So you have GPS data? Now you can analyze the heck out of your speed runs!

[Tomy.]

Click link below to download.
Download here.
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Teaser pictures from one of my Protos 380 runs :-) one image says more then a 1000 words. I'm putting details in the next reply.

[Tomy.]

So you're still reading this thread? OK, then here are some details. Ah, and an ASK too at the end .

After running (and winning) the under-500 class at RCHN3 I also was bitten (at least a little) by the speed bug. I have not been very active in speed, but recently I started to build a dedicated bird, and I was thinking, how could I use GPS data to improve my performance, technique, as well as give me a fairly precise speed indication (that is, AVERAGE through the course, not max).

So, since I'm a software dev by treat, I spent some of my free time in the past 2 months with an application that can take GPS telemetry data and turn it into useful and visual, human-digestible form. What started as a simple little powershell script, grew into a more serious Windows app (sorry Mac guys ). And it's getting ready for mass-consumption!

This is what the app can do:

• Load GPS data. Since I'm using Spektrum (stop laughing) I only have my own Spektrum GPS files that I used to write one import plugin. This is where you guys come in, but more about that later.
• Filter/refine the data. I implemented a Kalman filter generally used in GPS applications, communications, space program and other areas for high quality filtering and data smoothing. The crappy Spektrum GPS data suddenly looks beautiful . If you have a very reliable GPS data source, this can be turned off in settings.
• Find the flight location and get actual ground altitude data online from the Google Maps API to adjust the GPS' altitude readings. I found that the Spektrum altitude data can be off by 15-20 feet, so the program can recalculate the altitude data from matching the take-off altitude with that location's actual ground altitude. Neat stuff.
• Estimate/calculate (in general, just figure out) where the speed course is (of course, you need to set if you were trying to do long course or short course). If you do actual speed flying (not just messing around), from your flight pattern it's fairly simple to get a good estimated course (flight line, staging, actual course etc. ). This is where things get interesting! Look at the attached Google Earth shots, the course on the ground is drawn by my program. The green area is the 120m short course. The red area is the pre-staging.
• Now we have a course geometry and flight data, the program figures out where your individual left-right and right-left passes are in the GPS dataset.
• Now, let's calculate average and max speed for each pass within the course. These are the numbers after all that we are very much interested in (the faster you fly the more respect you have in the speed community right? )
• The program also checks your altitudes to let you know if you were within the official altitude range.
• At the end, you can export it all into Google Earth and visualize your speed course on the ground, the individual passes, look at your speed and altitude analysis. Say with me, party time!

Cool, you're still with me? So why is this really exciting? Because, using the data and the Google Earth 3D images, you can:

• Work on making your passes straight and level
• Practice staying within altitude range through the entire course
• Move your turns just outside the staging area
• Most importantly know your average speeds across the entire course and the flight!
• And more...

And now my little ask. So it works for most, or ALL of us!

[Tomy.]

This is where you guys come into the picture. I'd love to share this with all of us (yes, I'm stupid like that I believe in free stuff ).

I only have my own GPS data to work with. So unless the whole world runs on Spektrum (did you say no?) I am willing to spend a little more time on it and write import modules for the most popular GPS data sets. Hence I NEED SOME DATA.

If you have GPS data from speed runs that you don't mind to share, shoot me a PM. It'd be cool also if you responded here so I can keep track of the type of data I'm collecting.

I'd really like to get CSV, XML or TXT format files. So if you have a utility on your laptop, radio etc. that can export GPS data in a non-binary format, run that for me. The problem with the binary formats is that those are usually hard to decode, and proprietary, and manufacturers don't like to share their file specs with the world. For example I use the free SPMTLMViewer app to export the GPS data set from the Spektrum telemetry file as CSV.

Thanks for reading till here. Go, have a beer and chill. And of course, send me your GPS files soon .
Cheers!
Tamas

[Tomy.]

More app captures:


Settings:


Altitude view (red is outside the official alt range):


Top view:

[slikwrik]

this is awesome, thanks for sharing!!

[Dansy]

Interesting.....unfortunately I didn't keep any of my files they were not very good run anyway and now winter is here for good, so no speed run until spring time for me.

I have the JETI GPS and the PowerBox II more then willing to help in the spring if it's still requires.

[Tomy.]

Originally Posted by Dansy

Interesting.....unfortunately I didn't keep any of my files they were not very good run anyway and now winter is here for good, so no speed run until spring time for me.

I have the JETI GPS and the PowerBox II more then willing to help in the spring if it's still requires.

Daniel, same here no flying. The Northwest sucks in the winter. Thanks for offering, I'll get back to you on this depending on how things go. I expect that PowerBox 2 and Jeti are a popular choice, I hope to see data from a few folks with that setup.

[felopaul]

where we can find this software ?

[Dansy]

The power box 2 seem to be very popular the reason I got one to try

[Tomy.]

Originally Posted by felopaul

where we can find this software ?

If you use Spektrum, I can send it over to you. Otherwise you will not be able to use it yet, best thing is if you can send me GPS data from your system, I will work on the import module and get it back to you for testing out when the importer for your data is done.

[aziz76]

Very nice work, well done

[Olivier31]

Great !

[Tomy.]

Thanks for those who contacted me over here above, or in PM and said a few nice words, it means a lot!

Progress update:
I've got data files from Paul over in the UK (wadders248) and I'm working on the Jeti logger plugin to be able to pull those in, I am done with a large part, now just working out some kinks.

If anyone has more files (Jeti/Powerbox or other!), please send me when you can, I'm planning to have the Jeti importer done by end of this week, maybe sooner so I can post the entire installer. It'd be great if I could run it through more files from different folks to make sure it handles certain data types and scenarios well.

Thanks Paul for the files, HUGE help!

[Tomy.]

Originally Posted by felopaul

where we can find this software ?

Are you using Jeti? If so, I'll post the download here probably around Thursday for the new version with the Jeti logger import plugin so you can start playing with it.

[Tomy.]

I'm done with the Jeti plugin and it handles all the data types that I could dug up info about. I also fixed a few more things, and made the course layout finder more precise. See the pics below, where in Google Earth the program overlays with the course it "thinks" you flew. Here are 2 examples from the logs I received.
I will finish the testing tonight and will post the beta up here that supports Spektrum and the Jeti logger.

First one is from Kilo, thanks for the files Rob! This was your fastest flight 2 passes with your Protos 380, a top right-left with 97.37mph average and left-right 110.84mph (guess where the wind was blowing from?). Came to an actual average l-r and r-l speed of 104.1mph!

Second one is from Paul (wadders248) top averages are left-right 145.6mph and right-left 154.27mph, flight average is 149.93mph (241.3kph)!

[wadders248]

Thank you Tamas for taking the time to produce the plugin. This is going to be really useful for training and trying new things!

Though I now want to fly where Kilo is flying... much more space.

[Tomy.]

I've the first public version 0.8.1 here.
Installer for Windows

It supports importing the Jeti's *.log file and the Spektrum's *.csv file (exported from spmtlmviewer).
If you are running into issues let me know. No doc/help file so far, it'll come soon.
If anyone wants to support any other file, type let me know!

[felopaul]

can you just give order data in a csv file ? for other radio system.

thank you

[Tomy.]

Originally Posted by felopaul

can you just give order data in a csv file ? for other radio system.

thank you

Please shoot me a PM with the details of what you'd like and I'll take care of it.

[KiloXray]

That's super cool Tomy!

Thank you for your work!