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GPS Toolkit (GPSTk) 1.0 Released
rmach writes "Based on many years of work performed at ARL:UT, we have release GPSTk under the GNU LGPL. GPSTk is a cross platform library and set of applications that provides both fundamental and advanced GPS processing algorithms to the GPS and open source community. A wide array of functions are provided by the GPSTk library, including: RINEX I/O, ephemeris calculation, P-code generation, atmospheric refraction models, and positioning algorithms. GPSTk applications provided more concrete benefits to the user, including: cycle slip detection and removal, calculation of the Total Electron Content (TEC) of the ionosphere, position residual computation, and RINEX file manipulation. The library is about 41,000 SLOC with a COCOMO estimated cost to develop of about $1.3 million. You can also read more about it in the current issue (September '04) of Linux Journal."
SLOC means source lines of code. COCOMO (construction code model) is the name of a method used to estimate costs of development, mostly in person-months needed to finish a project.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
If you use a GPS for geocaching, there is already a set of GPS tools for the Linux user here.
Meh.
I spent two weeks trying to find a way to do this on my Linux box before giving up. I ended up paying out of my rear end to buy expensive Garmin maps and closed source software. Even then, I couldn't mix and match tracks, let alone cut and paste sections of them together to make trail maps.
Depending on exactly what you want to do, there are some in-progress Linux tools that are usable. gpsbabel is a tool that can convert track, route and waypoint files to and from a bunch of different file formats, including the Garmin MapSource files. Some of the file formats are text, so you can do pretty much anything you like by converting to one of those, munging the stuff with your favorite utilities and scripting language, and converting back to MapSource (or whatever).
For visualization and tracking, check out gpsdrive. You can download maps for it from various on-line sites. Rick Richardson's geo-* tools are a bunch of useful bash and (I think, haven't looked lately) perl scripts that do lots of useful things, like making it easy to download maps and stuff. Most of Rick's stuff is focused on geocaching (for which it's really great, BTW, especially in conjunction with gpx2html.
The other feature I've always wanted is to do profile slices of my rides to see climbing and descending rates, especially during races.
I don't know of anything to do this (maybe someone else does?) but if you're a programmer hacking it together yourself wouldn't be too hard, given gpsbabel to convert the data into a mungeable format so you can get the times, positions and altitudes (and I think Rick's code has some stuff for calculating distances).
All in all this toolkit sounds hugely promising, as the last time I looked at SF.net/Freshmeat the capabilities were nearly nil. All I want is a simple import module, track overlay over free downloadable maps, and a track editor...
I don't think this toolkit is what you're looking for. Oh, I forgot to mention, look at gpstrans for transferring data between your Vista and Linux. Works fine, and you don't have to use gpsbabel to get the data in a usable format.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
While I salute and thank the developers here for what looks like may be a useful and valuable package, I just downloaded the library and can see that we're off to a rather bad start.
Unfortunately, the whole build process requres "jam" (a tool from perforce.com). Arrrgghh!
That they are using Perforce is a very bad sign. The whole Perforce system is designed by people who didn't understand basic mathematics (as in Set theory), and consequently it's annoying as heck to use.
Give me BitKeeper or Sun's Teamware (if you have a golden key, and can by-pass the license restrictions) anyday. Or even CVS in a pinch.
But requiring Jam in a distribution? Have these folks never, ever heard of "configure" and autoconf?
Hopefully the rest of the code exhibits some technical cluefulness. But right now, I can see that we're off to a bad start.
To the developers: sorry to give you folks a hard time here, but someone really has to on this.
GPS = global positioning system (but you knew that)
ephemeris calculation = modeling a satellite's orbit based on a handful of numbers, demonstrated by http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/eph_help.html
RINEX = Receiver Independent Exchange Format, http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/CORS/Rinex2.html
SLOC = source lines of code .. a simplistic and rather poor metric used to gauge the effort required to develop software. http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc/
COCOMO = an obsolete software development cost model http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/bu2/COCOMO.html
GPS Visualizer. This site is free and uses SVG to display maps. You can overlay GPX/LOC or track data (among others) over top of maps.
What would be a "killer app" for me would be a OSS tool to do terrain elevation modeling using DTED/DEM/SDTS datasets to do radio network modeling including radio path profiling, LOS profiles including fresnel zone projection. Given GPS coordinates, antennae elevations above ground level (AGL), and frequency and polarization of the radio signal the tool should be able to give path length, azimuth, verticle declination, freznel zone intrusion, etc.
c rodem.htm/ and Radio Mobile http://www.cplus.org/rmw/english1.html/ by Roger Coudé VE2DBE. Both programs have some powerful features, BUT...
Two so-called "free-ware" (as in cost, not OSS!) that I have used are MicroDEM/Terrabase from Prof. Peter Guth of the Oceanography Department, U.S. Naval Academy http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/mi
The problems I have with both of the programs:
1) Buggy
2) Windows Only
3) Not OSS
4) Poor/inconsistent UI
Unfortunately, both of these programs appear to be written by folks who have much more skill/knowledge about the subjects (GIS and radio telemetry) than they do about programming.
If they would only release the code under an OSS licensing scheme, perhaps others (professional SW developers?) could clean up (rewrite?) and improve/expand the capabilities. And we could have cross-platform availability to boot!
The government encrypts the Pseudo Random Code with an encryption key that makes it hard to track.
Y-code is simply encrypted P Code.
Basically, this software package allows you to increase your accuracy, export and import GPS information, and model the ionosphere (a major source of error using the Coarse Acquisition (civilian) signals.
If however, you have higher accuracy requirements like less than 10m @ 95% then you need some form of augmentation....which this software will help you to acquire.
Here's a list of some of the features and what they'll do for you:
hope it helped
If you want to use your gps trakpoints and display them over satellite maps, the best source for maps (in the US) is Microsoft Terraserver which hosts USGS maps. Extracting the maps is another thing. However, there are some really cool tools to do that:
.gpx files, or some other formats. (Thankfully it is very easy to write a tiny program to convert your lat-long to these ASCII formats).
1. USAPhotoMaps. [FREE]This is a very simple interface which can download topology maps (the usual atlas maps), as well as black-and-white satellite imagery (down to 1 m), and color aerial maps (down to 0.25m for select cities.). It can also plot your gps trackpoints on the aerial photos/maps provided the output is in the form of garmin
Cons: cannot plot more than one trackpoint on the map.
2. Quakemap. [Free initially, $9.99 to register]All the above features, plus the ability to plot as many trackpoints as you want plus a much more advanced interface plus the ability to track your gps receiver in real time over a satellite map (provided your receiver gives its output as NMEA). For 10 bucks, you get the ability to store the image files offline so that you can take this on a trip and see your vehicle tracked on cool aerial photos.
There are other tools that can download terraserver maps, but none that has the ease of the above two. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
There is an equivalent tool that does the same on OSX, but I can't recall the name.
Is there any tool that can download aerial photos for free for the rest of the world?
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)