Personal GPS route maps

[DaveM]

This is a new thread spwaned from another post on mapping:

My goal is to have topo or satalite maps to document the offroad trails I am taking on our travels. I would like to be able to tie the video and photos that I take to the waypoints on the trail through time stamps or other means. This way when I send the files to family or friends they can see where exactly during our travels the images were taken.

I do this now with my existing Garmin GPS, a standard digital camera and some software called Houdah Geo. It compares the camera and GPS time stamps and geo-codes the images for you. Not sure about video, but can't be that hard to manually add once in Google Earth.

Digital topos are available free online from a variety of sources. New USGS layered topos go online Dec 10th I belive (GeoPDF format). I use these and some other software to create 3d shaded relief trail maps of routes I’ve travelled with the GPS tracks overlaid: http://www.sonic.net/~dmed/MedeCart/Portfolio_files/Steens%20Full.jpg

 

[DaveM]

DaveM - I'm very interested in how you do this, can you explain a bit more? maybe in a new thread?

Fortunately for me I have access to the software I need to do most of this pretty easily. I have a plugin for Adobe Illustrator that will read .shp files, import GPS tracks and align geo-referenced imagery all in the same file. This allows me to download state layers on everything from soils to mine locations to basic state outlines, drop my GPS route on top of that and then import a shaded relief image behind it. Once that's done I just use the native Illustrator tools to make it into a map! The blended 3d and topo image is first prepared in another program called Natural Scene Designer.

If you have illustrator you can do some of your own map annotation work without the geo referencing. Topos are available online or on CD and can be “placed” in Illustrator behind your linework. Most GPS devices have software that will extract the routes in GPX format or you can use GPSBabel to download them. Use GPSVisualizer to convert the .GPX to .SVG and open the lines in Illustrator! Without geo referencing you'll have to fit the route lines to your topo image manually by scaling and moving one or the other. Use illustrator to add trip notes, legends etc.

http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/

http://www.gpsbabel.org/

 

[Ryanmb21]

David -

Wow, that was quick! Sounds interesting, I will look into it. Thanks for posting this I appreciate it.

 

[bmonday]

This sounds really cool, and would be of interest to a large chunk of our group.

I think someone should do a full write-up of this technique, including 27 8x10 color glossy photographs.

And I nominate DaveM

 

[fishbum]

Of course you need Adobe Illustrator to do this... $$$
Seems like alot of steps to me.

Or - you can get DeLorme XMap Pro and import shapefiles, georeferenced image files, overlay your GPS tracks/routes with all the downloadable State GIS layers, enjoy navigable road layers, and do all that in one program!

 

[DaveM]

This sounds really cool, and would be of interest to a large chunk of our group.

I think someone should do a full write-up of this technique, including 27 8x10 color glossy photographs.

And I nominate DaveM

Let’s see… I can squeeze you in between updating city general plan maps and making lecture slides for Cartography class. Wait, no that’s when I work on the 30 page watershed atlas and feed my kid…hmm. I’m clearly not willing to give up surfing the net for overland travel related images and paraphernalia so I’ll either have cut out eating or sleeping. I’ll get back to you after I’m done looking at all the pics in the Thanksgiving Death Valley thread (which should be sometime this spring if they don’t stop adding new ones!) :coffeedrink:

 

[DaveM]

Of course you need Adobe Illustrator to do this... $$$
Seems like alot of steps to me.

Or - you can get DeLorme XMap Pro and import shapefiles, georeferenced image files, overlay your GPS tracks/routes with all the downloadable State GIS layers, enjoy navigable road layers, and do all that in one program!

Very true, this is geared more towards publication quality work and the ability to do your own map annotation in whatever style you prefer. Illustrator offers a lot more graphic flexibility than most standalone GPS or Topo software. And quit a few people already have it. If you want basic route maps on topos you can’t beat DeLorme or similar for ease of use. The above is an example of post trip map work done more to create a map for publication (web or print) not a route tool, though it certainly can be used as such.

 

[fishbum]

Definitely you can make nicer maps with Illustrator... and if you have the software it's a great solution. There are times when I could user nicer maps and I do have Illustrator, might give it a go!

 

[adamschneider]

If you have illustrator you can do some of your own map annotation work without the geo referencing. Topos are available online or on CD and can be “placed” in Illustrator behind your linework. Most GPS devices have software that will extract the routes in GPX format or you can use GPSBabel to download them. Use GPSVisualizer to convert the .GPX to .SVG and open the lines in Illustrator! Without geo referencing you’ll have to fit the route lines to your topo image manually by scaling and moving one or the other. Use illustrator to add trip notes, legends etc.
http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/

I'm the author of GPS Visualizer... I thought I should point out that when you make an SVG drawing with GPSV, you do have some "georeferencing" if you take one or two extra steps. When you plot your data, there's always a background map in the SVG, but it's linked remotely to the original source. There's an obscure function on GPSVisualizer.com called the "localizer," which can process your SVG, taking that remote link and turning it into an embedded graphic that Illustrator can read. (http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/localize?localize_mode=embed)

Even if the background map you want to use is not available as a choice in GPS Visualizer (although the USGS topos are very useful), having some sort of raster map in there should help get your vectors lined up.


You're probably wondering why I don't just offer to embed the background map to begin with, when the SVG is created... well, that's for historical reasons. Years ago, GPS Visualizer was ONLY able to make SVGs, and I was afraid of overloading the server by pulling in all those remote JPEGs and PNGs. It wouldn't be a problem now, but SVG is such a little-used format that I haven't put a lot of effort into it. But I might take a peek at the code and see how hard it would be to add an "embed" option to the map form...

 

[DaveM]

Thanks for the info Adam,

What I was referring to by not having geo-refrencing was within Illustrator itself. AI won't take your svg and automatically scale, rotate and place it with relation to other geographic data or layers in your file, like a GIS would. So when AI is used to generate a route map over separate topo or ortho images you have to do that aligning yourself.

 

[adamschneider]

What I was referring to by not having geo-refrencing was within Illustrator itself. AI won't take your svg and automatically scale, rotate and place it with relation to other geographic data or layers in your file, like a GIS would. So when AI is used to generate a route map over separate topo or ortho images you have to do that aligning yourself.

Right... what I'm saying, though, is that if your SVG contains a background map along with points and lines, it makes it a heck of a lot easier to do that aligning! (And if you use the USGS topo option in GPS Visualizer, you might have everything you need already.)

And it turns out it was indeed pretty easy to add an "embed" option to GPS Visualizer's SVG map form; it's on there now.