GPS maps

I mentioned this a while back but I'll (eventually) add integrated support for mapping GPS data via Microsoft Virtual Earth. The parsing of a GPX file into an embedded VE map surface works fine - it's just a question of integration.

While chatting with my wife about this she suggested colour coding the route line to match HR or EPOC levels to give a clear indication of exertion overlayed on the route. I think it's a pretty good idea - does anyone have any other suggestions? I'd like to do 'real' altitude profiles but haven't spend a great deal of time looking into that - for devices that record altitude there's no real gain, but some, including mine don't.

I don't personally have much GPS data available. My unit is tiny, but fiddly and since my laptop upgrade to Vista x64 doesn't have drivers. I need to get around to doing a x86 build under VMware to start using it again.

Speed in Pace

Travis asked about "Speed in Pace" charts (min/mi or min/km). Assuming I understood what he wanted they're pretty simple so I've thrown them in.


Currently they're derived automatically but the filtering needs a little work as the next screenshot shows

Activities are selected for inclusion by having (Max Speed > 0) but clearly this isn't sufficient. The easy way doing this is to do (Max Speed > 0) && (Distance > n) where n is some distance that signifies a real session. In my case this rules out wearing of the foot pod to a circuit class.

So, does that sound like a good idea? n would obviously be configurable and I suppose a manual selection of activities is a good idea but one that would probably have to wait a while.

Secondly, the phrase "I do 8 minute miles" is pretty common, but I'm not sure about km's? Currently the application renders speeds and distances based on your local settings (km's for for me). Do people in metric parts of the world refer to this as "I do 6.5 minute km's" or persist with the imperial measurement?

The axis labels need a bit of work too.

Altitude normalization

One of the things that annoys me about STraM is it's handling of altitude data. Most of my running and cycling follow a few routes where I know the starting altitude (that's sea level for me).


I'm pretty crap about resetting the altitude in the morning when I go out and it annoys me that there's many of my sessions where according to STraM I've dug out the lamp and canary, put the helmet on and headed down the mine instead of getting out on the bike.













Enter Altitude Normalization which allows you to adjust the altitude figures to compensate for errors in the pressure derived altitude measurements. The idea is that if you know either the high point or the low point for anywhere along the route, you can have the application calculate the offset and display the altitude profile with the 'real' figures. The changes are non-destructive and can be changed or removed at any time.

Slowly

Optimisim. It's a wonderful thing but sneaky. Late nights, weekend kayaking, zooming around Sydney harbour on an unseasonably warm mid-winter day on a friend's 'speedboat', work pressures, the resumption of Top Gear on TV and a cold/sore throat that I just cannot shake have consipred against me.


The last week has seen a bunch of really supportive comments and encouragement which is fantastic - while this started off as a personal project it's great to think that it will be useful. Nevertheless progress has been slower than I wanted. But, I'm on vacation next week (a visit to relations in NZ before moving to the other side of the world in 6 weeks or so) and am hoping to achieve the following;

• Fix up the database stuff. Up until now I've been operating against a backup of the suunto data - just in case. That needs to change to the real stuff, and I need to deal with the differences between X32 and X64. Cater for non-english installs too.
• Add copy chart to clipboard functions where they're still needed
• Fix up the menu graphics - some of the drop down menu icons are freakishly LARGE
• For session details, add rendering of multiple sessions on the same chart
• Investigate printing - no expectations on that one, but I've got to start looking at it.
• Session export to .csv

Right now, only #1 is really important as that's what's holiding up a alpha/beta release for you kind folks. The most recent comment from Adam sounds like a fantastic idea and I'd like to chat more on it. Unfortunately Blogger ate my detailed reply and I'm not sure how I can securely exchange email without posting my address directly to the page. This fred.deleteme.bloggs@whatever.com really doesn't weed out spam these days, either.

Otherwise, this week has seen some incremental changes to the session detail.