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Awesome Track on Phone, now how to get to desktop?

Ron Carmichael shared this question 8 years ago
Answered

Locus Pro is awesome for laying out a FITA Field tournament, over hill and over dale, complete with topo. BUT. I want to load up the track and points on desktop, and edit the screen contents. I've searched through the FAQ and a lot of pages, also through the forum here, without an inkling of the best utility. WHAT is the best or recommended windows desktop software for exporting my track, with the photos I took in it, in order to work with it all on the desktop? Thanks for such a great tool! I mainly need to edit things, and then print archery tournament tracts for competitions through the central Texas hill country!

Best Answer
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Menu more function "share & export data"

- export map content

Replies (28)

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Hi Ron, honestly, we've discussed it together in our office and none of us uses any desktop SW for work with points/tracks. In your case I would try export of Locus data into KML or KMZ file and then import it into for example Google Earth.

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If I can get it into GEarth, I'll settle for that :), although having a photo attached to each point would still be very helpful.


thanks for the reply.

Ron

"Shoot a pointy stick today, it's fun!"

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On a related note, has anyone had success printing a topo track from their android phone to a networked or wifi printer, like an HP officejet?

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Well, I haven't... one option is to export screen as an image, send it to e-mail or Dropbox and print it from there via PC.

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:) that's just where I am right now.

Still trying to learn all the features in LP. One thing I'm confused about. I primarily made the points of interest by taking a photo of the point, and recording by voice recognition the ID for the target, what the distance was for the archer. It seems no matter how I held the camera, it saved the photo as either sideways or (most of the time) upside down. Is that a feature? :) still hoping to find a downloadable/printable file.

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no, that definitely isn't a feature :) that must be something with your phone camera app or tilt sensors

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That's not a big problem. I'm just figuring things out kinda as I go... But sure wish I had known about it a month ago. This will ultimately be a very helpful tool for me. thank you very much for your replies and comments!

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You're welcome Ron. Hope you'll enjoy work with Locus Map!

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Hi Ron,

your photo orientation depend on your used camera app, as Michal supposed

i know two possible solutions:

use another app e.g. Cymera

or you rotate your taken photos with this Windowstool

http://savolai.net/software/JPEG-EXIF_autorotate

connect your device with USB to PC, select your Imagefolder and continue as in link discribed

Wolfgang

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It may sound goofy, but this is what I do:

- Export

- Check "Share exported data"

- Choose Gmail

- Mail it to myself.

Laugh if you want, it works.

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No laughing here, this I've managed, but I was looking for the desktop equivalent of Locus Pro :) to work with the file I shared to myself.

Google maps won't zoom in far enough in topo view, and nothing I've found yet does the wonderful trick of showing topo lines OVER the satellite view which is awesome...! I'm loving Locus Pro as I find out more and more features in it. :) Kinda steep learning curve, but I'm getting there. Right now I'm considering zooming in to each small segment of the trail where I'm needing to set up archery bales and stands, doing a print screen on my phone, emailing the jpg to my desktop, then photoshopping them all together so I can print the entire archery course in a large enough factor, tape those together into a large poster, email the photo attachments and get them printed, put the whole thing together manually on a large corkboard. Sure would be nice to find a software solution but I'll settle for sneaker-net and monkey-paste. :)

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Also, setting up dropbox to automatically snatch all the images from my phone might make it a little easier, and I'm wondering if I can use the old MS Image Composite Editor.... hmmmm....

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hmm, Ron, it looks like a heluvalot of work :) would you mind sharing your final product with us? We like promoting various "exotic" uses of Locus Map on our blog...

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My way to copy export files to PC with Dropbox

- Install and setup DropSync on first start: "move .../export/new files to my Dropbox folder"

- Locus: export kmz files

- open kmz from Dropbox folder on PC with GE

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ttxapps.dropsync

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Gynta - what is Ge - Google Earth? Also, does GE show the tracks, or just the points?


Michael - Sure, glad to. I'll try to keep track of all the steps. I've got 4 weeksto create the FITA Field from about 500 acres of prime central Texas hill country just north of Austin. Essentially, I set up 12 52" round foam bales onwood stands through out a natural hill country region and establish precisedistances for archers to stand to shoot at round paper targets pinned tothe foam. From 5 meters out to 60 meters. It's preferable that the targetand the archer NOT be on the level, but have to shoot between trees, acrossgulleys, to challenge the archer. The targets need to be linked by shortpaths, and of course the direction of shooting has to be carefullyconsidered for maximum safety in case of misses. Kids from 6 through 80+compete/play. If you are curious, the latest photo slide show I've put on thewebsite scrolls through a number of examples from our National Championshipthe TSAA hosted last year. http://www.texasarchery.org .

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Hi Ron,

Question:

- You want to create tracks and points with attached pictures inside Locus

- and want to export whole visible stuff on map.

- and edit this package on external SW on PC

right?

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Yes, and it would be lovely if whatever I use on the desktop had the same facilities and feature-set as Locus, only with the added function of printing it on multiple pages (tiles) to create a large poster of an area.

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and have you an example of a (nearly) finished project?

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:) I am still trying to figure out the feature-set in Locus Pro. :) I will gladly share it once I get there. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to devote the time necessary to master it. This last two weeks I just took that website to a totally new look, which has eaten up a lot of my brain energy. (old look: http://www.texasarchery.org/indexold.html )

For example, I have a lot of points I created by taking a photo and adding a remark about the site. The icons on the map are showing the date and timestamp, so I have to edit them to the potential target number, annotate them with the distances possible, and then figure out how to make them show up on the map the way I want them to. Looks like I need to change the label to "T1-60m" or the like, so the track itself is not obscured by the very large info boxes. I reckon it's doable, just have to teach myself how. <shrug> I'm also a full-time, 9-5 pharmacist so I am usually in a highly interruptive environment.

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Hmm. It's not clear for me what you really want to see.

A topo map with track lines and some points (icons or photos?)


About poster printing:

A full screen capture from the PC SW is not ok?

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I'm attaching an image of an old topo layout with target ranges (entailing more than 60 targets) which was created years ago by hand. As such, it is very inaccurate and usefulness is therefore limited.


I am attempting to replicate this, only using GPS points and the track generated in Locus Pro.

Also attaching a screen shot I exported from LP a few days ago and emailed to myself. That's what led me to think I might be able to find a way through to what I've described earlier...

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Oh, and here is an example of the hybrid topo-satellite photo image that just gives all sorts of goosebumps.

In the track that is grey, you can see little arrows, which I suspect are the points where I took a photo to create a Point of Interest. I have to figure out how to have that track continue to show all of those arrows, but at a greater magnification, so that a T1-60m label will fit but not block/obscure the track itself.

I think the yellow icons with the black stars are where I told LP to fetch the altitude as part of the "photo-POI" process. Ultimately, I think if I zoom down to the level of the attached image with the two yellow icons/black stars (maybe those are "favorites"?), screen shot that, and carefully do it for the entire track, I can use MS ICE to merge them together on the desktop.

I can also say that it would be smart for the coder of LP to set a rule so that any popups for a point never overlay the track itself. The info boxes should always appear to one side or the other of the track, not on top of it. Just a thought....

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now we are closer and bring me back to my first idea.

- display all your stuff in Locus

- "share & export data"

- export map content

- import the exported kmz file into any PC Geosoftware

attached an example.

extract and open with GE for a test.

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Yes. That example you sent is very close to what I'm hoping to do.


Just. Can't. yet. figure out how to export "everything". I can export track. I can export points if they are marked "favorite", though I have no idea how I mark the existing points I have as "favorite". One export has the points, but they don't display in GE unless I click on each one in the folder list of GE (left column), and then it disappears when I load the next point.

It looks like the photos are being included as 10x20 pixel images which I can kinda see in the popups in GE. I'm sure I'll get it, eventually. I'm attaching an example that I exported to KMZ a couple of days ago, and another one I've just done. In the one from the 29th, you can see the points, but it wouldn't include the track, and on the other I did today, the points don't display unless you click on one in the list. The switches and settings for some things/many things in LP are not intuitive to me. Would love a printable manual I could use as a reference as I go through the program....

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Menu more function "share & export data"

- export map content

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Last couple of questions, then I am not going to bother you anymore till I have made it through the online knowledgebase. I can't find where to toggle so that the track on the screen in LP on my phone shows any kind of mark/icon for each/all of the waypoints I made using the option to make a point with camera. I can see the track, but no waypoints, on my phone. I *think* that on some of the waypoints I inadvertently checked a box during the creation of that waypoint that caused it to be flagged as a "favorite", and those are showing on only one of the 3 tracks. The only thing I can recall for those waypoints that I did different was to check a button that said, "get" for the altitude (i thot that is what it was for?).


Is there a way to cause a small icon for each of the points to appear on the track in either/both GE and Locus Pro?


Even in LP, on the "chart" display for a track, there is a small icon there to opt under "advanced settings", show waypoints, but checking it does not show points on the graph.


I used your direction and finally (!) have exported BOTH the tracks and the points. I was going to attach it but it's 96 megs due to the photos, even though I can't get the photos to appear in GE.

In GE, the tracks show, but when I click on the points (in the column on the left side), popups for the points are pretty much all over the place/off the actual track. The waypoints themselves are checked on the left but do not appear on my tracks. Yet, in the example you made and sent me, the two points you made were appearing in GE routinely/normally. Is mine misbehaving because I created the waypoints with photographs? I didn't want to load a 96 meg file onto the site, would be kinda rude. I do have a link to it in dropbox if you are interested: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lv8qskq3j27hz7q/2015-05-01_16-08-27_map_content.kmz?dl=0

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As long as I am getting all starry-eyed dreaming of the WIBLIs (Wouldn't It Be Lovely If...) I would have in the desktop version, as I hover the mouse over the track, when it reaches a particular waypoint/poi that I've created with a photograph, that photograph should be a popup off to one side of the track, along with the description I recorded as I saved the photo. :) Google Earth lets one create a trip of a series of locations - being able to FLY a track - flying down a blue line, with the image of the photo growing on the screen and then going past that photo and on to the next photo on the track...virtual reality, here I come..;) (Much of this comes from a 20+ year career as a database designer/programmer)

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btw. see Settings -> Map - objects & style -> Style on map

for different (basic) popup styles.

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> It looks like the photos are being included as 10x20 pixel images

the size (width) of exported photos you can determine in locus config.cfg file

  1. # preset width of photos when exporting waypoints to KML format (default: 60)

    # - width in pixels

    export_photo_width=250

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Hi, Balloni55 - the photos are being exported in their full resolution, I think - the export kmz is 96 megabytes in size. But if I click on the text listing of a waypoint in GE (left side menu on the screen), a popup on the map appears with this small thumbnail and some of the waypoint data, but the image is not an active link to the actual photo. The small thumbnail is fine as is, but I'm baffled how to get the full image to appear in GE - by say - clicking on that thumbnail in the popup infobox on the map (see attached photo). Is that not possible?

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Hi Ron

please take a look on attached example with GE, which i have created on PC with freeware "Geosetter"

Titel "CLUBHOUSE" displayed in GE and the other one without titel, both with discription.

The size of the pics is reduzed by geosetter ;-))

Please rename after download attached file to example.kmz (do not unpack)

attachements .kmz are not allowed here.

If that is what are you locking for, let me know and i will create a little howto


Wolfgang

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I would be very, very grateful, balloni55, for your help in creating a kmz that has the features you showed me. A "howto" would insure that I am able to direct a tournament in 3 weeks' time, which currently I am very concerned I won't have designed properly in time.

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Hi Ron

sorry for delay,


download and unpack


https://www.dropbox.com/s/uu147cmajkr59dj/Ron.zip?dl=0

view the video and read "on the side" the doc.

I hope my little howo is understandable for you to create your competition documents

good luck

Wolfgang

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Downloading and going through it now. Thanks very much - I'll write back soon!

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"Here we drink our beer" !!!? Yes, I love it. This is much like what I hoped to do. Very nice!


Do you know if there is an overlay that combines both the satellite image AND the topographical lines, like LP does in "hybrid" mode?


But yes, the thumbnails indicate where the archer would navigate to, to shoot at the paper target, and clicking on the thumbnail gives a description/instructions. This would be very useful for setting up the range and helping archers navigate the course. I think I would rather have an icon, like a number ("1", "5", etc.), for each point on the track, though, and retain the popup pictures for when someone clicks on the number. That way I could print a map each archer could carry with them.

Just realized that the KMZ file is an HTML document. (duh! :) ) Did you write the html code by hand or did you use Geosetter to generate it? And please, a "how to" would be greatly appreciated, Wolfgang - I would definitely owe you a few margaritas (or biers). :D

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