, but it never worked very consistently for me.

I would also love to have your application save a timestamp with each waypoint in order to use it for camera applications. It shouldn't be necessary to write PC software as well for this (e.g. software like Breezesys Downloader Pro can be used to match picture timestamps and GPS timestamps), all you have to do is to save the current timestamp with each GPS coordinate.

You can get some inspiration from TrackMe's KML files: http://www.luisespinosa.com/trackme/routes/middleda.kml
[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] bennec83:
this looks really good, ill give it a try!!

nice work