REVIEWS DEALS BIKESHOPS TRAILS

Experimenting Bike and GPS video

16555 Views 60 Replies 14 Participants Last post by gps4sport.com, Dec 2, 2012

luap

Discussion Starter · Jan 17, 2010 (Edited)

I very often find myself wishing to see some data, especially speed in MTB videos.
So I'm playing around with my logged GPS data and possibilities to visualise on video - nothing special but have to keep those winter months busy!

1 - 20 of 61 Posts

One_Speed

· #2 · Jan 17, 2010

Cool, I been wanting to do that. (GPS is broken, will have to wait until fixed)

Would be cleaner with just the data on left side. Map overlay becomes kinda overkill.

Someone else recently posted this: ( I feel the video size should be larger, so you can viw all the data)
https://www.destinationproductions.com/customers/PassionTrails/

Here is the way I was thinking of doing it.

Thanks for sharing.

See less See more

luap

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jan 18, 2010

I used the trial version of Dashware http://www.chasecam.com/catalog/25/dashware
to design the gauges and play back the GPS file - ( has to be saved as .csv and a corresponding profile created first)
Its a very nice program and pretty flexible - You could do similar gauges as per your bottom bar.
But the downside is its pricey.
Are there similar programs around?

ukbloke

· #4 · Jan 19, 2010

I've been doing some overlaying of GPS and PowerTap information onto a ContourHD video. You can see my first attempt here. Please excuse the road biking content! I can't see the video on vimeo until I get home tonight (work limitations). I don't think it has been available in HD at the moment.

This is an SD video shot from a helmet-mounted ContourHD at 848x480p @ 60 Hz. It has been composited with GPS information from an Edge 305 and power/HR/cadence from a PowerTap. The PowerTap data is unfortunately somewhat out of sync with the other data. The bike route was a hill climb on Altamont Road in Los Altos Hills. The light was rather poor that day, and this was an endurance type effort. My PR for this climb is about 5:30 minutes as opposed to the 7 minutes in this video.

diver160651

· #5 · Jan 19, 2010

ukbloke said:
I've been doing some overlaying of GPS and PowerTap information onto a ContourHD video. You can see my first attempt here. Please excuse the road biking content! I can't see the video on vimeo until I get home tonight (work limitations). I don't think it has been available in HD at the moment.

This is an SD video shot from a helmet-mounted ContourHD at 848x480p @ 60 Hz. It has been composited with GPS information from an Edge 305 and power/HR/cadence from a PowerTap. The PowerTap data is unfortunately somewhat out of sync with the other data. The bike route was a hill climb on Altamont Road in Los Altos Hills. The light was rather poor that day, and this was an endurance type effort. My PR for this climb is about 5:30 minutes as opposed to the 7 minutes in this video.

love the power tap! Wish there was an easier way to get them to work on a MTB.. how did you attempt sync it? BTW whats your Kings and Od La Honda Time?

ukbloke

· #6 · Jan 19, 2010

diver160651 said:
love the power tap! Wish there was an easier way to get them to work on a MTB.. how did you attempt sync it? BTW whats your Kings and Od La Honda Time?

I think the best bet for MTB and power is going to be the Vector pedal-based powermeter from MetriGear. The PowerTap/GPS synchronization is a pain:

Pull GPS data into SportTracks
Pull PowerTap data into PowerAgent
Export PowerTap data as CSV
Pull PowerTap CSV into SportTracks and merge into the GPS activity
Run an iBike plug-in inside SportTracks to attempt sync of the PowerTap and GPS data

The reason for the last step is that the Edge and the PowerTap deal with pauses differently. The Edge keeps a record of the pause and therefore has a full log of the ride including them. The PowerAgent software throws away the pauses when exporting to CSV. The iBike plug-in attempt to put the pauses back into the power data. I'm going to write my own utility to download from the PowerTap and write to CSV with correct handling of the pauses. It might also be that GoldenCheetah will do this. This will get rid of a couple of the steps and I think I will get better time sync. If not, I'll put a marker in the PowerTap data and sync up by hand.

Maybe I'll try doing some MTB video at Skeggs later in the year.

My King's Mountain PR is 24:57 and OLH is 19:19. What's yours?

See less See more

diver160651

· #7 · Jan 19, 2010

Ya I figured you had good times climbing based on your test choice.
On my full suspention mtb using knobbies,, kings is 25:39 Greer to the stop.. OLH same bike at 18:50, I think I can save some time on both.. I haven't rode a road bike in years. So can remeber my times..

I did some video maps skeggs was one of them

ukbloke said:
I think the best bet for MTB and power is going to be the Vector pedal-based powermeter from MetriGear. The PowerTap/GPS synchronization is a pain:

Pull GPS data into SportTracks

Pull PowerTap data into PowerAgent

Export PowerTap data as CSV

Pull PowerTap CSV into SportTracks and merge into the GPS activity

Run an iBike plug-in inside SportTracks to attempt sync of the PowerTap and GPS data

The reason for the last step is that the Edge and the PowerTap deal with pauses differently. The Edge keeps a record of the pause and therefore has a full log of the ride including them. The PowerAgent software throws away the pauses when exporting to CSV. The iBike plug-in attempt to put the pauses back into the power data. I'm going to write my own utility to download from the PowerTap and write to CSV with correct handling of the pauses. It might also be that GoldenCheetah will do this. This will get rid of a couple of the steps and I think I will get better time sync. If not, I'll put a marker in the PowerTap data and sync up by hand.

Maybe I'll try doing some MTB video at Skeggs later in the year.

My King's Mountain PR is 24:57 and OLH is 19:19. What's yours?

ukbloke

· #8 · Jan 19, 2010

diver160651 said:
Ya I figured you had good times climbing based on your test choice.
On my full suspention mtb using knobbies,, kings is 25:39 Greer to the stop.. OLH same bike at 18:50, I think I can save some time on both.. I haven't rode a road bike in years. So can remeber my times..

I did some video maps skeggs was one of them

Wow - that is fast, especially on a mountain bike! You'd be insanely fast on a road bike. I saw your Waterdog videos (very nice), but I haven't yet checked out the Skeggs one. Thanks for putting those up!

diver160651

· #9 · Jan 19, 2010

ukbloke said:
Wow - that is fast, especially on a mountain bike! You'd be insanely fast on a road bike. I saw your Waterdog videos (very nice), but I haven't yet checked out the Skeggs one. Thanks for putting those up!

Thanks -- but I'm on a s-works epic so it is kinda misleading to say I'm on a F/S bike.. The skeggs map came to dark -- the Gap looks better -- The only time I really used a PM is during my V02 testing --I just can't get over how cool the power meter data is on the video

Jt

ukbloke

· #10 · Jan 19, 2010

diver160651 said:
I just can't get over how cool the power meter data is on the video Jt

If I can get it synced properly and then do a proper all-out effort, I think it'll be even more interesting. On the top of Altamont after if flattens out I like to put it in the big ring and give it some welly! I need to get a label on those charts so that the scale is more obvious. By the way, the elevation profile is colour-coded according to instantaneous gradient.

I have one other video at home where I overtook a car coming out of a hair-pin bend on the descent of Page Mill Road (at the Foothills Park entry). In that one the power goes up to 1000W for quite a few seconds as I'm coming around the side of the car! That was probably my all-time best 5 second power interval!

luap

Discussion Starter · #11 · Jan 19, 2010

Very nice UKbloke.
How did you go about creating the speed, power and elevation diagrams and play the data through?
And the google map - what did you use to capture it?

ukbloke

· #12 · Jan 20, 2010

luap said:
Very nice UKbloke.
How did you go about creating the speed, power and elevation diagrams and play the data through?
And the google map - what did you use to capture it?

It is about 1500 lines (and counting) of python script to gather the source data and generate the overlay. There's quite a bit of data conditioning to get reasonable numbers. It has code for generating the bar-charts, the other statistics, and incorporating the map images. Google has an API which returns image data given an appropriately constructed URL, but there are limits to this service. I am using Sony Vegas 9.0 to combine the overlay with the video, and to do the rendering to MPEG4. That's pretty much all of the flow at the moment. I have plenty of ideas to improve it.

diver160651

· #13 · Jan 20, 2010

ukbloke said:
It is about 1500 lines (and counting) of python script to gather the source data and generate the overlay. There's quite a bit of data conditioning to get reasonable numbers. It has code for generating the bar-charts, the other statistics, and incorporating the map images. Google has an API which returns image data given an appropriately constructed URL, but there are limits to this service. I am using Sony Vegas 9.0 to combine the overlay with the video, and to do the rendering to MPEG4. That's pretty much all of the flow at the moment. I have plenty of ideas to improve it.

MAP GPS Data overlay -- what i found based on feedback:

On my first couple of maps I used the Garmin route, merged with Google Earth maps.This looked cool, but it was pointed out a number times that the Googles map is not useful in an MTB environment (The trail data just doesn't exist and trees make following the trail impossible via the sat view). After I removed myself and stood back a bit, I have to agree. If a true detailed topo or better yet, a purpose bit map is available, that is what should be used. I started including these maps as a printable download with the actual route hi-lighted. I also used the same maps in the animated map window.. Street routes would be another story altogether. So working like crazy to integrate map detail that will not be truly helpful maybe the wrong direction. In your editor V9 or any other high end program you should easily be able to key frame a position indicator on a detailed trail map --

I also played around with having the route line (following the trail) fill in as the video progressed. This came out way cool, but required more time than I was willing to do for multiple maps. At the end of the day, these are just for fun anyway.

See less See more

ukbloke

· #14 · Jan 20, 2010

diver160651 said:
MAP GPS Data overlay -- what i found based on feedback:

With Google maps I have the choice of street, terrain and satellite views. I chose the terrain view because it has the roads, plus contour lines and shading to indicate areas of elevation change. You can choose the zoom level. I think this would be OK for mountain biking too, especially if you pre-calculate the trail and overlay it on the map as you suggest. Google maps has a feature to overlay a path. I also have access to National Geographic's topo maps, but it would be harder to extract a good precise image from them, plus they don't have the road names.

diver160651

· #15 · Jan 20, 2010 (Edited)

sample of what I getting at:

1. captured from a ride I did at skeggs with a 705 then merged to Google .. Note not all trail data//names was available in the topo view or in my 2 other topo programs https://www.destinationproductions.com/customers/PassionTrails/temp/skeggs-sat-view.jpg

2. best top os same area https://www.destinationproductions.com/customers/PassionTrails/temp/skegss-topo.jpg

so even overlying the top 2 is not nearly as good as a purpose built trail map -- see below

3. the same non Digital map of skeggs
https://www.destinationproductions.com/customers/PassionTrails/Maps/pr_ecdm-2.pdf

ukbloke

· #16 · Jan 20, 2010

Try merging the GPS data onto the Google terrain map instead. It looks like you have some duplicate tracks so you might want to clean those up. To make it more meaningful you would need to add some trail labels by hand. But I know how much effort this all takes and you've got to strike a balance when you're doing it for fun.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=el+corte+de+madera+creek,+ca&sll=37.407187,-122.315083&sspn=0.021919,0.041757&ie=UTF8&hq=el+corte+de+madera+creek,+ca&hnear=El+Corte+De+Madera+Creek+Open+Space,+Redwood+City,+CA+94062&t=p&ll=37.403131,-122.315512&spn=0.016364,0.027466&z=15&output=embed
View Larger Map

diver160651

· #17 · Jan 20, 2010 (Edited)

exactly -- no real trail names etc for reference that why i like the purpose built trail maps - BTW its not dups, one ride, rode the same trails to make a lot of loops

ukbloke

· #18 · Jan 22, 2010

I've made a few improvements and here's the new video. This time a descent of Altamont Road. There's no audio due to a codec problem, but I now know what I need to do to fix it. The Power/cadence data is still out of sync.

ukbloke

· #19 · Feb 4, 2010

diver160651 said:
exactly -- no real trail names etc for reference that why i like the purpose built trail maps - BTW its not dups, one ride, rode the same trails to make a lot of loops

I have found something that is perfect for you! Check this out.

diver160651

· #20 · Feb 4, 2010

ukbloke said:
I have found something that is perfect for you! Check this out.

wow this is assume!!! THANK YOU

1 - 20 of 61 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.