Frequently Asked Questions about GPS Visualizer

General questions

• Do you take suggestions for new/enhanced features?
• What are GPS Visualizer's system requirements?
• Is GPS Visualizer available as a standalone application that I can download and use off-line?

GPS data files

• My data is in tab-delimited or comma-separated text files. In which units should the coordinates, elevation and speed be represented?
• Can I use UTM coordinates?
• Are the names of my data files important?
• I have a Garmin Forerunner, and I don't want my ENTIRE Logbook to be mapped; how can I only map some of the tracks?
• I uploaded a .loc file from Geocaching.com, and all the accented letters are showing up as à and a weird symbol.

Google Maps

• How can I save my Google Map on my desktop or my own Web site?
• How do I insert my Google Map into another Web page?
• Once I've got a Google Maps API key, what's the best way to incorporate the map into my page? Can I put multiple maps on the same page?
• How can I print my Google Map?

Mapping issues

• My map is too skinny; how can I make it closer to square?
• I tried to map a collection of waypoints where one of the points was a long way from the others, and the far-flung point is not showing up; or, my file contains one or two waypoints that are far away from my other points, and I don't want to plot the "outliers."

SVGs, JPEGs & PNGs

• Firefox can now read SVG files on its own; do I still need Adobe's plug-in?
• Which output format should I use, SVG or JPEG?
• Can I convert SVG output to JPEG once I've got all the labels where I want them?

Background maps in SVG & JPEG/PNG maps

• Where do the background maps come from?
• Which background map should I use?
• I selected a background map, but nothing is showing up.
• I selected a street-level political map, but GPS Visualizer keeps giving me a physical map instead.
• I asked for a USGS "Urban Areas" color aerial photo, but it's blank.
• I saved an SVG and tried to open it in Adobe Illustrator, but the background map isn't showing up. What can I do?

Interactive features in SVGs

• I drew an SVG map and then changed my mind: I don't really want a legend or a scale, or that thing that lets you change the background opacity. Do I have to make a new map?
• I drew a map with multiple tracks, and now I forgot which track labels go with which tracks. How can I tell which is which?
• I was moving stuff around, and now one of my labels is permanently highlighted in blue. How do I get it back to black?
• Why does that little red disk show up whenever I click something in a GPS Visualizer map? And how can I get rid of it so it doesn't print with my map?

Yes, of course. However, since no one's paying me to work on GPS Visualizer -- aside from the few kind souls who have sent donations -- I can't devote too much time to it. So, regardless of their usefulness, "easy" suggestions (like fixing the text-import routines to work with more data files) get implemented much quicker than long, involved ones (like figuring out how to incorporate maps from the UK Ordnance Survey) that would require writing or re-writing big chunks of programming code.

To create and view JPEG and PNG images, you don't need anything special -- any Web browser will work. GPS Visualizer is platform-independent.

For Google Maps, any modern Web browser should work just fine.

To use Google Earth files (.kml/.kmz), you'll need Google Earth, which is a free download for either Mac OS or Windows.

To view SVG maps and profiles, you need Adobe's SVG Viewer plug-in. Version 3 of the plug-in will work in all Mac browsers -- I've tested it in IE, Mozilla, Firefox, and Safari -- as well as Internet Explorer for Windows. If you have Mozilla or Mozilla Firefox for Windows, however, you'll need to get the beta version (v6) of SVG Viewer, and it probably won't install properly; you'll have to run the installer, then copy the four SVG-related files (which are probably in "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\SVG Viewer 6.0") to your Mozilla plug-ins directory. If you have Opera for Windows, you can use SVG Viewer 3, but it doesn't install properly by default; you have to copy the files from "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\SVG Viewer 3.0\Plugins\" to Opera's plug-ins directory.

No, for two reasons. First, I wouldn't even know how to create a program that runs in Mac OS or Windows, and second, because it's really not all that useful without the background maps or the Google API, and you'd need to be on-line to get those anyway.

Plain-text coordinates should ideally be decimal; this means south and west are negative, north and east are positive, and there is no such thing as minutes and seconds. If you do submit degrees and minutes, or degrees, minutes, and seconds, GPS Visualizer will try to figure it out, but there are no guarantees. Just make sure that latitude and longitude are each represented by a single column; you can't have multiple columns for degrees, minutes, and seconds.

Elevation is interpreted as meters, and speed is interpreted as kilometers per hour, unless the header row indicates otherwise -- for example, you could name the speed column "speed (mph)", and GPS Visualizer should understand what you mean. (In GPX files, however, please note that speed should be in meters per second.)

See the Waypoints Tutorial for more information.

No. Only latitude and longitude are supported.

Why? Because if someone uploaded a massive track log with UTM coordinates, it would be a lot of work for my server to convert all of them.

Yes. For the most part, GPS Visualizer determines what kind of files you've uploaded based on the names of the files. Here's the (almost) complete list of filename endings that GPS Visualizer recognizes:

Also, be aware that the first part of a file's name (before the suffix) will be used as the name of the track -- that is, if it's a file format that doesn't include a specific place for track names.

Split the Logbook XML file into individual runs and upload them separately. You could do it by hand using a text editor, but it's a lot easier to use my Logbook Splitter utility.

Whatever program geocaching.com uses to generate .loc files is not handling "special" characters properly. I think I've come up with a work-around, but let me know if it happens again.

When GPS Visualizer creates a Google Map, it uses a "Google Maps API key" that is unique to gpsvisualizer.com; files created with that key can only be viewed while they are on this site. However, getting an API key is free, so if you want to put a saved map on your own site, you can sign up for your own key and replace my key with yours in the HTML source. Just put your key between the quotes in the line of code that looks like this:

  var google_api_key = '';

If you just want to save the map on your computer's hard drive and view it "locally," you don't need to bother with a key.

NOTE: When you tell your Web browser to "Save" your map, do not choose "Save all files" or "Save Web archive" or "Web page, complete" or "MHTML" or ".mht" or anything else that suggests that your browser will create a collection of local graphics and JavaScript files along with the HTML file itself. You want to save the HTML source only.

By far the easiest solution is to put the map in an "inline frame" using the <IFRAME> tag. This creates a "window" in your page into which you can load another file (more info about IFRAMEs). The advantage of doing this is that the DIVs and margins and styles and whatnot will be completely isolated from the rest of the structure of your page; also, you don't have to edit the attributes of the <BODY> or <HTML> tags, which you would have to do if you tried to merge the GPS Visualizer code into your Web page. (The only disadvantage, and one which would only affect "power users," is that if you want to create objects that interact with the map -- for instance, a list of waypoints, or a control that will re-center the map -- those cannot be outside the IFRAME.)

Another advantage to IFRAMEs (as opposed to cutting and pasting bits of HTML into your page) is that you can place as many of them on your page as you want; because they are isolated from each other, there shouldn't be any conflicts even if all the maps have identically named parts.

Here's a sample <IFRAME> tag; the anchor in the middle will only be displayed if the browser does not support inline frames:

<iframe src="my_map.html" width="600" height="400" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0">
  <a href="my_map.html">Click here for the map</a>
</iframe>

Please note that while it is technically possible to simply create an IFRAME that points to your map's initial URL on gpsvisualizer.com, that is only a very temporary solution, as older maps are deleted from the server every night. Instead, you should save a copy of the map to your own server (and with your own API key), as described above.

Good question. It seems that printing maps created using the Google Maps API is unreliable at best. Every browser seems to behave a little bit differently, so any "tricks" I include to make it work in, say, Firefox, might cause everything to blow up in Internet Explorer.

The safest bet is to simply take a screen shot and print that. Here are some tips on doing that:

Mac OS X: The keystroke Command-Shift-3 will save a picture of your entire screen to your Desktop. You can open that picture in a graphics program or just print it as-is using a program like Preview. Perhaps more useful is Command-Shift-4, which changes your cursor into a crosshair so that you can select the area of the screen that gets saved (hit the space bar to select an entire window). Or, to save part of the screen to the Clipboard -- from whence you can paste the captured area into another program -- try Command-Shift-Control-4. See the "Other Commands" section of this Apple support document for even more options.

Windows: Hitting the Print Screen key copies the contents of the entire screen to the clipboard, and from there you can paste it into a graphics program -- even MS Word or "Paint," if you don't have anything fancier. Alt-Print Screen copies only the frontmost window. Or, for far more flexibility and options, I recommend IrfanView, a powerful freeware utility. (Click here for more info on Windows screen captures.)

It is true that beginning with version 1.5, Firefox can read SVG files "natively" -- without the help of any plug-ins. And SVGs created by GPS Visualizer are visible in Firefox 1.5, but none of the interactive features, like changeable background opacity or draggable labels, work at all. Also, the fonts don't look right. So, to take advantage of the benefits of SVG maps, you'll still need the plug-in.

But there's more: to make Firefox use the plug-in again, you'll need to tell Firefox to not handle SVG on its own. To do that, type about:config into Firefox's address bar, and look for "svg.enabled" in the list of preferences (or type "svg" in the Filters box to find it instantly). Double-click on "svg.enabled," and it should become bold and change to "false." You don't need to restart Firefox; it should work now.

Both formats have their advantages and disadvantages. I've summarized them here (green=good, red=bad).

* The only difference between JPEG & PNG files is that PNGs are larger, uncompressed files -- PNGs look a little bit cleaner but can take longer to load. The actual drawing is the same.

Yes. There are two options. First, you can create an SVG drawing with GPS Visualizer, save it to your computer, and then upload it to the "localizer" program. Second, you can make whatever modifications you need, click the red disk icon to save your changes (see below, "Why does that little red disk show up"), then click the "Convert modified SVG to JPEG" link that shows up in the corner of your drawing; after a few seconds (or more if your map was very large), a new window will appear with a link to your converted JPEG.

Alternatively, you could just take a screen shot and save that as JPEG/GIF/PNG with your favorite graphics program.

The dimensions of your map are determined by your data. If you plot a track along a road that goes directly east-west, you'll get a map that is much wider than it is tall, and vice-versa for a north-south track. If you need a little more context along each side, just increase the "margin" setting; if that's not enough, you can manually set the height and/or width.

Adjust the "discard outliers" setting, under "Advanced waypoint options."

If you want all points to be plotted, regardless of how far away they are, set it to "No, show all points" (if you are also uploading tracks, you will also need to verify that the "Show waypoints" setting is on "All").

If you want fewer waypoints to be plotted -- for instance, if you have a large cluster of points near your home and you only want to show those -- set it to discard points whose critical Z-score exceeds a lower number than the default of 4; try Z > 2 or even Z > 1.

The maps are NOT stored on GPS Visualizer's server; they come from various sources on the Web. For instance: the USGS topo maps and aerial photos come from terraserver-usa.com; the Landsat imagery comes from NASA's Jet Propulsion Labratory; the excellent Canadian digital maps come from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). The list of backgrounds changes from time to time as new data sources become available or are removed from public circulation. If you know of any other sites which might work, please let me know!

By the way, the U.K. Ordnance Survey's on-line maps will NOT work with GPS Visualizer; believe me, I've tried.

That depends on what you're mapping and where you are. If the area covered by your tracks and waypoints covers more than about 100 km, do not use the "street-level political map" options; they will be distorted by the curve of the earth! Your best bet is probably the Worldwide: physical option. The Landsat 30m maps work well too, and if your map is very large, you can try the "Visible Earth" imagery.

For small areas (e.g., maps of a single waypoint), I recommend the following:

• United States: Use USGS aerial photos, USGS topo maps, US: political map (TIGER street-level), or US: Demis street-level map.
• Canada: You have a lot of good choices, although oddly, none of them have street labels. Try NRCan political or, for slightly larger areas, CanImage or Landsat 30m.
• Europe: For very small areas, I don't have any good map servers available at the moment. For maps that are at least a few km across, the Landsat 30-meter imagery is good.
• Everywhere else: Landsat 30m is really the only choice.

For samples of all the map choices, click here.

The vicinity.com server that provided those maps seems to have vanished. I never had any contact info for that server, so I don't even know who I could talk to about it. If I have some time, I'll look into the possibility of signing up with a commercial service as a replacement, but I have a feeling it will be prohibitively expensive. In the meantime, if you know of any free (or cheap) map servers with quality data that might work, let me know!

1. It hasn't shown up yet. Be patient. Some of the map choices (such as the Canada-specific ones) take a long time to show up, especially in urban areas where there is a lot of detail.
2. The map server is down. I don't have any control over the servers that produce these maps, and sometimes they become unavailable for a few minutes, hours, or days. The NASA Landsat server in particular often suffers from overload, which means blank backgrounds in GPS Visualizer maps.
3. You have an old version of the SVG Viewer plug-in. It seems that a lot of people might have an older version of SVG Viewer pre-installed, and it doesn't like to show linked background maps; downloading the latest version often helps, and can't possibly hurt.
4. You're asking for a larger size than the map server is willing to give. For some servers, the upper limit is 1024 pixels, for others it's 2000 pixels. If you adjust your parameters, remember to take GPS Visualizer's "margin" into account; if your "max. dimension" is set to 1000 but your margin is 20, your map will be 1040 pixels wide.
5. You're out of range. If you try to display a U.S.-only map behind a track that was recorded in Sweden, it just isn't going to work.
6. You're in the boondocks. If you're trying to plot a 5-kilometer hike in the Australian Outback, your background might be blank because there's simply nothing to draw!
7. You're trying to create a JPEG or PNG with a restricted background choice. A few of the background maps can not be converted to non-SVG format, for technical or copyright-related reasons. (So why can you use those restricted backgrounds in an SVG drawing? Because with an SVG, your Web browser fetches the graphic, not my server.)

If your map covers a very large area (generally speaking, more than about 3 degrees of longitude), GPS Visualizer will refuse to display the street-level backgrounds because they do not properly correct for the curvature of the earth. The substituted map works properly on ANY scale.

Also, a different map will sometimes be substituted if you've specified dimensions that are larger than the map server can give.

The USGS Urban Areas photos are probably the best maps available, but unfortunately only a limited number of cities in the U.S. are covered:

Albuquerque, NM; Amarillo, TX; Anchorage, AK; Atlanta, GA; Baton Rouge, LA; Charlotte, NC; Chicago, IL; Colorado Springs, CO; Dallas/Fort Worth, TX (some accuracy issues here); Denver, CO; Detroit, MI; El Paso, TX; Fort Wayne, IN; Fresno, CA; Houston, TX; Huntsville, AL; Jackson, MS; Knoxville, TN; Lexington, KY; Lincoln, NE; Los Angeles, CA; Louisville, KY; Lubbock, TX; Mobile, AL; Modesto, CA; Montgomery, AL; New Orleans, LA; Oklahoma City, OK; Orlando, FL; Portland, OR; Providence, RI; Raleigh/Durham, NC; Sacramento, CA; Saint Louis, MO; Salt Lake City, UT; San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, CA; Seattle, WA; Shreveport, LA; Springfield, MA; Stockton, CA; Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL; Topeka, KS; Tucson, AZ; Washington, DC; Worcester, MA.

More will be coming in the future (133 cities in all, apparently), but I don't know when.

It doesn't work because Illustrator isn't able to display files linked from the Web, only local files. To "localize" the file and make it easier to use off-line, go here:

http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/localize

(Besides adjusting the image link, the "localizer" program also strips out some interactive JavaScript code which is no longer usable once the file is removed from gpsvisualizer.com.)

No, just drag them out of the window. They'll still be there, but out of sight. You can find them again later by using the "pan" key (Alt on Windows, Option on Mac OS) to adjust the viewing area.

You can also get rid of track and waypoint labels (and their "pointer" lines) by dragging them out to the side.

If you click on the disk icon, GPS Visualizer will save any modifications you've made to your map (or profile) and give you a link to the new, modified file, which you can save for posterity. I added this feature because it's frustrating to get all the labels and widgets exactly where you want them and then go back later and find that it's back to where it started. The disk allows you to capture the current state of your SVG drawing.

You can hide the disk by simply dragging it out of the SVG window. If you need to click on it after you've moved it, just hold down the Alt/Option key and drag the viewing area over to wherever you put the disk. And don't worry, modifications to the current view (panning and zooming) are not saved.