Outdoor Recreation Archive

fēnix 5 Series Giant map with all your hikes

Giant map with all your hikes

Former Member over 8 years ago

This isn't strictly related to the Garmin Fenix 5x but it might be something some of you are interested in. I have created a page with various maps and GPX tracks are shown on said maps.

I've stumbled upon a few obstacles:

The first method is quite data intensive for my server
The third is the easiest to do but when you zoom in on the track, each waypoint has a marker
The forth map is arguably the best as it's the least data intensive for my server, and there's only one waypoint. It's the most time consuming to produce as you have to remove the points in Google Earth
Garmin Connect website does not let you export multiple GPX files at once, you have to click each activity one by one
Garmin Connect website does not honour your safe zone settings in privacy options, so you have to befriend yourself
Google could remove fusion tables and puff goes your map

It's early days yet but I think it could end up looking cool :).

0 jim_m_58 over 8 years ago

Have you looked at using basecamp?

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

I've tried basecamp but importing all the files into Google is the biggest problem. If I export from the Garmin Connect website as a Google Earth file, that works the best as I can edit that in notepad. However, a lot of my tracks are coming up with an apache error when I go to download. If I could turn the fit files into something more useable with basecamp that might solve the problem but when you export as kml, it's not formatted the same as when you export using the website.

0 jim_m_58 over 8 years ago

You tried just plugging in the watch and having basecamp read right from it? Or is this all historical stuff you are dealing with?

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

I don't see the relevance. I'm talking about having all hikes displayed on a webpage. How would basecamp help with that? I'm a bit confused.

0 jim_m_58 over 8 years ago

basecamp can import and display them, and for web posting, just a screen shot? Maybe I'm confused. :)

0 ggtriguy over 8 years ago

Not sure if this would work for you or not, but over the years, I've uploaded all my GPX tracks to Strava and they have heat maps now.

Global (all strava data) heat map:
http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#8/-7.10266/53.46189/blue/bike

My personal heat map from 2014 running data
https://www.strava.com/athletes/7712/heatmaps/271b85e4#11/48.74895/-122.43164
They let you do cycling or running, not all activities (my running heat map includes my hikes). You can choose to generate by year, or all into one.

My all time run/hike heat map with data from 2006 - 2017
https://www.strava.com/athletes/7712/heatmaps/5195ac07#8/48.46439/-121.94962

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

I've found the problem. The KML file when exported from a GPX file has a list of coordinates for the track, and it also has a list of "points". If you open this up in Google Earth, you can move one of the points (which will be your marker on the map) out of the "points folder" and then empty the points folder of its thousands of points, then export as KML. The problem with this is that it's extremely time consuming. If I edit the file in notepad, I can do something similar but again it's time consuming. It's not that Google Fusion is doing anything wrong per se, it's just being given too much data.

I've tried using GPSBabel, Basecamp, etc. but the only quick method I've found relies on importing the GPX file into MyMaps on Google which obviously isn't viable due to the 5MB limitation. I'm not as fond of the Strava Heatmaps because you can't click on a hike and it shows average speed, when you hiked, etc.

0 MarkusGL over 8 years ago

Look at the latest features on www.wikiloc.com .
Once logged, you can view all your activities in a world map (Log in -> Your profile -> Show map).

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Thanks for the suggestion, that site is good :). Interestingly, I uploaded a Garmin FIT file to wikiloc, then downloaded it as a KML file and uploaded that to a Google Fusion table, and it's almost perfect.

I wish I knew what magic these sites were doing to Garmin FIT files/GPX files/KML files. They (Google Maps too) somehow strip out all the unnecessary points from the KML file leaving one at the start and one at the end, they also leave the coordinates for the track. Unfortunately, the KML exported from that site doesn't contain much information about the hike e.g. when it was created.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

After a bit of research, fusion tables is definitely the way I want to go. I have created an example with two tracks.

The point row determines the point colour on the map.
The colour row determines the colour of the track.

When you click a point on the map, it gives a bit of information, and when you click the track itself it gives a bit more.

If you convert a GPX file to KML without modifying the data, and upload it directly to the table, it will show a million points and this is no good. I am going to get in touch with a few coders (I don't know how to do this myself but I'm sure it's fairly easy) to see if they are able to strip data from a FIT/GPX/KML file, alternatively if a program could convert FIT files into usable KML files (Basecamp can export files but it will still show a million points, and Google Earth can do it in a roundabout way but it's slow and messy), it would be incredibly quick to create a map full of tracks.