Integrating GPS Position onto Website?

[Ben Prusia]

All:

Not sure if this is the proper forum for this, but I am at a roadblock when it comes to integrating my GPS position onto my website. I want to be able to use the Google Maps API on the site and have my position on the center of the map. The GPS position map will be inside an IFRAME and will automatically refresh every 2 minutes or so. Is there any way I can get the GPS information from my GPS to my website? I see that some of you have your own custom made programs, but I have very minimal experience with only Visual Basic at best.

Any suggestions?

[Andrew Herron]

There are several ways of getting GPS data to your site depending on how you're interfacing with the GPS unit.

Lots of HAMs are using APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System) for which there are several sites that record your reporting data into a database.

The other option is if you can write the data out to another program or even just to a flat file, you can quickly write a VB program that checks the data in the file and then dumps it to a database or flat file on a webserver that is polled by an AJAX request.

What kind of GPS do you have now and how are you interfacing with it? If nothing else, hit me up in PM or on AIM, this is something I've wanted to do and would open to some collaboration.

[Ben Prusia]

Right now I use a USB GPS and run it into the GPSGate program.

It has been so long since I have written a VB program (I have made programs that created flat file text files and have done a program that used a GPS). I will definitely need a refresher as I don't know how to get the data from VB to a webserver (FTP), and then let the Google Maps API read the file and then show the position.

[Ben Holcomb]

There are many ways to do it. Visual Basic is probably the easiest to get data from a GPS. Once you have your data, you have to get it to the webserver somehow, whether it be by FTP or using a script of some sort.

[cedwards]

GPSgate has the ability to upload your position to their server, you can go to their server, set up a free account, make it public, and get the code to put it up your website. I have done this for my webcam site at:
http://www.cloud9tours.com/chasecam

[Ben Prusia]

Wow, thanks Charles! You saved me some programming headaches...

[Skip Talbot]

Here's a great chunk of info for using GPSGate to send data directly to your website:

http://franson.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5637

[Johnathan Brouwer]

charles that looks great, unrelated: how did you get the video window to pop up in the google app?


I love that!

[cedwards]

It is an infowindow. You can look up infowindow in the google support or look at my source code. Instead of having the html in the infowindow argument itself, I put it in an iframe. That way I am able to have an autorefresh of the image.

[Johnathan Brouwer]

very geeky!

As I know nothing about it, I will have to check it out...this is the data integration that I have been wanting...

[cedwards]

I don't know much about it either. It took almost two months for me to get it to this point. I looked at a lot of examples, trial and error, and getting help from some people on this board. The forum on the gpsgate site is a good place to ask questions as well.

[Stuart Robinson]

I meddled with GPS tracking and got it working using the Microsoft Mapping - I wrote a simple software app that runs on the laptop and handles the GPS upload to my server back home in the UK - here I ingest the GPS positions into a MS SQL database where it can then be retrieved and plotted on a map. The advantage or storing the points in a database is that it then provides a history of where you have been. Over all the project was a success - but I never quite got around to making the site look pretty.

http://www.stormtrack.co.uk/gps/Private/Main.aspx (http://www.stormtrack.co.uk/gps/Private/Main.aspx)

Last year I had almost 10 different trackers running but these days I just use the spotter network.

Please PM me if you want any of the source code (C# .NET2)

[Brandon Ivey]

Has anyone tried (or currently using) the free "buddy tracker" through gpsgate? We have attempted to try this route and failed miserably! The part that we can't figure out is where to paste the three html codes. It gives you a main code, a code to paste within the body, and a code for the disclaimer. We are trying to do it in word press… Can this be done in word press? We also tried the Google map route but could not get the gpsgate program to send our data to the Google map. I am nowhere close to being a programmer and neither is my chase partner. We are trying to find a simple way to do this that will produce an html code for us that we can easily copy and embed into word press. Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[Tyler Allison]

Could just use the SpotterNetwork for that (www.spotternetwork.org). Or if you want to run your own thing with GpsGate that's fine too...but please join the SN anyway..it integrates with GpsGate out of the gate.

[Brandon Ivey]

I signed up for the spotter network last winter and it has really helped me relay more reports of what is going on out in the field. Great software! So how do I get my location sent to our web site?

[Tyler Allison]

Your own location on your own website is being worked on this evening actually :) ...if I can get a minute or two to write up the howto. Stay tuned.

[Tyler Allison]

Quick and dirty howto posted:

http://www.spotternetwork.org/premium/howto-gm.php