GPS Visualizer now supports Google Earth & airport codes

[Adam Schneider]

A couple weeks ago, I posted a message announcing that GPS Visualizer
could draw Google Maps from your GPS data. Now I'm happy to say that
you can also use it to generate KML files for display in Google Earth:
http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/map?form=googleearth

Pilots, take note that you can choose "absolute" as the altitude mode,
making your tracks properly appear in the air ABOVE the terrain.
(Hikers, bikers, drivers, etc., will want to choose "clamped to ground"
for altitude mode, lest your tracks end up partially underground where
you can't see them.)


And speaking of pilots, I've added a new database to the back end which
allows you to enter a waypoint as an airport code (3-letter IATA/FAA or
4-letter ICAO) and nothing else. There are two easy ways to take
advantage of this:

1) The "calculators" page has a Great-Circle-between-two-airports form:
http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/calculators.html

2) Use the waypoint mapper and specify simply "airport" as your header
row: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/map?form=address&form.data=airport%0D

The address CONVERTER will also read airport codes (as long as you put
them in a field called "airport," of course).


If you haven't seen GPS Visualizer before, please drop by and check it
out at http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/. It's free, platform-independent,
and it supports many GPS data file formats, as well as mapping of
street addresses or raw coordinates. Output can be in the form of
SVGs, JPEGs, PNGs, Google Maps, or Google Earth KML.


Adam Schneider
Portland, OR
adamschneider.net


..

[[email protected]]

Great fun, Adam, thanks!

Google Earth mode - my flight shows as too low, I don't recall bouncing
off the ridge quite that many times!

999 max track points - what do you do with the excess points? Ignore or
??? Longer glider flights can easily exceed 999 points.

This is fun stuff, and I thank you for providing it!

Bob

[Adam Schneider]

In article om>,
> wrote:
>
> Google Earth mode - my flight shows as too low, I don't recall bouncing
> off the ridge quite that many times!

I suspect that's an issue with Google Earth's elevation data; it
wouldn't surprise me if they had different resolutions in different
locations.

> 999 max track points - what do you do with the excess points? Ignore or
> ??? Longer glider flights can easily exceed 999 points.

Where are you seeing a 999-point limit? I just generated a KML file
with over 5000 points. Is Google Earth cutting you off?


Adam

[Ben Hallert]

There's a setting in Google Earth to 'exaggerate' elevations for
clarity of display. You can configure how extreme the exaggeration is
in the Tools menu:Options.

Regards,

Ben Hallert
PP-ASEL

[[email protected]]

There is a field for 'maximum number of points per track' on the Google
Maps option, it is a 3 digit field it seems? What is thr use of this
field? I left it empty and the entire log seems to be displayed.

The other poster solved the terrain issue, I had 3 for elevation
exaggeration, thus burying half my flight!

Neat stuff!

Bob

[[email protected]]

I had 3!

That fixed it, thanks a lot!

Bob

[Adam Schneider]

In article om>,
> wrote:
>
> There is a field for 'maximum number of points per track' on the Google
> Maps option, it is a 3 digit field it seems? What is thr use of this
> field? I left it empty and the entire log seems to be displayed.

If you leave it blank, GPS Visualizer doesn't take out ANY of your
points, as you discovered; but if you enter a number there, it removes
every Nth point, where N is your total point count divided by the max,
rounded up. (For instance, if you have a 1300-point track with a "max
trackpoints" setting of 400, it will only show every 4th point.)
Unfortunately, it doesn't do "smart" point removal; for that you might
try GPSBabel's "simplify" function.

The "maximum points per track" setting is there because the JavaScript
in a Google Maps HTML file with thousands of points is liable to freeze
your Web browser. It does all of mine, anyway. So I figured, better
to have the default setting cull people's trackpoints than make their
browsers come to screeching halt.

There is no such limitation, by the way, in the Google EARTH form; GE
handled my 5000-point test track with no problems.


> The other poster solved the terrain issue, I had 3 for elevation
> exaggeration, thus burying half my flight!

Huh. I would think that the elevation exaggeration setting would apply
to one's track as well as the terrain, but I guess not. Good to know.
Google Earth is very cool, but it sure has a lot of odd quirks like
this; hopefully as it matures it will get better and more predictable.


Adam