I would like to use my GPS receiver to analyze my commute.
May 21, 2008 12:11 PM Subscribe
I'm a data dork. Is there a way to rip my tracks and my trip odometer data from my Garmin 60CSx to analyze my commutes to work?
I have no intention of monkeying with the device while driving. I want to turn on the GPS receiver, get a fix and head into work. The 60CSx will track driving data like avg speed, highest speed, stop time, etc. It will also record the track. I would like to take both the trip data and the track data and go over it. I live in a county that has inefficient throughways. I want to drive a couple different routes to see which is the most efficient. And yes, I'm fully aware this is nerdy. ; )
I have no intention of monkeying with the device while driving. I want to turn on the GPS receiver, get a fix and head into work. The 60CSx will track driving data like avg speed, highest speed, stop time, etc. It will also record the track. I would like to take both the trip data and the track data and go over it. I live in a county that has inefficient throughways. I want to drive a couple different routes to see which is the most efficient. And yes, I'm fully aware this is nerdy. ; )
Oh btw, I live in the Chicago burbs (NW) too, so I'd be interested in what you come up with.
posted by desjardins at 12:45 PM on May 21, 2008
posted by desjardins at 12:45 PM on May 21, 2008
Response by poster: Nice, thanks for the help and I'll definitely share what I come up with.
BTW, the username... you a hockey fan or do you like in a town that has "Gardens" in the name?
posted by timmins at 1:38 PM on May 21, 2008
BTW, the username... you a hockey fan or do you like in a town that has "Gardens" in the name?
posted by timmins at 1:38 PM on May 21, 2008
Hockey fan? I have no idea to what you're referring. I just like the French language, and gardens.
posted by desjardins at 1:43 PM on May 21, 2008
posted by desjardins at 1:43 PM on May 21, 2008
Response by poster: Ah, OK. I was thinking you were either an Eric Desjardins fan or you lived near a small town in the NW burbs.
posted by timmins at 1:58 PM on May 21, 2008
posted by timmins at 1:58 PM on May 21, 2008
Another 60CSX owner here. Get a decent-sized MicroSD card (2GB ones are under $20) and set the GPS to log to the card. You can then download the GPX tracks by connecting your GPS via USB mass storage. Nerdliness follows.
Seconding EasyGPS, though Garmin's own software is decent. You might need GPSBabel to convert the tracks to CSV. Measuring distances is a lot easier if you use UTM coordinates - you can get by assuming they are metric cartesian coordinates, and work from there.
(posted from a train somewhere near 44.22462 N, 77.07437 W.)
posted by scruss at 4:13 PM on May 21, 2008
Seconding EasyGPS, though Garmin's own software is decent. You might need GPSBabel to convert the tracks to CSV. Measuring distances is a lot easier if you use UTM coordinates - you can get by assuming they are metric cartesian coordinates, and work from there.
(posted from a train somewhere near 44.22462 N, 77.07437 W.)
posted by scruss at 4:13 PM on May 21, 2008
Response by poster: scruss: That's basically what I was doing. The problem is the trip data doesn't get logged with the track data. I guess I could jot it down manually at the end of every trip but that's what I was trying to avoid.
I guess if worse comes to worst I can fire up my Edge 305 and log the trip.
posted by timmins at 5:59 PM on May 21, 2008
I guess if worse comes to worst I can fire up my Edge 305 and log the trip.
posted by timmins at 5:59 PM on May 21, 2008
by trip data you mean the route that Mapsource or your GPS picked out for you?
Your 60Csx will, every N seconds (where N is user-selectable) record your current position to the track log. From this, you can work out your speed (= distance/time, between adjacent track points). It's a bit harder to tell the length of your stops, as there will be a bit of noise in your position, and it may appear that you're actually drifting within a small circle rather than staying still.
posted by scruss at 7:46 PM on May 21, 2008
Your 60Csx will, every N seconds (where N is user-selectable) record your current position to the track log. From this, you can work out your speed (= distance/time, between adjacent track points). It's a bit harder to tell the length of your stops, as there will be a bit of noise in your position, and it may appear that you're actually drifting within a small circle rather than staying still.
posted by scruss at 7:46 PM on May 21, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by desjardins at 12:44 PM on May 21, 2008