I'm on vacation. I have my phone recording position, heading, speed, and date/time every few minutes. I'm looking for something that will import a large number (thousands) of points and plot them on a map. (Normally my mom buys a map and traces our route.)

I tried creating a KML file and uploading it to google maps, but that didn't work very well. It just hangs if there are more than a handful of points in the KML file.

8/6/2010 11:22:46 PM

Did you do it online or through google earth? Try the program actually on your computer.

Maps limits:

Quote :

"Size and Complexity Restrictions for KML Rendering in Google Maps Google Maps currently has specific limitations to the size and complexity of loaded KML files. Below is a summary of the current limits: Note: these limits are temporary and are subject to change at any time. Maximum fetched file size (raw KML, raw GeoRSS, or compressed KMZ) 3MB Maximum uncompressed KML file size 10MB Maximum number of Network Links 10 Maximum number of total document-wide features 1,000"

Can't find a limit for Google Earth - probably much, much higher than maps. The maps documentation states that for all but a handful of cases the KML file is rendered server-side. The arbitrary limits keep the server from being pegged by a small group of users.

8/7/2010 12:00:35 AM

Ok, I'll download Earth while I've got 4G.

8/7/2010 12:16:02 AM

also i'm pretty sure ArcMap will import KML (i think i've done it before) if you wanted to throw in some county/state/country shape files and make a pretty map to print

8/7/2010 2:14:07 AM

don't upload it to google. paste a link to your kml file (hosted on another domain) into the search box on google maps

8/7/2010 8:46:51 AM

what OS is your phone? android has plenty of programs that do this, im sure the iPhone does as well

8/7/2010 10:53:44 AM

I've got an Android phone recording the GPS data. I'll have 10 days of data recorded every few minutes. I don't know of any Android apps that will create a map from the data.

The data are imported into an Excel spreadsheet, which is easy enough to turn into kml.

8/7/2010 11:40:48 AM

i used to have one of the apps, thats why i mention it
you could set the interval, it would plot it up and then you could easily (one click) export to google maps or google earth. im not gonna hold your hand the whole way but trust me, it was there a year ago when i first got the phone, there's probably even better ones out now.

8/7/2010 12:32:48 PM

isn't this what latitude does? or there is footprints which takes pictures too.

8/7/2010 1:08:10 PM

^^ Some app exists somewhere that does something like that. Great. That doesn't help at all.

^ I have Footprints. It works perfectly with Google Earth, so I'm going to stick with that. I just made an Excel spreadsheet that turns the data into a KML file and it does everything I need.



[Edited on August 7, 2010 at 2:02 PM. Reason : ]

8/7/2010 1:56:25 PM

Quote :

"Some app exists somewhere that does something like that. Great. That doesn't help at all."

no but that + google usually amounts to what you want in a little less than 5 min on average i find, i just didnt have the 5 min to spare since i was going out to lunch and i thought it would be better than no reply at all which is what you're getting from most people

8/7/2010 5:15:33 PM

On the topic of Google earth, is there something I can do with the GPS data so that it will produce a route connecting the points rather than just the outline?

In some places the polygon looks ridiculous because the data are for every 2 minutes and we may cross several roads in that time. The lines directly connect each point instead of following the roads. (I'm making it in KML so I don't know if something like that would be supported.)

8/9/2010 10:45:15 AM

Uh, Google has an app for this: (if you recorded using this app in the future)
http://mytracks.appspot.com/

I JUST used it this weekend:

Quote :

"Once recorded, you can share your tracks, upload them to Google Spreadsheets and visualize them on Google My Maps."

You can send to "My Maps" on Google
-Export to GPX
-Export to KML (Google Earth)
-Export to CSV



[Edited on August 9, 2010 at 12:04 PM. Reason : ,]

[Edited on August 9, 2010 at 12:08 PM. Reason : ,]

8/9/2010 11:45:39 AM

That app looks very good. I will probably try it on the next trip. It seems to have the same problem I currently have though. When the points are connected with a LineString KML element, they are connected by straight lines rather than following the roads. I increased the frequency of GPS recording for now, but obviously that kills the battery pretty fast if I forget to turn it off or travel on foot.

8/9/2010 1:17:03 PM

GPS on is what kills battery, not sure how frequency of tracking would impact battery life. If there's an app that dynamically turns on/off GPS just to track, not sure how accurate it would be if it constantly has to locate satellites... but maybe I'm just mistaken on how the GPS on phones work.

8/9/2010 1:51:18 PM