Discussion: Live GPS tracking test

Live GPS tracking experiment with RouteGadget starts now:

http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/me...

New try in 20 minutes!

how fun ! but the little pink-ish dot is going off the bottom of the map! (at about 8:40 am Pacific time)

It's working. Pretty neat, though the tail sometimes disappears before the dot next moves. Guess the update time is sometimes longer than tail life?

I'm not seeing any motion, just looks like the dot is parked on the balcony. :-(

OK, now Dennis showed me how to follow him, but it looks like he ..uh, fell off the overpass and is lying on the freeway? (around 9am Pacific)

Yeah, it seems to have just stopped there several minutes ago.

I didn't jump off the bridge or got hit by a car. It just stopped working. I don't think it was a gps this time. Maybe the unit did not like to jump on my back and SIM card got loose. Or it was just the screen saver of my computer. Much better try anyway...

I'm very curious to hear what type of electronic gadgets you're using to accomplish this...?

I just started the replay again. Refres yuor browser, I changed some things to get rid of those disappearings some (not all) may have seen. I write about these toys later...

3rd test starts right now! Web page is the same.

Some improvements, the dot should move much more smoothly this time - if it moves at all...

Cool, it's working for me this time! Well, sort of, anyway. The dot moves along one little section of trail, then stops. If I refresh, it does it over again. But at least the dot was on the map this time.

It's over now. 14 min of OK tracking and then it suddenly dropped from the network. There is no much I can do, I guess this unit is just a bad one :-( Previous try was better, it was over 25 minutes.

jjcote, you were late. You are seeing the last minute before it died. It gets saved on the server and it will display it if you refresh.

Starting now again, next one hour. There is me and tho ghosts, just to see how RG works with several runners.

I think I'll dissappear soon (hardware blues...), but those ghost should continue.

Same address...

10 tracking this time, just as I thought. I need some new toys... but ghosts are doing fine.

New attempt starting now, it might work now (upgraded firmware):
http://www.routegadget.net/tracking/cgi-bin/reitti...

Looked good here at 18:44 CET. At least it did until it suddenly stopped. And reload makes it start from the same place again. So I guess I was late as jjcote last time. But it didn't stop at your house, so I guess it malfunctioned again...?

Right, Jan you were late.

About 15 min again. I thought firmware upgrade would have made the trick. I could now turn it on simply by pressing on/off button (didn't have to use the same method I use to heal my O scratches) and turn it off without removing battery. But no :-(

I guess it was my bad - battery ran out of power. Last time I tried it I forgot it to turn it off right after the run, I turned it off hours later. When I now turned it on again, it worked indoors few minutes with low power signal on, then it shut down.

This means I'll try it with night O - a real course in a real terrain, not just some road running in a park. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

That second test hung up my browser....

Night O live tracking attempt in 45 minutes - starts about 18:45 CET. Same address.

Cool! Seems to be working well! Longer persistance on the tail would be nice.

Back home. I don't know how it go (well, I know I boomed third last like I have never done before...), I must check the replay. I heard there was some gaps, let's see what it was all about.

15-20 cm of wet snow and it was raining/snowing all the time - it wasn't as easy as I thought.

I can't wait until we have live GPS tracking at A meets and rogaines and O marathons! Also will make search and rescue easier... You may scoff - but I'm sure we all remember a day when the idea of electronic punching sounded just as unlikely.

C'mon Barb! Next you'll want us all to carry cell phones everywhere we go.

More stuff for the meet crew to deal with...

Starting right now again with new toys...

looking good!

More stuff for the meet crew to deal with...

It would be good to find ways in which more functions could be done by the competitor, rather than by the organizer (especially at the smaller events). For instance, Camelbaks insteads of water stops. Or, do-it-yourself e-punching results. It could be good, especially for the run-of-the-mill regional championship, for real-time tracking to be DIY. (But, of course, we need an honour system that, before starting, people don't watch the tracks of their competitors...a problem that arises from competitors continuously emitting their positions into the aether, for all to see.)

It's fun to watch. The tracking looks pretty precise (assuming he's on trails when I think he is), though I don't know the scale of the map.

No, no...go right around the hill! :-)

Does the track keep stopping in the same place for other people?

over. Phone's US crashed, thats why it stopped and saved you from watching my boring up'n'down hill training.

Rhis time I used my stone age Nokia 3660 cell phone and an old bluetooth gps I borrowed couple of days ago. Phone has the very first Symbian OS version, it is know to crash regularly for no reason. I guess I should get a new phone with more stabe OS. But the point is orienteers here already has lots of phones like this and the also already have similar bt gps receivers for car navigation, so it this works we wouldn't need to buy new devices.

I used a python script in my phone (you can run those in Symbian phones) to read bt gps and send it to the RG server - I wrote it yesterday - my first ever python code - so it may not be as stable and lightweight as possibe either.

orienteers here already has lots of phones like this and the also already have similar bt gps receivers for car navigation

I can imagine this being a great do-it-yourself bonus to the typical orienteering training session, like those we had in Calgary. Everyone heads to the nearby bar (or organizer's home) as soon as they finish, and sits in front of the big screen with a big glass of glo/gg, watching everyone's run. (It does mean someone uploading the map, though maybe not necessarily the course, so for training sessions on old maps it could be anyone keen.) Having the track downloaded as you run may be easier than plugging in to download after, and lets people watch right away.

Next, headcams? (Maybe possible with the commercial wireless broadband networks being rolled out in the US and UK, though I think they have data volume restrictions.) Then we can all see those deer eyes in the dark (or were they bear eyes ;-)

Starting again in few minutes, this time with a street O course:
http://www.routegadget.net/tracking/cgi-bin/reitti...

Now it will not break,I'll restart it if it crashes.

It went well, 90 minutes tracking without problems. I guess the changes I made last night helped and it works now.

Starting street O again in 10 minutes:
http://www.routegadget.net/tracking2/cgi-bin/reitt...

Ah, now that's working nicely! I tuned in just in time to see you get to the last control, and then go to the finish.

.. and home.

Here we go again, live from Lahti:
http://www.routegadget.net/yokuppi/cgi-bin/reitti....

Below zom buttons there is some checkbox you can use to hide tail or parts of it. Thick part is 1 min long.

If all goes well, there is mass tart of 2 competiors to butterfly forked course. And it's dark here, so it's kind of night street O in forest on olmost sprint map.... or something

ooh ! am I in time? I'll go look ! Yes, I am watching the Prince scamper around ! fun ! and yes, mass tarts are great, yum...

yummm mass tart.

wasn't aware of this thread, very cool, I like it!! I arrived at the end of the first butterfly, seems to be working fine.

Some tech problems with the other runner. Now it seems to be fixed, but looks like we have lost connection to the other runner.

out of bounds out of bounds out of bounds.... ;p

Yay ! at last I am seeing this properly. Prince is heading to control # 11...

I have almost eaten all of my potato chips. Luckily there is still some cans of a drink left...

you need to add an "order pizza" button to RG...

What happened at #13? Did I draw the course wrong?

just spiked #17, then checked his control descriptions!!

And never took #18. DQ I say...

Let's see will he get it now when he takes the same control again...

um, are orienteers' numbers in a different order than other peoples' numbers? ;-) (or, is that what "butterfly" is about?)

must be the pressure, people all over the world watching...

Looks like he got it...

definitely DQ

No, going to 23.

Yukon King, there was two variations, Prince had the alternative one.

yay ! so, Prince is done, yes? this worked quite well, at least for the one runner.

But not for two. Need to do some testing before next wednesday.

blablabla at the finish...just like the meets we go to...cheers! fun with my mid-morning coffee. Thanks, J & co.

No DQ here. Network just didn't work or satellites were lost at #15, so we didnit see how he took 15. It's interesting see what the gps track log is like.

and between #22 and #23?

thanks for that, v good

I guess yes, something wrong too at 22-23, maybe lats two kilometers of the course. Locked to too few sats at the end? And note - I just picked three points from google earth to register the map and google's data ain't too good at Lahti region. You get it done much better if you run with gps before the event and use the log to register the map.

Maybe I should do something to view amount of sats right after runners name (instead of the order pizza button).

O tracking again today at 18 Finnish time (GMT + 2 ). About eight hours to start. Three or four runners with tracking this time.

I'll watch!

Here we go, 10-15 min to start. Map & course are here:
http://www.routegadget.net/yokuppi/cgi-bin/reitti....

There hould be three gadgeteers. Fourth one had tech problems and already gave up.

The # right after name is sat count. That's the most intresting attribute to be viewed, right? ;)

oooh...
8:12. ooh, did he go in the water?! (um what is that stuff?) ;-) but then he disapppeared....
8:14 I see two of them! they are having a chat.
8:15 I only see the blue one running to #1.
8:16 poo. he's gone. is he that fast, or is it technology going bad? go Jagge...
8:18 I see only red & pink. Prince seems to have run straight thru some buildings, awesome!
8:28 different route choices to #5, now this is getting exciting!
8:35 so Ale is taking the alternate #6...
Looks like sometimes the GPS is off by 20 or 30 ft esp. for the paths huh?
8:44 yay Ale on #8!!! I was sweating there for a minute! ;-)
8:47 just lost Ale's signal in the middle of the marsh-thingy...will reload.
8:52, nope only Prince finished at 8:52, maybe will reload once more...
hey, any photos of the area on flickr or anything?
ta...

Some testing. I had to drop one runner (Sultan) he seem to have used old software in his phone. Restart browser if you are having problems.

Ooh, ALe (AP's nick A.Le Coq) made a mistake on his way to #6. Forking...

Now we lost Ale, dissappeared in the middle of a swamp. Crocodiles?

Over now. Nex wednesday again, hopefully then we'll get more runners (all the way to finish).

ALe bought the phone yesterday (cheap second hand one), this was the first try with it. Maybe it crashed or key lock was not on ad a button got pressed accidently. I'll try to dig some photos...

eek. Finnish crocodiles. they're the worst...

Aerial ortho photos can be seen here
http://kartta.lahti.fi/

Chance language to English, change map to aerial photo (air? photo) and an pan to then as much west as you can. You can almost see #3

Snow crocodiles :) (its dark here, they were using head lamps, and it is also snow on ground about 10-20 cm, I guess)

I came in to watch a bit right after the start - runners were on their way to #3-4-5 - looked OK so far. Then I went away and did a few other things. Just now I obviously saw the actual finish (Prince) - still OK, but I noticed above that you´ve lost some runners along the way, darn crocs!

Photos from yesterday:
http://yokuppi.kuvat.fi/kuvat/2008_01_30-Tiilikang...

Crocodiles at Varrassuo swamp?
The rumors of the death of a.le have been greatly exaggerated.
Still alive. You can see me approaching Finish line, see the yellow safety vest. Tuxi leading few secs.

The snowman control is great!

why, look at all of you !!! I had this picture in my head of 3 or max of 5 Finnish techno-nerds huddling over cellphones bristling with sautered-on wires & so on, but there are crowds of you ! And laptops! And dogs! And snowmen!
Fun to watch an O-race actually happen - Dragonfly always shows me things on the map after, but it's not the same as WATCHING the map.
thanks, Finns...

Replay from yesterday started now:
http://www.routegadget.net/yokuppi/cgi-bin/reitti....

Solo-fake-O-run in 15 mins at
http://www.routegadget.net/tracking2/cgi-bin/reitt...

dang, I thought I missed it, but there you are at #4...

10:08am & you appear to be home...
put the IBook up on the kitchen counter while I cut up apples & listened to Yellow River on CBC, w/ sunshine outside...I LOVE O ! ;-)
is that bridge thing down by #8 where you regrettably fell off & lay there in the traffic in a previous run? That was so sad !

Yes, this one (I think):
http://www.heikniemi.net/helsinkikiertue2005/kuvat...
pphoto is taken from the other bridge ( a bit east from)

oh, dear, yes, that would have been a serious fall! and probably pretty much merciless traffic too, just bumpity-bumping over you without stopping. ;-)
How was this run? was it snowing? and it was solo, ie no other Finns, and no bags actually out?

I was on my on, no bags and so on. And about the wather - I took two photos (at the finish):
http://www.routegadget.net/tmp/Kuva(01).jpg
http://www.routegadget.net/tmp/Kuva(02).jpg
And you just wrote about sunshine...

Mass start race today 18:30 Finnish time.I'll post the link later.

And the page is:
http://www.yokuppi.net/tracker/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?...
15 mins to go. Sultan seems to be there already warming up.

got my cafe au lait... I think maybe these Finnish techno-runs trigger sun on the other side of the planet, cuz it's sunny again on the southern coast of BC... :-)

Yukon King, must be so: Acts at the other side of the planet can make a big difference - just take a look at my log, there is an other example.

Terkelsen will not run, so we will get a new live tracking winner today.

Looks like we have three runners today, Sultan, Topi and Sanni (Attackpointer)

yeah, weird, I didn't look at yer log until after...
ah, I see them, and I am interested to see how the run looks on this different scale; it will be more exciting, I think.

Sanni is alive again....

.. but now both old phone users are lost :(

Why is it that the black trace of Sultan becomes blue?

One minute is black, rest is something else. if there is several runners, you can easily see how far behind they are.

go sultan ! (yeah, initially I was thinkin', hey the blue guy lost his lil square and he is sure following Sultan's track exactly, oh well, maybe in city-O there's really not a lotta route choice...;-)

OK, interesting feature (well, not for this particular case!)

Mistake at #9

the little jaggy bit at #9?
over, fun! thanx J & Finns...

Hopefully, next time more runners. Too bad Prince couldn't run today, he has decent phone too.

What kind of phone do you need? Do they have to run a program that accesses the internet via the phone?

Yes. We use Nokia phones, those with Symbian s60 OS. 3rd edition models work just fine, but there is sometimes problems with older models. Maybe it's the old phone, maybe my program...

Again today. 18:30 Finnish time.

http://www.yokuppi.net/tracker/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?...
30-45 mins. it's not mass start so we dont know when they will start exactly. I believe we will have only two runners with tracking this time.

gah! where will they start? by the black circle area?

thats what it looks like to me

have they started yet?

I don't see them yet... I think this may be my fault - we don't have the required sunshine here in Vancouver to make the Finnish cell-phones send proper signals to RouteGadget - previous attempts it is always sunny here, but today, not.. ;-) I'll keep watching, maybe another cafe au lait will do the trick !

so Finnish cell phones run on sunshine... thats why we dont hear much from them

curses still nothing, Jagge may be getting annoyed here...or perhaps they havent even started yet...antsy audience. It IS fun when they do it!

just finished my 2nd cup of joe, one more and I'll be ready to run that course

Sorry, I was doing some orienteering myself elsewhere. Looks like the some runners were not there this time (sick etc). One had gps, but looks like it didnt work for some reason.

I did that live tthing by myself too, of course. It worked well, I guess I should have posted that link instead...

Today again about 18:00 - 19:30 Finnish time. There is no mass start this time.
http://yokuppi.net/tracker/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=...
This time several runners should show up.

About 1 hour to start...

Not much to see in my browser yet. Is 18:15 Finnish time now.

Edit 1857: Now I see one runner - and a mistake;)

Now Sanni is on her way to start. There is lots of new snow, I guess all are waiting till the last minute and let others do some paths...

Jögge should pop up, and Sultan and Prince (AP Terkelsen) too. Tuxi will not show up. Don't know anout Topi, maybe he is too embarrased after last sundays tracking in Åland ;)

Jögge did a short test while driving to parking lot... looks good.

Any risk of snow crocodiles in the marshes this time?

No, it's too urban area. But watch out the great fly!

OK - I´ve seen the map, no marshes! Lucky!

Looking very good from here, Sanni is halfway between #4 and #5. Are there no other runners out?

Jögge is about to start. New runner seems to make it re-calculate buffer/delay, sometimes runners jump back 10-20 seconds. Don't let it confuse you.

I can see Jögge off and on near the start/finish - not started yet?

Jögge's old phone has never worked more thn 10 minutes, I guess he is gone. We saw warm up, that's better than nothing...

But where are those two, Prince and Sultan? Starts should have been between 18 and 19.

Jöges showed up again at #2. I guess he restarted the phone. Made it jump again 20 sec. There is also extra line between runners. Looks like I'll have to do some tuning there.

I can see him now between 2 and 3. I suppose he´s the one with the straight yellow lines where the connection is broken - same as in the car coming in...

Yeah, I noticed the occasional 'contact' between the two runners - is it some kind of telepathy??

Jögge got eaten by the giant fly.

And Sanni too, on her way to last control. Bad luck, the giant fly is the winner.

Maybe this strange connection between the runners was some kind of death ray?? (or are they back safely...)

Over all it looked interesting, nice work you´re doing!
There seems to still be a few minor bugs to take care of.

It would be interesting to try, but for the time being we´re more into programming SonyEricsson in Java (not too many around here at work use Nokia right now). I´ll be doing a few things along those lines here at work this spring (hopefully) so maybe I´ll contact you if I have any questions.

Still, it worked quite great. A few glitches with Sanni (near 12 and particularly the 'passing through building' between 4 and 5, which is weird because the trace looks accurate here).

BTW, what's the purpose of these tests? Find a cheap way to make live transmission of GPS data?

Yeah, it worked great in my opinion too. Bugs always appear - and these 'death rays' may have appeared for the first time tonight?
My understanding is that this could be a way to set up live tracking at O meets in a cheap and simple way - since using people's own cell phones makes expensive special equipment unnecessary.

No giant flies, few dogs instead. Only battery blackout for Sanni's gps. We didn't remember to charge it properly.

No any special reasons. I just had a half done software (RG) for it and people already had tools (phones and BT gps units) and data transfer costs virtually nothing. And all new phone models seems to have internal GPS, so these get more and more common and separate BT gps units are not needed in the future. So why not try how it works.

Everyone here has Nokia, I don't even know anyone who has SonyEricsson. But it can be done, of course. It could be done in Java for Nokia phones too. Python scripts were easy way to start with, no certificates needed for installer, no developement envitoment needed (just some editing with notepad).

No giant flies? I don't believe you, I can see one in the map. I am sure it's still feasting with Jögge.

Giant flies are hibernating. Just wait for April. They'll worm from ground..

Live tracking attempt from this evening - start 19.15 CET. Relay in Norway with Jagges RG software. Three GPS'es. The first leg is without the course on the map - the last leg (from around 21.30 will be with course).

http://rg.worldofo.com/tracking/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi...

I'm not sure it works, but we will see;)

This is the relay: http://hok.worldofo.com/2008/03/18/bergensnatten-g...

Jan, I sent you fix for the x-ray and time leap problems. Just lookat your email. Too late for this session I guess...

I can see tree dots warming up.
N95? I guess you forgot to give right name. You can do it on the fly.

Looks good, tight pack of dots going to #3 I guess. No controls on purpse I guess.

Is there forking at all?

The blue one had best GPS. Were they Sirf III or something else? Pretty big disparency in places, I think.

First leg is over, will there be tracking for other legs, like last one?

... looks like there is.

Last leg is halfway, and now they all dissappeared at the same time. RG is ok, it just does not get any new data. Three separate batteries cannot di at the same moment. Network went down? Disk full? Seconds from noon (GMT) is bigger than some sort of integer? Damn.

GPRS network went down just when it got exciting on the last leg (all three on Netcom unfortunately). Westergaard won after a tight finish. There were quite a few big mistakes which we didn't get to see... I'll see if it is possible to find them in the BT-335.

Same GPS for blue and red. Yellow one had a different GPS.

Thanks a lot for great software. 50 people watching and having great fun here!

Edit:

Replay 1st leg as routegadget competition:
http://rg.worldofo.com/tracking/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi...

Replay last leg as routegadget competition:
http://rg.worldofo.com/tracking/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi...

Cell phone Network went down in the middle of the last leg. Classic example of Murphy's law. Well, know they knew what it the difference between having and not having tracking. I guess they were yelling and throwing pizza all over the place when it went down.

It was well directed and planned show with only three phones. Tracking almost every second leg, first without courses (I couldnt figure out where controls) and last leg with courses.