GPS Tools

[troy]

I have no wisdom to share on this subject yet (do I ever?!), but I wanted to throw out some browser-based tools I'm going to investigate. You may recall myself and others touting the virtues of dualsportmaps.com. Well, that product went from OK to bad, and now is probably going to shut down soon.

So once again my brain started spinning with ideas for building my own solution. (I am a browser application software developer after all.) But...what is already out there? I came upon these 3 browser tools that seem mature enough and promise to meet my needs. We shall see!

First up, RideWithGPS. 2 bicycle enthusiast programmer buddies from Oregon started this 6 years ago and it has become their full time job. One of them rides a KLR650, too. They added a 3rd partner--a sponsored bicycle racer--who handles the non programming stuff. I'm very impressed with what I've seen so far, but need to play with it a lot more to know if it will actually do everything I need. It is definitely bicycle focused with some VERY cool features to support that niche--especially folks who train and race.
http://ridewithgps.com/
They have official screencast tutorials.

This one looks very promising! Started a few years ago by a couple of adventure motorcycle guys.
http://www.tyre.tk/

I don't know much about this except a guy posted it in an AdvRider thread saying it's good. At first glance it looks like just a track sharing system, but apparently it offers tools to create/edit tracks, etc.
http://www.everytrail.com/

If any of you get a chance to evaluate these, please follow-up here!

[troy]

I also need to find time to check out this map overlay of trails that Randy has been telling me about.
http://gpsfiledepot.com/maps/view/53/

[Andy]

I've used this once before too, seems to work pretty well:

http://www.wikiloc.com/trails/motorcycling

[troy]

I've used this once before too, seems to work pretty well:

http://www.wikiloc.com/trails/motorcycling

It does not appear that this is a tool to CREATE and EDIT GPS data. It looks like a place to share data. I am interested in that, too, but my focus is to find a great tool to actually REPLACE BaseCamp/MapSource.

I'm playing with RideWithGPS right now and "wow" so far.

[Andy]

I added this weekend:

http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=4230217

[Andy]

I've used this once before too, seems to work pretty well:

http://www.wikiloc.com/trails/motorcycling

It does not appear that this is a tool to CREATE and EDIT GPS data. It looks like a place to share data. I am interested in that, too, but my focus is to find a great tool to actually REPLACE BaseCamp/MapSource.

I'm playing with RideWithGPS right now and "wow" so far.

Ah right, I should re-read threads more often

I use Viking ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/viking/ ) under Linux (there are win/mac versions too) for my GPS editing needs, its not in the "cloud", but it is free and works reasonably well (Although I can't say I've used it much yet).

I'll have to give RideWithGPS a try.

[troy]

I'm SOLD on using http://www.RideWithGPS.com to build tracks. Wow is it good. Really good.

• Click on roads and track line is drawn and snaps to road
• Each time you click to create a new point, the map re-centers so you don't have to keep dragging the map to keep creating your track. (Or at least not as much--depends on your zoom level and how many uneccessary points you want to create.)
• When ready to draw part of track that is not on map roads, just click "Draw Lines" under "When I click..." in right panel. Now each click draws straight point-to-point segments. The snap-to-road and point-to-point lines are blended perfectly in one track without jumping through any hoops.
• Need to see satellite imagery? No problem--just select "Satellite" from the list of available maps. USGS Topo is an option, but took 30 seconds to load them.
• To move a line or point you just click and drag the track. No "mode" you have to switch into or even another tool to select.

I saved my track and exported it as GPX. I then imported into BaseCamp to see what it looked like and how compatible it would be. It was perfect. Easiest track building experience I've ever had. With the right drivers and plugins, you can import and export to/from your device directly from RWGPS. No need to use BaseCamp or MapSource at all.

NOW...the kicker is that it seems waypoints as I'm used to them are not supported. Instead, I think, the idea is to use POIs (Points of Interest). Actually, POI is what I've always wanted, but MapSource and BaseCamp don't let you natively create POIs. Turns out that my Garmin 60CS does not support Garmin's POI Loader application. So it may be POI support that finally forces my hand to purchase a new GPS unit. The 60CSX does support POI Loader.

POIs are what we want anyway (I think). For example, I used Waypoints to mark things such as "gas station", "Cafe", "Cave". Those are really POIs. Plus, POIs, as I understand, allow you to use the same name for multiple points. That is, you can have 10 "Gas" POIs rather than having to uniquely name them like you do with waypoints.

More about Waypoints and POIs

I'm also looking into the ability to add custom map layers (like All Trails, Randy). It does not look like RWGPS allows this, but these guys have built a great product.

My quest continues!