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Subject:KMZ Files 

ChrisM

11:16
Wednesday
24-Sep-2008

Location:
Bedfordshire, UK

Phone Model:
Sony Ericsson W770i, Blackberry Playbook(?)

Hi Stephen (or anyone else that might know the answer...)

I have a list of waypoints (speed camera locations, actually) as a Google Earth .KMZ file.
Is there a way of converting this into a format that TMJ would be able to read? Thought I'd have a go at loading the file (or maybe a sub-set of it) and seeing if I can get TMJ to work as a SpeedCamera warning device in addition to its MANY other uses!!

Regards,

Chris.
 

Stephen

13:19
Wednesday
24-Sep-2008

Location:
Surrey, UK

Phone Model:
BB 9800 Torch
BlackBerry 8900
SE W910i
Nokia 5800

Hi Chris,

Try GPSBabel - that should be able to convert from the KMZ file into OziExplorer format for importing into TMJ.

(You might need to resave the KMZ file as a KML file in Google Earth first)

Cheers,
Stephen
 

ChrisM

14:30
Wednesday
24-Sep-2008

Location:
Bedfordshire, UK

Phone Model:
Sony Ericsson W770i, Blackberry Playbook(?)

Wow, that worked...

I've just uploaded more than 5000 waypoints into your website (in my Waypoints)!!
Is that Ok, I don't want to overload anything!!

What do you think would happen if I try to load that many waypoints onto my phone??!!

Think I'm going to have to find a way of filtering them...

Regards,

Chris.
 

ChrisM

15:00
Wednesday
24-Sep-2008

Location:
Bedfordshire, UK

Phone Model:
Sony Ericsson W770i, Blackberry Playbook(?)

Stephen,

If all those waypoints cause any problems, please just delete them - though if you do though, please try not to delete my 'normal' waypoints. All the SpeedCamera ones are in 'Group 5'.

By the way, for a laugh, I tried to load the file onto my phone (through the 'File' menu in 'TMJ Mobile'. It just killed the application with no warning or error message!! :-)

Regards,

Chris.
 

ChrisM

15:07
Wednesday
24-Sep-2008

Location:
Bedfordshire, UK

Phone Model:
Sony Ericsson W770i, Blackberry Playbook(?)

Ahh!

Actually, Stephen, sorry! Can you EASILY (like running one query) delete all of my 'Group 5'waypoints I've just realised that there is no way (that I can find) to delete a block of waypoints, so I'm going to have to delete 5200 individual items!!
Don't want to give you any extra work, but if you can easily get rid of them, I'd appreciate it!!
I'll load up a much smaller subset for my experimenting next time.

Sorry once again! :-/

Chris.
 

Stephen

16:08
Wednesday
24-Sep-2008

Location:
Surrey, UK

Phone Model:
BB 9800 Torch
BlackBerry 8900
SE W910i
Nokia 5800

Hi Chris,

Ok, they're gone now - I'm not surprised they overloaded the phone somewhat!!

(It is actually possible to delete an entire group via the Waypoints page - just select the 'Display Group' and click the cross, then save changes - might still be a bit slow though with so many).

I checked the amount of data that they were using - around 700kB which I guess isn't too bad for the website (so long as everyone doesn't use this amount!). Makes me wonder again about an idea I posted somewhere here a while ago about having a special waypoint group so that when you use the Update Waypoints on the phone it only grabs the Waypoints within a certain distance of your current location. ie You can have all 5000 waypoints on the website, but only the ones within say 20 miles would download to the phone... Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Stephen
 

ChrisM

16:43
Wednesday
24-Sep-2008

Location:
Bedfordshire, UK

Phone Model:
Sony Ericsson W770i, Blackberry Playbook(?)

" Makes me wonder again about an idea I posted somewhere here a while ago about having ,a special waypoint group so that when you use the Update Waypoints on the phone it only grabs the Waypoints within a certain distance of your current location. ie You can have all 5000 waypoints on the website, but only the ones within say 20 miles would download to the phone... Any thoughts? "
Actually I WAS going to ask about something along those lines, but I thought my 'pester' limit might be a bit high just now!! :-)
That'd certainly work, as long as you remembered to refresh the phone with the area you were currently in.
Another thought I had was a filter on the .WPT import on the website, so I could process my big WPT file, but ask TMJ to only import points that were within a given radius of a specific point(and ignore anything else), maybe you could choose the point by clicking on a map...?

What is a realistic number of waypoints that the PHONE could happily cope with? (My phone is a SE W610i if that makes any difference)

One last thing - for now, is the .WPT file of all the UK Speed Cameras of any interest to you?
It can be quite easily, and legitimately, obtained (as a KMZ file) from www.scdb.info

Best regards,

Chris.
 

Stephen

20:31
Friday
26-Sep-2008

Location:
Surrey, UK

Phone Model:
BB 9800 Torch
BlackBerry 8900
SE W910i
Nokia 5800

" Another thought I had was a filter on the .WPT import on the website, so I could process my big WPT file, but ask TMJ to only import points that were within a given radius of a specific point(and ignore anything else), maybe you could choose the point by clicking on a map...? "

I think there's an option in GPSBabel that will do this - haven't tried it myself though...

" What is a realistic number of waypoints that the PHONE could happily cope with? (My phone is a SE W610i if that makes any difference) "

I've not really put this to the limit - I've got around 300 on my W910 and it works fine, I know there is someone that has a couple of thousand (on a Nokia I think), though I wouldn't really recommend this amount!

It basically boils down to the amount of memory available to Java. Some phones have a fixed amount, but others can allocate more as it is needed, so are likely to be able to hold more waypoints. Keep an eye on the Total Memory figure on the Text/GENERAL page, if this is always a constant figure then your phone probably doesn't dynamically allocate more memory. Also, in the Menu/About... screen it give the amount of memory being used for the Track and Waypoints...

Cheers,
Stephen
 

ChrisM

9:47
Monday
29-Sep-2008

Location:
Bedfordshire, UK

Phone Model:
Sony Ericsson W770i, Blackberry Playbook(?)

Hi Stephen,

I don't know, wasting my time... :-)
I just spend a whole 5 minutes working out how to get GPS Babel to filter my waypoints based on proximity from a point, and created a new file, only to find you've already added the functionality to the website!!

Nice one!! I'll give it a go.

Cheers,

Chris.
 

ChrisM

11:33
Monday
29-Sep-2008

Location:
Bedfordshire, UK

Phone Model:
Sony Ericsson W770i, Blackberry Playbook(?)

Hi Stephen,

Having fun here. I managed to 'extract' the cameras in a 20 mile radius into my waypoints (210 which is a bit more manageable than 5000!!).

I think even 200 waypoints might be a bit pricy to upload to my phone via GPRS as I don't have a data package, so I created a .WPT file and loaded it directly onto my phone (via bluetooth). Any idea of the size of transfer syncing this many waypoints would initiate?

The only 'problem' I have at the moment is that there doesn't seem to be a way of setting the 'type' of Waypoint on the phone doing it this way.
Is really isn't a big deal, but is there any way of changing the Type of all 210 waypoints on the phone? Or can I do anything to the .WPT file before I do the import on the phone?

Cheers,
Chris.
 

Stephen

12:05
Monday
29-Sep-2008

Location:
Surrey, UK

Phone Model:
BB 9800 Torch
BlackBerry 8900
SE W910i
Nokia 5800

Hi Chris,

" I just spend a whole 5 minutes working out how to get GPS Babel to filter my waypoints based on proximity from a point, and created a new file, only to find you've already added the functionality to the website!! "
:-)

I'm afraid at the moment the only way to preserve the Waypoint types is to update via the web. Currently the type isn't read from the WPT file (it will be in the next version though).

I've just tested the waypoint web updating on my phone - 270 odd waypoints used 14kB, though the exact size will depend on the lengths of your waypoint names (each character using 1 byte). I don't know which mobile provider you're with, but Vodafone charge £2 per Mb with a £1 cap per day, I'd imagine its probably similar with other providers. 14kB would therefore cost about 3p in data!

(Incidentally, its probably not a good idea to mix importing waypoints from a file with updating them via the web. Each time you use Update Waypoints the phone will also send to the website any waypoints that have been imported from the memory card, which could end up being duplicated.)

Cheers,
Stephen
 

ChrisM

13:06
Monday
29-Sep-2008

Location:
Bedfordshire, UK

Phone Model:
Sony Ericsson W770i, Blackberry Playbook(?)

Ahh it's cheaper than I thought it'd be. Think I DO currently pay about £2/Mb, though no cap :-(
In that case, I'll delete the ones on my phone and re-sync with the website, and all should be great!

Thanks,

Chris.
 

ChrisM

9:19
Wednesday
1-Oct-2008

Location:
Bedfordshire, UK

Phone Model:
Sony Ericsson W770i, Blackberry Playbook(?)

Hi Stephen,

Ok, I've been on a bit of a tour of the local speed cameras, and I have a couple of comments to make.

These are not really mod/update requests for TMJ, just some observations that I'd be interested in your comments on, and whether you want to develop this aspect of the program or not.

1) Obviously TMJ has no knowledge of the side of the road the speed camera is on. Would there be any mileage in associating a direction with a waypoint, and only triggering the alert if you were travelling in (roughly) that direction?
2) The waypoint alert is not really very 'attention grabbing' if you are in the car. It might be better with a more 'intrusive' sound (maybe a 'whoop, whoop, whoop' siren type sound) and possibly flashing the screen (just colours, not backlight as you've already said controlling the backlight directly is difficult through Java)
3) If (for certain waypoint groups?) the alert screen only showed the Waypoint name (and distance?) in large letters, then if the waypoints were given names like ('30 Mph') the alert could even warn you of the max speed you should be travelling at for the approaching camera.

Any thoughts?

Cheers,

Chris.
 

Stephen

16:04
Wednesday
1-Oct-2008

Location:
Surrey, UK

Phone Model:
BB 9800 Torch
BlackBerry 8900
SE W910i
Nokia 5800

Hi Chris,

Regarding the audio sound/display there is actually a 'flashLights' function available on some phones, which could be used. The audio volume/style is a bit tricky since different phones seem to have different ways of controlling the volume of the sound. Also, including an MP3 recording (to give the best sound) would make the JAR file hugely bigger, and I'm not sure I can get TMJ to play an audio file direct from the memory card without displaying a security prompt on some phones (which would kindof make the whole thing pointless!).

" Would there be any mileage in associating a direction with a waypoint, and only triggering the alert if you were travelling in (roughly) that direction? "

Is this direction information included in the speed camera data that you are using? It would ideally need to be given as a simple bearing that could be extracted, probably using a GPX waypoint importer (that I've yet to add to the website!). Then theres the problem of how to get this into TMJ. I'd rather not store a completely separate field for this as its a bit too specific. However, I am adding in a waypoint Description field into the next version, which could possibly be used for this purpose when the Waypoint type is set to Speed Camera.

I haven't thought this through fully but if the description was something like:
"DIR:270/30,MINSPD:25,MSG:30mph"
then the alert would only appear if you were travelling within 30° of due West and were moving at over 25 mph. It would then display the text "30mph".

I'm not sure how fiddly this would be to add - might be more trouble than its worth. Perhaps once the Description field is available I could look into it in more detail...

Cheers,
Stephen

 

ChrisM

16:32
Wednesday
1-Oct-2008

Location:
Bedfordshire, UK

Phone Model:
Sony Ericsson W770i, Blackberry Playbook(?)

I guess the flashLights flashes the keyboard LEDs or something. That might work, rapidly changing the background colour of the screen a few times would be good, but I don't know how easy that'd be to do?
Regards the sound, something similar to the 'chimes' that play when GPS is (in)active but a bit more strident would work for me, or is that what you mean by not wanting to add more MP3 'bulk' to the file?
Any other ideas you might have for drawing more attention to the alert message??

" Is this direction information included in the speed camera data that you are using? "
I don't think it's included in the KMZ file that I have. This was free and (I think) just shows the position of the cameras in GoogleEarth. The information stored by the website DOES contain direction info (I think in the format N, NE, E etc.) but I have to subscribe to the website before I can access that level of info, and I don't really want to do that until I know it's going to be useful.
It is also then only available as a CSV of unknown structure which is going to need some processing before it can be added to TMJ.
I might email the owners of the website, and see if they are willing to send me a small sample of the CSV file, just so that I can see what info it contains, and whether it's going to be of any use.
Assuming it is possible to get the bearing information, encoding it into the 'Description' field seems like a plan.

Don't waste a lot of time on this (unless you want to).

Regards,

Chris.

 

ChrisM

8:36
Thursday
2-Oct-2008

Location:
Bedfordshire, UK

Phone Model:
Sony Ericsson W770i, Blackberry Playbook(?)

Hi Stephen,

I've got the CSV file, or in fact about 10 CSV files (one for each type of camera, 30mph, 40mph, RedLight etc etc).
Looking through them, the 'Heading' indicator is not all that great. The whole thing relies on people reporting the cameras to a central database, and the 'Heading' seems to be free text, so although maybe 30% are N, NW etc, there are lots with no entry at all, or stuff like 'southbound' or 'on gantries' or 'SO' and 'NO' and 'BS' which I guess are South/North and Both Sides respectively, so I think it'll need some tidying up.
Still, if you could let me know how the .WPT file format works, or more specifically, where I need to put the important stuff (Lat, Long, Description etc.) I'll try and have a go at munging it all into a format that could be imported into TMJ

There are lots of other file formats on the website, for various brands of SatNav equipment, so I will also have a look through those and see if there is anything a bit simpler...

Regards,

Chris.
 

Stephen

9:30
Thursday
2-Oct-2008

Location:
Surrey, UK

Phone Model:
BB 9800 Torch
BlackBerry 8900
SE W910i
Nokia 5800

Hi Chris,

The WPT format is detailed on this page, though TMJ only uses a few of the fields:-
Field 1 - Number (ignored when importing into TMJ)
Field 2 - Name
Field 3 - Lat
Field 4 - Lng
Field 5 - Ignored
Field 6 - Type number (as of the next version)
Field 7 onwards all ignored

eg:
OziExplorer Waypoint File Version 1.1
WGS 84
Reserved 2
TrackMyJourney
1,Waterloo,51.503,-0.113,33605.0,0,0,3,0,65535, 0,0,0,0,0,5,0,10,17,0.0,0,2,,

Regarding the alert sound, I could maybe implement the phones built-in 'Alarm Clock' sound - this'll certainly be louder than the standard message pop up sound!

Cheers,
Stephen
 

ChrisM

11:56
Thursday
2-Oct-2008

Location:
Bedfordshire, UK

Phone Model:
Sony Ericsson W770i, Blackberry Playbook(?)

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for the info.
One more question(to be going on with) - Where does your new 'Description' field fit into that format?

Using the 'Alarm Clock' sound should work for me. If it's enough to wake me up it should attract my attention when I'm driving the car!!

Cheers,

Chris.
 
 

Stephen

12:37
Thursday
2-Oct-2008

Location:
Surrey, UK

Phone Model:
BB 9800 Torch
BlackBerry 8900
SE W910i
Nokia 5800

" Where does your new 'Description' field fit into that format? "

It doesn't, unfortunately! It will be editable on the phone and website Waypoints page, and will be importable by the website LOC and GPX (eventually) import pages. So if you need to use the description field then you'd probably be better off translating the speed camera files into LOC files and loading them via the website for the moment...

Cheers,
Stephen
 

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