CityDashBoard TalesofThings MapTube
Qrator Tutorials About Digital Urban
MRes ASAV SurveyMapper Contact Us

2007-04-15

Nokia N95 Tracking from San Francisco to Santa Barbara

We have run a couple of posts recently on the GPS functionality of the Nokia N95, most notably using the Sports Tracker application to track a train in London. We continue this theme, this time tracking our 5 hour drive from San Francisco to Santa Barbara, California.

The interesting issues here are firstly the time covered - 5 hours - presenting an interesting spatial/temporal visualisation and secondly the fact that Sports Tracker was used at the same time as the general mapping application.

Previously we had used Sports Tracker as the main application, thus losing the ability to navigate as the tracker does not yet include a general map overview. To solve this you can set Sports Tracker running and then continue to use the phone for any other use, in our case general GPS navigation.

The ability to run tracker in the background means that you can view the map secure in the knowledge that your speed and route is being logged for later visualisation in Google Earth.

With a top speed of 137km/h and covering 508km you can view our entire route in Google Earth

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:05 AM

    Hey Andy, thanks for sharing. I think your track looks better if you change the altitude setting to "relative" to ground instead of "Absolute". Then it doesn't disappear under the terrain in places.

    Hope you're enjoying your visit to the USA. Let me know next time you're headed out this way and I'll try to be in the same part of the country and buy you a drink.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very interesting stuff andy.
    Couldn't help but notice the top speed- 85mph and on a corner!- didn't realise american cars had been designed to go round corners never mind at speed!- (apologies USA folk- couldn't resist the cheap dig after driving a mustang in NC).

    I've just completed a cycling trip John o'Groats to Lands end (http://johnogroatslandsend.blogspot.com/)and this kit would have been really useful, instead I resorted to the 2d google maps, which proved very effective anyway, thanks mostly to your posts- cheers andy!

    ReplyDelete
  3. check out some of my tracks

    http://raymasky.googlepages.com

    ReplyDelete