I know I have been away from Deviant Art lately, but I don't seem to catch a break at work... however, lately I have been piling up gadgets that due to the same lack of time I rarely get to use. For example, I have a dash-cam which I only use when driving (I have uploaded a few clips with traffic events) and I also have a GPS watch which I use for running to keep track of my exercises.

So since I already have these I thought why not combine their usage somehow... and besides I need a hobby project so I can stay sane after work and not be tempted to over-extend my overtime work. So I started working on a Perl script that takes the GPS eXchange (.gpx) file from a GPS device (namely my watch in this case) and creates a real-time animated map with momentary speed overlay using Google Maps API. Although this is not a new idea, I thought it might come useful to others as well. Personally I'll use this to better document my journeys, because I plan to do a lot of driving around Europe this year.

This is a video that contains such an animated map... the little post processing was done in PiTiVi (map overlay on the video, transparency and video speed up + adding soundtrack). As you can see there is much work to be done and, although the script is usable, in the end I want this to be done using a GUI and having a little more flexibility about map size, placement, zoom and about the length and speed of the video as well as some synchronization features between the video and the GPS data and many more thing still just on the TO DO list.

I also plan to release the full code and documentation when I feel it's getting good enough to be version 1.0, but until then I can send whoever is interested what I have so far... and also all criticism, suggestions, help or anything from dismissal to moral support is welcome, but keep in mind my schedule doesn't allow me to give quick answers or feedback so be patient

I hope you at least enjoy the soundtrack of the video even if the idea doesn't appeal to you.