Satellite View of Ferrari Drive

Our club went on a drive this morning from Austin to Horseshoe Bay through the Texas Hill Country and I wore a Garmin Forerunner 305 wrist watch GPS to log the drive. The data is then downloaded into a web site called MotionBased which will show all the data and allows the drive to be overlaid on a Google Earth satellite image. We gathered at a shopping center which was built after the Google Earth imaging was created so it looks like we did some off-roading, but we were actually in a large shopping center parking lot. To view go to http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/email/accept.mb?senderPk.pkValue=60439&unitSystemPkValue=2&episodePk.pkValue=2471992&backgroundDatasourcePk.pkValue=11 Once you follow the link, click on Dashboard which will bring up the main page from which you can get detailed information about the drive. You should also be able to go to the main page directly at http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/dashboard.mb?episodePk.pkValue=2471992 The coolest thing is if you look under the map on the Dashboard page you will see a link to Google Earth. If you have Google Earth on your machine and you hit this link and hit open it will show the drive overlaid on a satellite photo. You can zoom in and get a good view of the Horseshoe Bay Yacht club where we ate lunch. The accuracy is fairly good but there are times that its accuracy, especially speed, is debatable. I swear Officer Fife, the high speed is a computer glitch (and in this case it probably is as we took it very easy).

It is amazing technology that is used primarily by runners, bicyclists and others to keep track of their training. I use it some when I kayak (http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/1513113 and http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/1513114 ) and actually kept it on for a drive from Austin to Wyoming and it tracked the whole thing, except when I forgot to turn it on. It is also great for keeping track of your hikes. The MotionBased folks also allow you to search the site and find other’s data. You can keep your data private if you like. As the site continues to develop, there should be some good information on hikes around the world so that you can do a search for a hike and find out how long it took the person, the altitude changes and get a satellite image of the route. The only thing you have to be wary of is that most of the guys that use these things on trails are trail runners and their times are likely to be much better than anything that I could ever hope to do.

I have nothing to do with Garmin or Motionbased, but I thought you guys mind find this technology interesting.

 

One line is for going to the club, the other is the return trip along the same route. The wandering lines around the club are me walking around with a straight line that seems to be a glitch probably caused by me turning the unit on and off from a different location or being inside a building out of satellite reception.

Also if you click on the Map Player on the top right of the dashboard page it will send you to a page in which you can press the play button on the left of the screen which will allow you to track the movement of the car along the route showing speed as it goes along. You can also adjust the speed that it will track the course, as on long drives it may take some time for it to play the course.