Hi all
Do you have any recommendation for GPS tracker apps (on either Android or iOS) to keep a log of the path you’ve walked/driven, which is particular suitable for Mapillary work, i.e. to tag images from, say GoPro action cam, which doesn’t have GPS?
Thanks,
I have tried GPX logger on Andriod and it seems to do the job although not the easiest app to work with IMO it does save the recordings in .gpx format.
Pretty easy to start and stop a “recording” and when you want to see that trail on the phone you press the three dots/map and then press the three dots again “File manager” to choose the GPX.
I usually use Osmtracker, but you can log with Oruxmap, Osmand too.
i use osmAnd sometimes but mostly i use GPSLogger since you can start the app logging by sending an intent from Tasker. it also gives you the option to put all tracks recorded on the same day into a single gpx file, which makes it easier to reference if you are using the command line tools.
i use the Garmin Glo connected to my phone most of the time and whenever its turned on, Tasker detects that its nearby and then sends the intent to start logging.
you might be able to go the same thing with your GoPro if it uses bluetooth, or maybe wifi too. if not you can just add a shortcut to your homescreen so you can start logging without having to open the app
On iOS, I’m using Galileo Pro, and testing TraceMyTrack.
GalileoPro is quite stable (meaning, it’s resilient to being shutdown while in background), but still crashes from distant time to time, leaving gaps in the recording.
TraceMyTrack is looking promising as it recovers from being shutdown while in background and keeps on recording.
I use both, and a Garmin Quest GPS (never crashes, but satellite reception is worse) to save tracks and later merge them before use. I use the tracks simply to geolocate my camera photos.
All Mapillary photos are taken with the app, so no problem there with location (except when Mapillary fails to fetch the location for the first few photos in a sequence and I need to add it manually…).
Try MotionX-GPS (iOS), i have used it to other things then mapping and i like it. It doesn’t seem to have any problem to run in the background either.
Webpage: https://gps.motionx.com/
iTunes: MotionX GPS
На моих гаджетах точность gps неудовлетворительна, я использую garmin gpsmap 78.
Thanks for the tip, Susan. I’ll check out the apps.
Cheers
I use OSMAnd. Can set the intervals for GPS logging and it’s a great app for other things too.
Just keep in mind that some power-saving settings on phones can stop the GPS logging. I have had quite a few situations where I though I had saved an hour of GPS tracks, only to discover just a few points were saved due the the power-saving feature on Samsung.
If you use an external Bluetooth GNSS receiver with an Android device, you can use bluegnss4droid to log the nmea stream.
BTW: If you have some android/java skills, I need help to fix some bugs and release the app on fdroid.
I use “myTracks” on my iPhone for recording the GPX track
The best one is OsmAnd. Works on both platforms. Great application, a lot of different settings. Or some other similar ones in this article (also available for Android and iOS)
I use Osmtracker, however, if you often walk in the wooded locality, you may require A-GPS (check this to learn what it is, basically an improved version of GPS working properly when pure GPS signal is weak). So I guess OsmAnd would be great for you, it’s also intuitive and cross-platform.
I’m an Android user. I used to use OSM Tracker plus Endomondo - the first to record tracks for use with Mapillary, and the second to track my exercise. I now use Locus Maps (https://www.locusmap.eu/) for both (it saves GPX files to the local filesystem, and will export GPX files to my OneDrive and/or share them with Strava), unless I want to make detailed notes, in which case I use OSM Tracker as well for the notes.
I found the timestamps produced by OSM Tracker didn’t seem to match what I was expecting. From memory, I think it was recording the phone time rather than GPS time.
To match the GPX file to the videos, I record about 10 seconds of what is displayed at https://time.gov/ at the start, then periodically throughout the journey.
My first steps with my Go pro Hero 8 to upload image sequences to Mapillary often fail due to incomplete GPS tracks recorded by my Go pro, shadows and tunnels make entire video sequences unusable for Mapillary purposes. A better solution is needed. I have now discovered a new, promising approach. Google and Apple Street View vehicles can be seen driving around with rotation sensors attached to a hubcap. This enables these systems to bridge GPS gaps. Today, every car has a large number of internal sensors and makes these available via the ODB2 interface for querying using the ODB2 Car Scanner App. Every modern smartphone can use different satellite navigation systems for navigation, and smartphones can also use Wi-Fi data to improve navigation. To test the suitability of such a configuration for obtaining high-quality GPX tracks, I drove through a tunnel with an ODB2 Scanner App test setup. Lo and behold, I now have high-quality coordinates as a CSV file via the data export available with the scanner app. Now comes the difficult part, which is why I’m posting this here. How do you convert coordinates available as a csv into a GPX file suitable for Mapillary, and what aspects do you have to consider in order to make the Gopro video file with the GPX file usable for Mapillary Uploader.