GPS Sight

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== Testing the device ==
 
== Testing the device ==
The device has been tested outdoors where it shows the correct location and altitude. The speed indicator has been tested on the train, correctly showing the speed of about 100 km/h.  
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The device has been tested outdoors where it shows the correct location and altitude. The speed indicator has been tested on the train, correctly showing the speed of about 100 km/h. The distance meter also seems operating correctly.
 
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Nobody yet tested, how accurate the distance counter is (please update this information if you ever tried).
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== Project organization ==
 
== Project organization ==

Revision as of 07:03, 25 April 2008

The summary tab
The map tab (walking forward and back through the same street)

The GPS Sight is a GTK based project to create a usable GUI tool with the simple output (no maps). It detects GPRMC and GPGGA messages and constantly shows the following data on the screen:

  • Location.
  • Speed in kilometers per hour (converts from knots).
  • Altitude
  • Curved distance from the initially marked point (uses advanced IERC 2003 geodetic reference to convert degrees into kilometers).
  • Number of the satellites.
  • Time (UTM, not a local time).

Since the 0.0.2 release the application also has the "map" tab which shows the covered path. The map adjusts its scale automatically. The horizontal and vertical scales of the map are equal.

The source code of this project is available in the project page (http://projects.openmoko.org/projects/gpv/), under LGPL. The project uses GTK framework and C programming language.

The GPS Preview program (gpv) is released either in .ipk file or in the form of the source code. The released installer still needs the gllin to run, but, if needed, can start it itself. Gllin could be replaced by any other driver that works with agreed pipe (currently /tmp/nmeaNP) and our dream is to drop the dependencies from that proprietary piece of software forever.

Inside the project

The most interesting part of this project was to keep the external driver thread and GUI thread sufficiently happy together. We cannot just read from the pipe in a loop as this blocks the GUI repainting! Instead, the code schedules the GTK timer, and then it needs to check if any input from the pipe is available - again, without blocking the current thread for too long. This is done using select function which can check the given stream for the availability of input, passing the certain time-out duration. This time-out seems also tricky: if the value or 0.1 s or less is passed on the Neo, function never reports any input present. However too large values block GUI in the input check step. The code now has a kind of adaptation, gradually increasing the duration of this check if there is no input available for a while.

The distance counter tries to track the curved distance, not the "bird flight" distance between two points. It adds the shifts in space, computing the length of the lat/long degrees into meters in accordance to the IERS 2003 goedetic reference - very new and not yet widely used in geography.

It was some work to fullfil the natural requirement to have the equal scaling for the map. The length of the degree of the longitude (in meters) varies dramatically depending on the geographical location. This must be taken into consideration, computing the degree length first. The automatic scaling allows to use the map tab when working with relatively small distances (hundreds of meters of even less).

Testing the device

The device has been tested outdoors where it shows the correct location and altitude. The speed indicator has been tested on the train, correctly showing the speed of about 100 km/h. The distance meter also seems operating correctly.

Project organization

The project uses CVS to host the most recent source code and all build environment and sometimes does releases of .ipk binaries and plain gzipped source code. Project also uses Wiki page to describe various technical aspects.

Personal tools
The summary tab
The map tab (walking forward and back through the same street)

The GPS Sight is a GTK based project to create a usable GUI tool with the simple output (no maps). It detects GPRMC and GPGGA messages and constantly shows the following data on the screen:

  • Location.
  • Speed in kilometers per hour (converts from knots).
  • Altitude
  • Curved distance from the initially marked point (uses advanced IERC 2003 geodetic reference to convert degrees into kilometers).
  • Number of the satellites.
  • Time (UTM, not a local time).

Since the 0.0.2 release the application also has the "map" tab which shows the covered path. The map adjusts its scale automatically. The horizontal and vertical scales of the map are equal.

The source code of this project is available in the project page (http://projects.openmoko.org/projects/gpv/), under LGPL. The project uses GTK framework and C programming language.

The GPS Preview program (gpv) is released either in .ipk file or in the form of the source code. The released installer still needs the gllin to run, but, if needed, can start it itself. Gllin could be replaced by any other driver that works with agreed pipe (currently /tmp/nmeaNP) and our dream is to drop the dependencies from that proprietary piece of software forever.

Inside the project

The most interesting part of this project was to keep the external driver thread and GUI thread sufficiently happy together. We cannot just read from the pipe in a loop as this blocks the GUI repainting! Instead, the code schedules the GTK timer, and then it needs to check if any input from the pipe is available - again, without blocking the current thread for too long. This is done using select function which can check the given stream for the availability of input, passing the certain time-out duration. This time-out seems also tricky: if the value or 0.1 s or less is passed on the Neo, function never reports any input present. However too large values block GUI in the input check step. The code now has a kind of adaptation, gradually increasing the duration of this check if there is no input available for a while.

The distance counter tries to track the curved distance, not the "bird flight" distance between two points. It adds the shifts in space, computing the length of the lat/long degrees into meters in accordance to the IERS 2003 goedetic reference - very new and not yet widely used in geography.

It was some work to fullfil the natural requirement to have the equal scaling for the map. The length of the degree of the longitude (in meters) varies dramatically depending on the geographical location. This must be taken into consideration, computing the degree length first. The automatic scaling allows to use the map tab when working with relatively small distances (hundreds of meters of even less).

Testing the device

The device has been tested outdoors where it shows the correct location and altitude. The speed indicator has been tested on the train, correctly showing the speed of about 100 km/h. The distance meter also seems operating correctly.

Project organization

The project uses CVS to host the most recent source code and all build environment and sometimes does releases of .ipk binaries and plain gzipped source code. Project also uses Wiki page to describe various technical aspects.