Now that GPS is working on the FreeRunner I made a track log of my commute to test it out. It's pretty easy to get log data off of the FreeRunner and plot it on the web in a Google Map:
- First, install tangoGPS. The latest tangoGPS packages for the FreeRunner, and instructions for installing them, are available from this page. It usually takes my FreeRunner a couple of minutes to get its first fix. If you are having problems, OpenMoko's AGPS program may be able to give some debugging information.
- TangoGPS will appear as an application called "GPS & Map". To record tracks, go to the "Track" tab and click "Start" (and then "Stop", obviously, when you're done).
- TangoGPS will save the track log in /tmp (by default, but it's configurable) in a file with the extension .log and named after the current date/time. When you get back to a computer, scp that file over.
- GPX is a commonly used format for representing GPS track data. You will need to convert your log data to GPX using convert2gpx.pl, a script provided by TangoGPS. Download it, make it executable, and use it like so: ./convert2gpx.pl inputlogfile.log > outputfile.gpx.
- There are some web sites which will let you upload a GPX file and then plot it on a Google Map. gpsvisualizer.com is one of them. It will give your map a semi-persistent URL so you can show it to your friends for a short time.
