NMEA type export

[auric]

Hi,

First of all, thanks for this superior app that you're creating. I'm loving it and I'm using it as my maps app, better than Google Maps and MyTracks together!

Now, I do have an item on my wishlist. I would love to see NMEA as export type so that the full raw GPS data can be exported as well rather than the converted GPX version.
Don't understand me wrong, GPX is the way to go since all other applications that have one or the other location function use GPX, but I myself am using the raw data once in a while.

I know it might require a different approach, since it requires registering an NMEAListener rather than a normal LocationListener, but however I was wondering whether it could be done :-)

Anyway, you're doing a great job and I thank you very much!

[cseu]

I second that feature.

[Menion]

guys, please test actual testing version (0.9.24.x) which contain this feature is some way. When you select NMEA export in settings (under GPS settings), all you NMEA messages will be saved into one file on SD card. Try and let me know what you think ...

[cseu]

Is it possible to have concurrent versions installed on the same phone ? I remember with OziCE on WM i had my stable version installed and a testing version that was called OziCE_dev like this if something wrong happened on the dev version you could just uninstall it without disturbing the actual stable version. Of course both versions shared the same folder with maps, tracks and waypoints...

[Menion]

No, unfortunately it's not possible. App identification for android system is core package and it have to be still same, so you cannot have two same versions installed on same phone as I know. Anyway, when you have any problems with beta, there is no problem to delete and download new from market hmm?

[auric]

Just did a one minute test and it seems to work well!
One remark though: there are extra newlines inthere.

$GPGSV,4,1,13,04,49,292,24,13,57,208,26,20,50,094,22,23,75,095,27*76

$GPGSV,4,2,13,32,23,090,19,02,15,312,,07,,,,10,21,277,*4D

$GPGSV,4,3,13,11,,,,17,18,229,,24,09,144,,25,00,352,*47

...

It would be nice to have them without that extra line in between:

$GPGSV,4,1,13,04,49,292,24,13,57,208,26,20,50,094,22,23,75,095,27*76
$GPGSV,4,2,13,32,23,090,19,02,15,312,,07,,,,10,21,277,*4D
$GPGSV,4,3,13,11,,,,17,18,229,,24,09,144,,25,00,352,*47
...

[Menion]

ah, my mistake, I'll fix this ..

anyway, question on you is mainly if this system is usable. It's easist what I can do. I can add some setting also but this at least for me looks good ...

[auric]

In one case yes, this is usable: You'll have the NMEA data for the time that Locus is active.
The NMEA recording in this implementation is just an unordered dump of data. Nothing wrong with it of course, mainly since nobody but advanced users will activate the NMEA feature, which is all about recording ALL data available, even (and that is important) the data while no decent signal or even no signal at all is available. From that perspective this implementation will do.

From a users perspective, this is not really user-friendly though. You have a great recording system that can even be paused and everything is split in tracks. So I'm thinking about whether it wouldn't be better record NMEA the way it is chosen in the GUI: if Locus is recording and the "record NMEA" option is activated, then save the NMEA data as well (in filenames containing the date and the time of recording, just like the tracks. Re-start a paused recording will append the data to the file).

The cleanest way of doing this from a users perspective is one step further: provide an extra option during the "Export" function, so that to the user can see one track and have the option to export it as NMEA or as GPX (or both, which immediately raises the need of a new feature: possibility to export multiple formats at the same time   ). However! NMEA recording is very very verbose, because you're logging each single second even when there's no (decent) GPS signal. That is at least 5, probably 8 lines every second. In 24 hours this will generate about 38MB of data! Probably a lot to put in a database :-)

So, while it might be cleaner to have that option to export NMEA rather than save it on sd immediately, it might be the best choice to save it directly anyway due to the large amount of data.
Plus I think it would be better when you can start, pause and stop the recording together with the tracks, keeping in mind that even the no-signal data should be captured.

What do you think?

[cseu]

About the dev version ok i understand... the problem is that i've tested it in the past and i had some glitches, and when i wanted to revert back to the stable version for going on a trip i had to uninstall the dev version in order to reinstall the stable version from the market and i've lost all my preferences... that's a bit of a problem but since there is no other way around i'll deal with it.

About the NMEA feature, works good with internal GPS but it doesn't seem to work with my external BT, everything is checked but it creates no NMEA file in the destination folder. When i switch to internal GPS (after turning off the app) a log file is created and it seems to work. I turn off Locus, delete the nmea logfile, reopen Locus and activate the external GPS, no logfile created.
Tell me if you need to know something more.

[Menion]

hi guys,
  test new testing version 0.9.26.3

- also record NMEA from external bluetooth
- you can record all GPS data or only in same time as track record!

[auric]

That is really great,  trying it out now!

... how is the file naming done btw? I see 2011-03-00 and a -01 and -03 and -04 but they're not made on the first/third/fourth of March...

[Menion]

hmm nice, bug ... fixed. Should be of course by actual date