gpx-player

GPX Race Visualizer

GPX Race Visualizer is a Python script to visualize the progression of multiple GPS tracks (e.g., from a race) on a 2D map. It takes as input one or more GPX files and creates an animation showing the movement of each track over time. This is a simple, open-source alternative to features like Strava's Flyby, which require an account and can have privacy issues.

Modes

The player supports two modes:

1. "Video" mode

Produce an MP4 or a GIF file showing how the situation developed. For sailing races, it also calculates the distance covered after the 'start' signal and the current speed.

Example:

2. Map mode

Displays the track on OpenSeaMap. You can see the full tracks with colour-coded speeds, and you can 'play' the tracks and see the markers move around the map.

Example:

Since GitHub Markdown doesn't allow embedding HTML, you can see an interactive example here.

Screenshot:

Installation

Clone the repository and install the required dependencies with pip:

git clone https://github.com/kirienko/gpx-player.git
cd gpx-player
pip install -r requirements.txt

Usage

To run the script producing mp4, pass one or more GPX file paths as command-line arguments:

python main.py example-data/track1.gpx example-data/track2.gpx

To get a sea map, run the openseamap.py:

python openseamap.py --title 'Gin Sul Regatta 2024' --names Alex Yury Richard \
     --files example-data/osm-demo-Alex.gpx example-data/osm-demo-Richard.gpx \
             example-data/osm-demo-Yury.gpx

A more sophisticated example, that produced a video above:

python main.py example-data/track1.gpx example-data/track2.gpx example-data/track3.gpx \
       --start 2023-07-01T10:53:00+0200 \
       --names "Mr. Pommeroy" "Miss Sophie" "Sir Toby²" \
       --title "Elbe-Damm Regatta (01.07.2023), Race 1" \
       --race_start 2023-07-01T10:58:00+0200 --marks example-data/marks.txt -g

Additional parameters:

• --title or -t: The title of the video
• --start or -s: start time in the format 2023-06-30T10:53:00+0200, all points before that will not be plotted
• --end or -e: end time in the format 2023-06-30T11:53:00+0200, all points after that will not be plotted
• --names or -n: names of the participants (otherwise the file names will be used in the legend)
• --race_start, -r: Race start time in the format YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS%z, e.g. 2023-07-01T12:29:00+0200
• --names or -n: Names of the participants
• --marksor-m: The file with the static marks to put onto the map. One pair of coordinates per line, see below.
• --gif or -g: Save as GIF moving picture instead of MP4

Marks

The script also supports visualizing predefined marks on the map, which can be useful for events like sailing regattas. The marks are defined as a list of (latitude, longitude) tuples in a separate text file and can be added to the script as follows:

53.542484632728, 9.801163896918299
53.542997846049374, 9.80611324310303
53.54823800356785, 9.812614917755129
53.54921647691311, 9.807373881340029
53.54508251196638, 9.80433225631714

Getting GPX Files

GPX files can be obtained from several GPS-tracking services:

• Strava: Go to the activity page and click on the wrench icon. Then select "Export GPX".
• Garmin Connect: Open the activity, go to the gear icon and select "Export to GPX".
• Endomondo: From the workout page, click the three-dot menu icon and select "Export". Then choose "GPX".

Support

Now you can buy me a coffee to encourage further development!