Help me use tripmaster?

[debaser]

I was really happy to find this forum, because I really didn't want to use my iPhone to record my tracks. Every call I'd get would throw off the phone's GPS for some reason.

I've downloaded and installed Tripmaster with no issues. Trying it out, it records my position fine but there are problems with the time and speed when I open the GPX file in Google Earth.

I use tracks simply to know where I've been in a given day, week, and month. I'm a glorified sales person, I guess, and Google Earth helps me to know what areas I haven't been to in a while. Also it helps me find target businesses again at the end of the day if I did not have time to stop in and talk to them. And it's just all around useful for lots of things, but I really need the time and speed to be somewhat accurate. The time is probably more important.

The problem is, in Google Earth, the "bread crums" display the time in Zulu, and I cannot figure out how to change that. I'm not sure it's anything to do with the TomTom or the Tripmaster because those are displaying the time correctly. Also in Google Earth, the bread crums are displaying the speed at a much lower rate than I was actually going. On my test drive I had Tripmaster running in the background a lot of the time, but the times I did have it in the foreground I seem to remember it being accurate. To give you an example this was Sunday morning and Google Earth has me driving on the freeway at a top speed of 40 mph. I was doing at least 60 and probably more.

I have a feeling the problems are with the Google Earth settings, but I looked through them and couldn't find any to change the time. I have no idea why the speed is lower. If you guys could help me correct even just one of these issues, I could then use the TomTom to record my tracks instead of the phone. I'd be very grateful for that.

And since I've told you how I use it, perhaps you can possibly give me some tips on how I could better utilize Tripmaster and/or Google Earth?

Hardware/Software:

Google Earth 6.0
TomTom XL-s IQ Routes
Version 9.056

 

[debaser]

I understand now that GPX files only store time data relative to Zulu or Universal time. But the speed thing is still bugging me. Can anyone help with that?

 

[alfie67]

It appears the server was down for a number of days, and in the process of getting back onlne there was an unfortunate loss of 10 days postings.

Any luck with your parameter changes? Any other questions or comments, will try to pick it up where we left off.

 

[debaser]

Man. I don't remember everything I'd written.

The problem I'm having with these GPS generated files now is that the points make an ugly, wide line when I zoom out in Google Earth. I can remove them, but if I want to look at the last six weeks, that's 25 or so files I'll have to go through and uncheck those little boxes. GPS provides more data, and it is helpful, but the main reason I track my route is so I can get a quick glance of what parts of town I've visited during a set amount of time.

I wonder if there's a way to make Google Earth leave those boxes unchecked unless I manually check them myself? If so I'm pretty sure I can work with tripmaster to reduce the file sizes. I had it set to record every second. The reason was so if I went around a corner my track would be smooth. I'm not sure if four seconds would make any difference. Maybe I should set it to record every x feet.

I haven't had time to mess with it this weekend, but tomorrow the working week starts up again.

Thanks for your help and suggestions. I really appreciate it.

 

[alfie67]

Yes, we unfortunately did lose quite a bunch!

Unfortunately I'm not aware of a way to uncheck the stickpins recorded by Tripmaster in Google Earth. Perhaps someone else on the forums could help?

If all your corners are 90 degrees, you could set your 'Logs' Course parameter in Tripmaster to 90 degrees, and it will automatically log that corner for you. If you choose 45 degrees, it will record two 45 degree logs for each 90 degree corner. If you're running curved roads, the log will only record the course change angle you designate (e.g. set 10 degrees as the Course angle, then every 10 degree course change will result in a stickpin).

I have my around-town parameters set to 80 degrees Course, 5 miles Distance, and Period zero seconds. Experiment to get your own maximum course recording with minimum stickpin messyness.

 

[debaser]

Hm. A lot of the roads around here are weird and do not turn at 90 degrees. And when I'm gong through the river bottoms the roads wind a lot, so I wouldn't even know where to begin with all those parameters.

But your post makes me thing of something. The way you have your settings, if you drive along a road with a gentle curve but it's only recording a point every five miles, don't you just end up with a bunch of straight lines in Google Earth? I can't have straight lines...I need it to actually follow the roads I go on.

I may be confused about how this whole thing works.

 

[alfie67]

Again, it depends on your application. I don't mind if I have straight lines posted on Google Earth since most of my routes are along relatively straight roads, and it's not important for me to have every jog in the road recorded. I just want the general picture of areas I've travelled. However, if I'm deep-woods geocaching and I desire an exact trail in order to backtrack out of the woods, I set my parameters accordingly. Or, if I'm biking in a state park and there are multiple paths from which to choose, I change the parameters, or. I do manual entry points to exactly record each decision point.

If only the speeds recorded accurately when using gpx format, this would all be irrelevant . . .

 

[debaser]

I haven't tried km/h in it, but I think I will do that tomorrow to see if it is accurate. Maybe it's just a conversion problem. I mean the GPS would definitely now how fast it's going or else it wouldn't work right at all.