GPS Tracker

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==Help GPSTracker== ==Help GPSTracker==
 +A lot of time and effort has gone into developing GPSTracker for WorldWind.
 +
If you find GPSTracker useful and would like to see more development, bug fixes and the "wish list" realized, then you may consider making a donation. If you find GPSTracker useful and would like to see more development, bug fixes and the "wish list" realized, then you may consider making a donation.
Thank you very much in advance... Thank you very much in advance...

Revision as of 04:40, 24 January 2006

GPS Tracker
GPSTracker Plugin
GPSTracker Plugin
Developer Javier Santoro
Latest release V02R03 / 2006-01-10
License undefined
Web site

Contents

Summary

The GPSTracker plugin will let you get real time GPS information from any NMEA standard serial GPS device (COM Port), through multiple UDP|TCP ports and multiple NMEA files (supported messages are GPRMC and GPGGA). Once activated, an icon with information text will appear for every GPS device and your world view will lock into your selected GPS device latitude and longitude.

Features

. NMEA Serial GPS Device (COM) support.

. Multiple NMEA UDP ports support.

. Multiple NMEA TCP Ports support.

. Multiple NMEA Files support.

. Points Of Interest.

. Distance and Bearing from GPS Devices to/from Points of Interest.

. Lock into a GPS Device Position and Heading.

. Show GPS Device Track and Track Distance.

. Select GPS Device and POI icons and name.

. Show the complete track from a File at once.

. Playback Files at different speeds.

. Record a complete 'Session'.

Help GPSTracker

A lot of time and effort has gone into developing GPSTracker for WorldWind.

If you find GPSTracker useful and would like to see more development, bug fixes and the "wish list" realized, then you may consider making a donation. Thank you very much in advance...

Download

NOTE:

To update to V02R03 it is necessary to do a full update as per 'Installation Instruction' bellow rather than using the Update Tab.

Installation Instruction

NOTE: THIS PLUGIN HAS BEEN DEVELOPED AND TESTED WITH WORLDWIND 1.3.3.1

It works correctly under WorldWind 1.3.3.1, please update WorldWind to this version.


Delete any older Plugins\GPSTracker directory. Unzip GPSTrackerPluginV02R03.zip into WorldWind Plugins directory. You should end up with a GPSTracker directory under the Plugins directory.

Run WorldWind, goto the Plug-Ins menu and click on Load/Unload. Select the GPSTracker plugin (you can click on Startup to make WorldWind automatically load GPSTracker at startup). Click on Load and close the Plugin Load/Unload window.

Usage

GPSTracker will appear as a little 'Satellite' icon in the toolbar. Click on it and the GPSTracker settings window should open (See screenshots).

The idea is that you configure your GPS devices settings (COM settings or UDP|TCP port numbers, File names) and add them to the list of selected devices. You can have only one serial COM device, but you can add multiple UDP|TCP devices with different port numbers and multiple NMEA Files.

Use the COM 'Auto Detect' button to search for a GPS device on ports 1 to 32. Use the 'Add' button to add a device to the list. Use the 'Remove' button to remove the selected device from the list. Do a slow DoubleClick on the 'Description' column to change the selected device description. Right click on a device to open the 'Select Gps Device Icon' file open window. There you can select the .png or .jpg file that will be shown in the World View for the selected device. There are 21 default icons. The Icons are shown at a constant size of 24x24 pixels, so the closer to this size the selected icon is, the better it will look. Click on the check box of the device that you want to follow real time. Only one check box can be selected. If no check box is selected then the World View will not follow any device, but they will be visible.

In the File tab use the 'Maximum speed' checkbox under the File tab to playback the selected file with no delays between NMEA messages. If the 'Show whole Track at once' checkbox is selected in the File Tab before adding a file, GPSTracker will show the whole file track at once. If this is the first time the selected file is used, GPSTracker will do preprocessing of the file. No preprocessing is done subsequently unless the 'Force Preprocessing' checkbox is selected.

Use the General Tab to select some general settings: Select 'Track Heading' if you want the World View heading to 'follow' the heading from the GPS data. Select 'V. Exaggeration to 0' (default) to set the Vertical exaggeration to 0 when GPS Tracker is running. When the V. Exaggeration is 0 the GPS icons are displayed in the correct position, at ground level, as seen from any tilt angle. If V. Exaggeration is not selected then the selected V. Exaggeration will remain effective while GPS Tracker is running. When the V. Exaggeration is not 0 the GPS Icon and track is displayed at the GPS Icon altitude. The icon position is only correct when view straight from above at a 0 degree tilt. Select 'Information Text' to cause the Information text to be shown in all icons. Select 'Track Line' to show the track of the selected gps icon Select 'Record Session' to save into a file the activity of all your GPS devices and POI. If this is selected, when you click 'Track', GPSTracker will save a copy of the activity of all your GPS and POI icons. When you disable GPSTracker a window will pop up asking for the filename you want to select for this session. Session files can be played back by selecting them in the 'Files' tab, just as any other file. If a Session file is selected no other device or POI for the list will be shown. While a session is being recorded you can add POI but they will not be saved. While a session is being played back you can add POI, but they will not be saved.

Once all your selections are done click on the 'Track' button to start processing GPS NMEA messages from the selected devices. On the bottom-right corner you should see the message 'GPSTracker: Fix' if there's at least one gps fix or 'GPSTracker: No Fix' if there's no gps fix at all. The message can be turn on and off from the 'GPSTracker\Fix Status' entry under the Layer Manager.

If there is a gps fix, you should see the selected icon for every GPS device along with information text. Clicking on an icon makes GPSTracker 'follow' that device. Holding 'Left Control' while clicking on an icon turns the info message on and off. If the information text is off it will be visible by rolling the mouse over the icon. Holding 'Right Control' while clicking on an icon will toggle the 'Track Heading' function on and off. Clicking a GPS Icon while pressing 'Left Alt' will toggle showing the track line for that Icon on and off.

To set a Point Of Interest hold 'Left Shift' and click anywhere in the world. The newly created POI will show up in the list of GPS devices in the GPSTracker window. Once in the list the POI description and icon can be edited the same way as a GPS device. Clicking on a POI turns it off. It can be turned back on from the GPSTracker Layer manager. Holding 'Right Alt' and clicking on a GPS icon will cause all POI icons to display the distance between the POI and the selected GPS icon. Holding 'Right Alt' and clicking on a POI icon will cause all GPS icons to display the distance between the POI and the GPS icon and the bearing from the GPS icon to the selected POI.

All or some of the icons and information text can be turn on and off from the 'GPSTracker' entry under the Layer Manager.

If the GPSTracker Toolbar icon appears selected, it means that GPSTracker is running. Click on the GPSTracker Toolbar icon to Disable GPSTracker.

When using a TCP port GPSTracker will try to connect to the NMEA TCP server just once, if it fails it will not retry. This means that the TCP server should be running before GPSTracker tries to connect.

When getting NMEA data from a file use the PLayback Speed slider to read data at the same rate that it was recorded (Real Time) or at higher rates.

Select the Update Tab to check for updates and to download the latest GPSTracker version. Click on 'Check for Updates' to check if an update is necessary. Version information will be displayed. Click on 'Update' to download the updated files (they will be listed in the 'List of downloaded files'). If the update is successful it will be necessary to restart WorldWind for the update to take effect.

Known issues

1. To see the icons in the correct position, the 'Vertical Exaggeration to 0' checkbox should be selected. If V. exaggeration is not 0 the icons will be seen in not the exact position depending on the view angle (tilt). (See Usage)


Release Notes

Latest Version is V02R03:

NOTE: To update to V02R03 it is necessary to do a full update as per the 'Installation Instruction' above rather than using the Update Tab.

Additions:

1. Added a maximum speed checkbox under the File tab. If selected, playback of the selected file is done with no delays between NMEA messages.

2. Added a 'Show whole Track at once' checkbox under the File Tab. Selecting this checkbox before adding a file will cause GPSTracker to show the whole file track at once. If this is the first time the selected file is used, GPSTracker will do preprocessing of the file. No preprocessing is done subsequently unless the 'Force Preprocessing' checkbox is selected.

Modifications:

1. Speed up the rendering of the GPS tracks for any type of GPS device (COM, File, etc).


Version is V02R02:

NOTE: To update to V02R02 it is necessary to do a full update as per the 'Installation Instruction' above rather than using the Update Tab.

Additions:

1. Use the General Tab to select some general settings: Select 'Track Heading' if you want the World View heading to 'follow' the heading from the GPS data. Select 'V. Exaggeration to 0' (default) to set the Vertical exaggeration to 0 when GPS Tracker is running. When the V. Exaggeration is 0 the GPS icons are displayed in the correct position, at ground level, as seen from any tilt angle. If V. Exaggeration is not selected then the selected V. Exaggeration will remain effective while GPS Tracker is running. When the V. Exaggeration is not 0 the GPS Icon and track is displayed at the GPS Icon altitude. The icon position is only correct when view straight from above at a 0 degree tilt. Select 'Information Text' to cause the Information text to be shown in all icons. Select 'Track Line' to show the track of the selected gps icon Select 'Record Session' to save into a file the activity of all your GPS devices and POI. If this is selected, when you click 'Track', GPSTracker will save a copy of the activity of all your GPS and POI icons. When you disable GPSTracker a window will pop up asking for the filename you want to select for this session. Session files can be played back by selecting them in the 'Files' tab, just as any other file. If a Session file is selected no other device or POI for the list will be shown. While a session is being recorded you can add POI but they will not be saved. While a session is being played back you can add POI, but they will not be saved.

2. Added a sample session file. It's located under Plugins\GPStracker\SampleSession.GPSTrackerSession.


Version V02R01:

Additions:

1. Select V. Exaggeration to 0 (default) to set the Vertical exaggeration to 0 when GPS Tracker is running. When the V. Exaggeration is 0 the GPS icons are displayed in the correct position, at ground level, as seen from any tilt angle. If V. Exaggeration is not selected then the selected V. Exaggeration will remain efective while GPS Tracker is running. When the V. Exaggeration is not 0 the GPS Icon and track is displayed at the GPS Icon altitud. The icon position is only correct when view straight from above at a 0 degree tilt.

2. Holding 'Right Alt' and clicking on a POI icon will cause all GPS icons to display the distance between the POI and the GPS icon and the bearing from the GPS icon to the selected POI.

Modifications:

1. Speed up the rendering of the icons a little more.

2. Using a slider to select the file Playback Speed.


Version V02R00:

Fixes:

1. There should be no delay between getting the NMEA data from any of the sources and displaying the icon. Before there was a delay that would get longer over time. The icons should be displayed on 'real' real time. As an example, when playing back from a file and selecting a playback speed of more than x1 it will reallyplay back at the selected speed.


Version V01R11:

Modifications:

1. If, for any reason, the selected icon file for a GPS device does not exist anymore, it will be replaced withe the 'GPS X' icon.

Fixes:

1. TCP sockets should be correctly closed down when GPSTracker is disabled.

2. GPSTRacker may fail to load with an 'InvalidDataException ambiguous reference' on lines 3366 and 3368. This should be fixed.


Version V01R10:

Additions:

1. GPSTracker shows up as an Icon in the Toolbar.

2. Set multiple Points of Interest by holding 'Left Shift' and clicking anywhere in the world.

3. Added an Usage Tab. Please read the information in this tab for a complete description on how to use GPSTracker.


Version V01R09:

Additions:

1. Added Track distance to the Information text when the Icon Track line is enabled by Clicking a GPS Icon while pressing 'Left Alt'.

2. Added an Update Tab. In this tab is possible to check for updates and download the latest version of GPSTracker. Once an update is done it is necessary to restart WorldWind.


Version V01R08:

Additions:

1. Clicking a GPS Icon while pressing 'Left Alt' will toggle showing the track line for that Icon on and off. Up to around 1 hour of track line will be displayed at a 1 second GPS messages rate.

2. Show GPS UTC time in the Icon information text.

Modifications:

1. It's now possible to select serial ports from COM1 to COM32.


Version V01R07:

Additions:

1. Added a 'Track Heading' check box. If selected the World View heading will 'follow' the heading from the gps data. "Right Control" + "Left Click" on a GPS Icon toggles this option On and Off.


Version V01R06:

Fixes:

1. GpsTracker should now work on any computer locale setting. This should fix the issue where the NMEA data was not being correctly parsed due to the computer locale setting.


Version V01R05:

Notes:

1. Tested on WorldWind 1.3.2 beta 1 and 1.3.2. Does not work correctly under 1.3.2 beta 2 2. Please update to this version as it improves the rendering of the icons a lot.

Main Features:

1. Tracks multiple GPS devices (1 COM, multiple UDP|TCP and multiple NMEA Files).

2. Displays Icon and information on selected GPS devices.

Fixes:

1. The rendering of the icons and information text is much faster and better than before. There should be almost no delay between getting the NMEA data and displaying the icon. The size of the icons is now constant and they are visible at any altitud. Please read the release notes for more info.

2. The GPSTracker Layer Manager entry works as expected.

3. It was possible to duplicate port numbers between UDP a TCP. This would cause an error.

Links

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