Usecase 1.2

As already mentioned in one of the previous posts I’m playing around with GPS technology, trying different use cases. One of them is tracking own position using a GPS Mouse and cell phone. The minimum requirement was to track position data (x,y,z) and store it on a flash card inserted in the cell phone, connected to GPS receiver via Bluetooth. After a short search on the Internet I found GPS Track (version 1.1) free software, packaged as Java Middlet for use on any J2ME compatible cell phone.

After the simple installation the basic setup on the cell phone have to be executed. The main menu of the software is structured as folows:

  • start: start the tracking / changed to stop, if tracking is running
  • tracks: manipulation of already recorded tracks (track menu)
    • details: name, records(number of points), memory usage
    • upload to web site: to upload to the http://qcontinuum.org/map and to be displayed as an overlay on the Google Maps
    • send via email: Send the track file by E-Mail (Google Earth .kml, GPS Exchange .gpx, Excel .csv)
    • transfer via bluetooth: Send the track file by Bluetooth (Object-Push) (Google Earth .kml, GPS Exchange .gpx, Excel .csv)
    • write to local file: Write the track file locally (Google Earth .kml, GPS Exchange .gpx, Excel .csv)
    • delete
  • options: basic options on units, tracks and backlight

After the basic setup and the established connection between the GPS Track and the Bluetooth device (the connection established is stored, so you need to setup only once) the tracking can be started. During the tracking several screens are available and can be switched using options->next.

Track Status

  • Name: Name of the track, created from the recording date and time
  • Records: number of records (measurements)
  • Speed: current speed
  • Distance: track length from the beginning of the measurement
  • No Fix: time during tracking, the receiver is not able to determine its position
  • Stationary: the receiver can determine its position and is not moving
  • Moving: the receiver can determine its position and is moving

GPS Status

  • GMT: current time (satellite time?)
  • Latitude, Longitude, Altitude: current coordinates
  • Heading: direction of moving
  • Satellites: number of satellites from that the signal is received

GPSTrack

An embedded compass (also available separately without GPS at http://qcontinuum.org/compass/)  showing the position of the Sun/Moon. In addition the position of the satellites is displayed on the compass.

Summary

I played around with GPS track and recorded several tracks. The tracks varied from short to pretty long (~70 km). Basically, I’m satisfied with the functions the software offers to me. Because of the source code is available, i’ll have a look on it and may be will refactor some UI or possible drill one or another additional feature in to it. Especially the UI is very primitive, so I think that the information can be presented much more compact, using one screen instead of three.

 

 

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