Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Geek chic

This should lead to some fun: I've bought myself a tiny GPS receiver which will fit on the bike. The image to the left is this morning's drive/ride data downloaded, transformed by magnalox, pushed into Google Earth and saved as a screenshot. The route is represented by the wireframe, and speed (the red line) and altitude (the blue line) are displayed as a graph. Elapsed time is superimposed onto the map itself. Click the image to enlarge. It looks even better in 3D.

Hours of fun will no doubt ensue, although my longer term experiment with this technology may yet prove a useful way to record the route of Audax rides for future reference. By riding the route and making the file available, it might help remove some of the navigational uncertainty from events. In addition, it could be a useful way for people to log their rides, either as verification, or simply as a record for for their later enjoyment.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very impressive! Hours of endless amusement in front of the computer.

You really must come down to Tassie for the Giro Tasmania 1000 over Australia Day w/e, I would love to know the total altitude gain.

Cheers

Tim

David Killick said...

I ride to get me away from the computer. Now I've found a a way to take the computer with me!

I'll give the 1,000 some serious thought. I promise.

Treadly and Me said...

Oooooooh, yeah. I think I've gotta get me one of them...

That's very cool—but what's going on at the tail end, where you went shooting out through Docklands Stadium and ended up in the middle of Flemington Racecourse?!?

David Killick said...

Some people have sharp eyes! That's the way I go - I also do short stretches along the bottom of the Maribynong River!

Seriously though - that was the first time I used the unit in earnest and I think I didn't clear the track memory properly. I seem to have mastered it more now and those odd little artefacts don't appear. The program I've been using to upload the data allows you to edit that stuff out too. It only appears at the beginning and the end of each journey. There must be a sensible reason for it - it's probably even in the manual, which I must get around to reading.

As soon as I'm over this flu, I'll be able spend a bit more time mastering the operation of said unit.