gpsrenda: simple open-source GPS statistics video overlay renderer

gpsrenda is a video overlay renderer that takes statistics from a FIT file, and renders gauges on top of video captured during the activity using e.g. a GoPro. It uses Cairo to do all its graphics rendering, and either gstreamer or moviepy as a video backend. It is designed to be (relatively) simple, hackable, and extensible. It competes with DashWare and Garmin VIRB (with the hope that it's easier to automate than DashWare, and more turnkey than VIRB).

Installation

Running natively

git clone git@github.com:jwise/gpsrenda.git
cd gpsrenda
pip install .

gpsrenda should work with system, pyenv/pip, and Anaconda-based Python installations. On Windows only Anaconda has been tested due to cairo being tricky on Windows systems.

To use the gstreamer backend, you will need the Python gi bindings for gstreamer, as well as a good collection of plugins. Consult the Dockerfile for a list of required packages.

Running in Docker

An experimental Dockerfile (which attempts to X-forward, and also to forward PulseAudio) is provided. To use it, first build a Docker image, and then use the provided create-container script to build an appropriate environment to execute in. Then, inside the container, you can invoke renda as normal:

$ docker build -t gpsrenda .
$ ./docker-create-container.sh
$ docker start -ia gpsrenda-$(id -un)
YOU@SOMETHING:/$ cd gpsrenda
YOU@SOMETHING:/gpsrenda$ renda -p samples/GH010180_clip.MP4 samples/Valley_Ride.fit flgr_conf.yml

With any luck, gpsrenda will give a live preview of your video clip.

Usage

renda --help for full usage information. Point to the example config file at example_config.yml for an example that should look roughly like this:

Synchronization

One trick you may find helpful is to hit the start button on the GPS with the GoPro running, and then use the GPS start sound in the video to synchronize the time offset between the GPS data and the video. Alternatively, you can use the --preview flag to render a preview with no time offset, and infer the time offset from the overlay. Finally, you may even find it helpful to use Virb's excellent map-based side-by-side synchronization tool to determine the time offset before doing your actual overlay here.

You can then use the -t flag to provide the time offset to the renderer.

Hardware

We have tested gpsrenda with a GoPro Hero 8 Black + Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT as well as a GoPro Hero 7 Silver + Garmin Edge 530.