Charting VHS GPS log data, (gpx, kml, nmea)?

[billvoss]

My Standard Horizon HX890 VHF radio supports GPS logging.  I can download the log data in GPX, KML, or NMEA format to my Windows Computer.

Does anyone know of any apps or websites that support plotting the data on a chart?

Bonus points if the app or website allows separating by date a log that contains multiple days of paddling into separate dates.

[EEL]

Bill:

OpenCPN will import GPX files and display track on chart.

Ed Lawson

[Ms. Dew]

What other devices to folks use to track/record your paddle path?

[Jim Snyder]

I use Gaia to track, even though they no longer have good chart data. I can export the file, usually in .kml format. It will open directly in GoogleEarth, for a chart you can import it to CalTopo. SeaIQ has good charts and positioning, but no tracking.

Bill, wouldn't any system work if you started a new track each day?

[billvoss]

3 hours ago, Jim Snyder said:

Bill, wouldn't any system work if you started a new track each day?

While I can turn the radio on and off, and while the radio is on enable or pause GPS logging, the radio itself does not give me any tools to see, organize, or name what I have logged. The Standard Horizon support for GPS logging is barely adequate, but not elegant.  If you set it to log once a minute, the manual says it will log about 100 hours of data.  I'm not certain if it will overwrite, or stop logging when it is full of data.  Regardless, I tend to bring the VHF to the computer after a fair number of trips to download my GPS log.  The Windows 7 software (also runs on Windows 8 and 10) provided downloads the entire radio log as one file.  For now I have been downloading and saving the log once for each format, then I erase the radio's GPS log.

So far I've just been saving the files, occasionally pulling out a coordinate to use when creating a waypoint.  However occasionally, such as when writing a trip report, it would be nice to have a shareable track showing where and how far we went.

I'm technical enough to manually edit some of the saved file formats to separate whatever paddles I have done into separate files if necessary.  Though doing so might be tedious and error prone.  So software that handled such details for me would be nice to have.

[Jim Snyder]

The tracking available in phone apps is a lot more flexible and sophisticated than the radio. 

[EEL]

Bill:

Just in case you do not already know, there are GPX specific editors which might allow easy editing, but given GPX (and KML for that matter) are just XML files a good text editor should be able to search for the date element to allow for easy editing and parsing file into separate files by date.

Ed Lawson

[billvoss]

3 hours ago, Jim Snyder said:

The tracking available in phone apps is a lot more flexible and sophisticated than the radio. 

I expected modern phone apps would be much more flexible.  Though then I would need to kayak with my not very waterproof phone, as well as remember to start and stop the app.  In contrast, my waterproof VHF radio, in its nominally waterproof carrying case, is almost always riding on my chest monitoring channel 16 whenever I am paddling on the ocean.  I just need to download the data to my computer before the radio runs out of log storage space.

I read some of the manual for OpenCPN.  It looks complex, but would probably do what I wanted.

I also figured out how to open a KML file in Google Earth.  As suspected Google Earth shows as the bird flies lines between each time I turn the radio on and off, and did not offer an obvious simple way to prune the track.

I then edited a copy of the KML file in an XML aware editor.  The original file included 1270 position fixes from five paddles.  Pruning it down to just my recent Wednesday paddle required deleting 747 "when" tag lines before my paddle, and 240 "when" lines after.  Then doing the same prune for the "gx:coord" lines.  Lastly pruning the corresponding "Placemark" multiple line elements before and after my paddle.

I could load the resulting file into Google Earth and see my NSPN/AMC Lunch Paddle track.  However, I did not figure out how to share that result.  I could take a screen shot, which also captured a copyright statement making me reluctant to post the image publicly.  I could create a new empty Google Earth Project on Google Drive that I could share, but I couldn't figure out how to import a KML file into that project.  I could create a new Google Earth project that loaded my KML file, but then Google Earth didn't offer the option of sharing the project.

[EEL]

Bill:

Is the issue of creating daily track files while on a multi day tour or creating daily track files of day paddles?  If the former I can understand there is no easy solution even if process is simple.  If the latter, wouldn't deleting the log after downloading the data after each paddle suffice?

Confess this is academic for me as more interested in where I might go next than looking at where I have been.  That said, I do like basic GPS info for writing log entries.

Ed Lawson

 

 

[billvoss]

3 hours ago, EEL said:

Is the issue of creating daily track files while on a multi day tour or creating daily track files of day paddles?  If the former I can understand there is no easy solution even if process is simple.  If the latter, wouldn't deleting the log after downloading the data after each paddle suffice?

Ed, the real issue is converting a track file into a pretty picture to post as part of a trip report.  Ideally cheaply and easily, without a big learning curve.

I wonder if @Joseph Berkovitzwould be interested in adding GPX or KLM support to Floating Trails?

A minor secondary issue is breaking up a multi-day file into single day files easily.  However, I know I can do that manually with a text editor if needed,  so that is a minor issue.  Sometimes it is a self inflicted minor issue when I don't bother to download/erase the log after local trips.  Sometimes it is an unavoidable issue when traveling without a computer if I insist on using my VHF radio instead of a smart phone to create the log.

[EEL]

Bill:

If it were me, I would import the file to OpenCPN which would result in a nice chart picture, then select what you want to post for a trip report and print that as a PDF.

You might find OpenCPN a nice tool for planning as well. It is serious software for serious work, but the features useful for kayak trip planning are easy to use once you play with a bit.

 

Ed

[Jim Snyder]

I tried to use OpenCPN and could not get any charts to load...

[EEL]

Jim:

If you mean when you started the program for the first time you did not see any chart info, then the issue is likely the vessel location is somewhere beyond the charts you have added to the program.  Say for example, the vessel location is off the western coast of Africa.  If you zoom out enough you should see the outlines of the continents and if you move to New England and then zoom in you should see rectangles and zoom further and the charts data data should appear.  Move the vessel to your local area and then it should be good from then on.

Getting charts "into" the program is a two or three step process.  You download them, extract them if compressed, and then you tell the program the directory where they are located so it knows where to find its "catalog" of charts.  Just downloading the charts will not make the charts available by the program.

Ed Lawson