stravaplot

stravaplot is a python library for visualizing Strava (or any other GPX data for that matter) activity tracks.

It can be used to visualize one activity:

import stravaplot as strava

s = strava.plot('activity.gpx')

# display the plot
s.show()

# save it as an image
s.save('filename.png')

or many activities:

s = strava.plot('activities_dir')
s.show()

It can also show terrain:

s = strava.plot('activities', terrain='usgs_ned.img')
s.show()

See more on plotting terrain below.

Installation

Installation ranges from simple to hard, depending on your environment. In the simplest case, install the dependencies and you should be good to go. If you're on macOS and using virtualenvs, see below:

Installing GDAL on macOS

Use homebrew to install GDAL:

brew install gdal

Now we need to install GDAL inside our virtualenv. Note that the version pip installs must be the same as the version homebrew installs (At least to first order - homebrew installed GDAL 1.13.1 and the closest version available via pip is 1.11.2. This doesn't appear to cause any problems.) Inside our virtualenv, install GDAL with pip:

pip install GDAL==1.11.2

Using matplotlib on macOS inside a virtualenv

The GUI frameworks that matplotlib uses for interactive figures don't play nicely with virtualenvs. Specifically, the default one that is configured for use on (at least) macOS breaks inside a virtualenv. We need to tell matplotlib to use a different framework that works within a virtualenv. With matplotlib installed,

cd ~/.virtualenvs/<virtualenv name>/lib/python3.5/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data

We need to edit the matplotlibrc fle, so open it up in your favorite editor. Find the line that says

backend : macosx

and change it to

backend : TkAgg

Settings

stravaplot has a few settings which can be changed.

• background -
• linecolor -
• linewidth -
• linealpha -
• terraincolor -
• figwidth -
• padding -
• dpi -
• threshold -

For example, to change the padding factor:

s.padding = 0.25

Print a listing of current settings with

s.settings

Colormaps

Several custom colormaps are included:

• electricblue -
• strava -
• gyroscope -

To change colormaps:

s.color('gyroscope')