On Tuesday evening, after two days of conference, Brian is off to an individual meeting with poets / painters. The rest of our group wants to get some food, and we fancy the restaurant Purohit where we had been the first evening. Fortunately I had recorded our walking track with my GPS, and so it is no problem to find this place. This time we do not have any Gujarati / Hindi speaking local with us, so we only can communicate in English and with gestures. But it works - there is only one set menu anyway, and the waiters again begin their procedure of filling all the metal cups on our metal plates with the nice spicy stuff.
I feel a bit tired - maybe the air conditioner had blown a bit too strong into my neck, as I feel the need for sneezing.
Showing posts with label GPS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GPS. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
New Trial: Location on the Web
I have just uploaded another small test suite for enabling geo-tracking on the web. This is similar to the Carnegie Great Student Run demo, but I plan to have it individualised for several people so that each can update their location - and show it on a web page. In the image below you can see my current location as it is in the database (earlier problems re. updating have been solved now). This is a "live" IFRAME showing Google Maps; as I keep updating the position and the software, the image actually will change.
Since my first entry of this blog entry I have dobe a few modifications: the refresh is automatically triggered, depending on the time the user last had updated the location. Over time, the icon fades slowly away when no location updates are received. The icon color depends on the category of the user - this is to prepare for future collaborative work. The icon blinks when the updates are from GPS within the last 5 minutes.
A smaller version of this map is included in this blog here in the left column under "My Location".
Stay tuned for more news!
Since my first entry of this blog entry I have dobe a few modifications: the refresh is automatically triggered, depending on the time the user last had updated the location. Over time, the icon fades slowly away when no location updates are received. The icon color depends on the category of the user - this is to prepare for future collaborative work. The icon blinks when the updates are from GPS within the last 5 minutes.
A smaller version of this map is included in this blog here in the left column under "My Location".
Stay tuned for more news!
Saturday, May 10, 2008
2nd event: "Mini Marathon"
Right now the second of today's run events is on: a 1.25 km "Mini Marathon".
They are running right now, should be finished any time.
The tracking experiment went very well.
Paul Hartshorne, Simon Crossley, and Sean McCabe were tracked by their mobile phones. Sean's phone/GPS seemed to provide only rarely updates, but the two other devices sent their locations in regularly, so one could watch as the icons moved across the run.
I realised that I might have made a mistake in plotting the run course: the runners were sometimes a bit off and run where there was no track marked on the screen. I had taken the course from the official Great Run website, but that might have been an older version (or I might have left off a few corner points).
In the course of the testing I also uncovered a small problem re. the icond redraw - which is now solved. Now I can add a bit of functionality. Great would be to record the whole track... is no problem, but I had not implemented this as I did not want to run out og memory and storage space during the run.
Overall, it was a great success, I think!
They are running right now, should be finished any time.
The tracking experiment went very well.
Paul Hartshorne, Simon Crossley, and Sean McCabe were tracked by their mobile phones. Sean's phone/GPS seemed to provide only rarely updates, but the two other devices sent their locations in regularly, so one could watch as the icons moved across the run.
I realised that I might have made a mistake in plotting the run course: the runners were sometimes a bit off and run where there was no track marked on the screen. I had taken the course from the official Great Run website, but that might have been an older version (or I might have left off a few corner points).
In the course of the testing I also uncovered a small problem re. the icond redraw - which is now solved. Now I can add a bit of functionality. Great would be to record the whole track... is no problem, but I had not implemented this as I did not want to run out og memory and storage space during the run.
Overall, it was a great success, I think!
Great Student Run - Update
Just now I am sitting in my office, hacking on the StudentRun website and trying to experiment with a few last second changes.
This is now the very first time that there is more than just a simulation running... Three people are currently live on the screen.
This site is also shown on the Leeds Millenium Square Big Screen.
There is a delay: many more people registered for the run last minute, and there are still long lines at the registration destk. It is now 10:30, and the run should start... but it will be delayed until 11:00.
I will now head out onto the run course, to take a few pictures and shoot some HD video. You might see me on the web cam... :)
This is now the very first time that there is more than just a simulation running... Three people are currently live on the screen.
This site is also shown on the Leeds Millenium Square Big Screen.
There is a delay: many more people registered for the run last minute, and there are still long lines at the registration destk. It is now 10:30, and the run should start... but it will be delayed until 11:00.
I will now head out onto the run course, to take a few pictures and shoot some HD video. You might see me on the web cam... :)
Thursday, March 20, 2008
First impressions: GPS on mobile phone
In the past days I experimented a bit with the XDA Stellar and its built-in GPS.
First I installed Free 3DTracking. This software runs on the PDA, then sends GPS data in pre-defined intervals to a server. It seems to work fine - simple interface on the PDA. Only disadvantage: after each start it searches for a GPS, and hereby switches on BlueTooth, even if the GPS sits on a fixed port which is entered into the configuration.
I then installed GpsGate on the PDA. This is a more complex solution, providing a multiplexer for the GPS data and sending them to a series of outputs. Not sure if this is very efficient, as the PDA already has a kind of "virtual COM port" and can manage sharing the GPS through the Windows Mobile 6 OS. But it works fine. One can add as an output the upload to the GpsGate web server. The output looks good, using Google Maps as a background. Advantage over 3dTracking: the latter one has a fixed smaller window for the map, whereas GpsGate shows a resizable map area, which can cover a larger area. The interesting thing is that GpsGate also can send the data locally to a port into a Javascript browser. This allows that a local web site can be used to obtain GPS data. Somehow I did not get this to work yet; it works with simulator data, but I was not able to show the GPS coordinates from the live tracking.
Finally I installed Google Maps for Mobile. This is phantastic: the app just uses the GPS data and displays a Google map in the background, with a small icon for the own position. But naturally, one would need a unlimited internet plan for this, as the continous download of maps requires significant bandwidth.
First I installed Free 3DTracking. This software runs on the PDA, then sends GPS data in pre-defined intervals to a server. It seems to work fine - simple interface on the PDA. Only disadvantage: after each start it searches for a GPS, and hereby switches on BlueTooth, even if the GPS sits on a fixed port which is entered into the configuration.
I then installed GpsGate on the PDA. This is a more complex solution, providing a multiplexer for the GPS data and sending them to a series of outputs. Not sure if this is very efficient, as the PDA already has a kind of "virtual COM port" and can manage sharing the GPS through the Windows Mobile 6 OS. But it works fine. One can add as an output the upload to the GpsGate web server. The output looks good, using Google Maps as a background. Advantage over 3dTracking: the latter one has a fixed smaller window for the map, whereas GpsGate shows a resizable map area, which can cover a larger area. The interesting thing is that GpsGate also can send the data locally to a port into a Javascript browser. This allows that a local web site can be used to obtain GPS data. Somehow I did not get this to work yet; it works with simulator data, but I was not able to show the GPS coordinates from the live tracking.
Finally I installed Google Maps for Mobile. This is phantastic: the app just uses the GPS data and displays a Google map in the background, with a small icon for the own position. But naturally, one would need a unlimited internet plan for this, as the continous download of maps requires significant bandwidth.
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