Being somewhat of a gadget freak, electronic mapping fits right in. With the on-board computer in our Toyota FJ Cruiser build, the GPS and mapping capability is built in.

I have a number of applications that I run on the PC for real time use; Garmin Routing Software, National Geo TOPO! maps, APRS (Ham Radio Location application), ARRL Repeater Location software. All these applications work well for their specific requirement and I run them only when needed. To feed these applications the live GPS data stream I use an application called GPSgate. GPSgate is a mux for the GPS data, it reads the input stream from the GPS and creates as many real time output streams as needed in either Garmin or native NMEA format .

GPSgate data logging

For recording our trips I utilize the data logging feature of GPSgate. Once the computer is started GPSgate opens a log file and records the raw data stream. It is this log file that is then used to create the online maps that I include in the trip blog posts.

The first step is to copy the log files onto my home computer which is done using a thumb drive or by connecting to the home network from the FJ and copying them over the network.

GPSbable

Once I have the logs on the home computer I process each days log files through the application GPSBabble. This application is a post processor for GPS data and will read and write a large number of formats. When I process the log files I use GPSbabble to normalize the data points and produce a track for the day as a google kml file.

GPSbabble review screen

The kml file is then read into Google Earth where I edit the path to clean up any problems. In google earth I also add any points of interest and our camp locations. With the days map complete  I then save the day as a kml file which is then uploaded to the blog site with the days post.

A small blog plug-in uses Google earth to create the interactive map.