Thread: GooPs Real-time GPS Tracking and Navigation for Google Earth -Version 2.5.13 Released

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions RPM,

I'll try to have GooPs be more tolerant of bogus data. Throwing the sentence away was a lazy work-around for another problem I was having.

I'm working on your play/record capability now.

You can't actually set the refresh interval to less than 1 second. The trick is to set the Time-Based refresh to "Periodically" - "1 second" and the View-Based refresh to "After Camera Stops" - "0 seconds". This gives you a non-deterministic refresh of 1 second or less.

Would you please send me an AutoZoom.cfg that exhibits this behavior?

I'll get right on morphing those images .

Originally Posted by RPM_VR4

...very strange. Why is his GPS device outputting invalid data? Is it correct if you take away the negative? Maybe you should just ignore the negative for greater device compatibility (even if those devices are technically sending invalid data).

Anyway, I got a question and some feedback for you:

First off, how can you set the refresh to less than 1 second in GE? I could have sworn you told me I should be able to do that through GE, but it does not support decimals (or 0 seconds). Can you edit the registry setting manually or something?

Now on to the bug: Auto-zoom doesn't really seem to trigger all the settings properly. Sometimes it will show the picture of one speed with the angle of another, or the zoom-level. All settings interchange a bit. This makes my pictures (top/rear/default-arrow) not really match up with the zoom/tilt levels. If you make 3 or 4 line config file with all the settings drastically different and negative with different pictures you should be able to see what I mean. If you (don't)use the -'s properly you can get it to work ok, but I don't understand why it wouldn't work with all -'s.

Feature Request: Can you make the two images morph when not using negatives (jk, lol).

Originally Posted by davidhite

spaceskater,
It looks like some of your nmea GPRMC heading data is incorrect. GooPs does a sanity check and discards any sentences that contain invalid data. In your case many of the GPRMC sentences contain negative heading values. This will cause GooPs to appear to stop tracking. I'll have GooPs update the status bar to read "Invalid data received" when this happens. I think the other problems you see are coincidental.

That is interesting. I guess that explains it but why would the navigation programs work with no problem? I assume the Dead Reckoning generates the unexpected values. Possibly the Nav programs ignore the invalid sentences?!
Thanks for your help David. Wile you're at it could you add the GE auto start future when Goops load? One more suggestion - request: When you auto load GE then wait for some time (about 30 secs or a custom value on registry?) and then add the Goops server to the program so that we avoid the error dialog I get when Goops starts GE? That would allow me to have a button in my front-end (Frodo Player) that loads Goops and then embeds GE automatically.

Originally Posted by RPM_VR4

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Space: GooPs does (optionally) auto-load GE when you start the demo or connect to the GPS. If you enable auto-connect to GPS, it should auto-load GE immediately. Also, what error dialogue do you get? You should not save your temporary places when you exit GE. If you do not have any GooPs server in your "My Places" then you should not get any error.

David: Just make something like this:

Code:

0, -2000, -80, pic.png, -.5
5, -500, -45
25, -3000, -60, pic.png, -.75
45, -8000, -75
55, -12000, -50, pic.png

You should see it mixing pics and zoom levels where it shouldn't.

Well auto start has never worked for me in any of my 3 computers so i guessed it is not relevant to my pc. I figured that auto start was that when you clik Add/Update in the settings it starts GE. Does it work for you?? When you start GooPs it automaticly starts GE? I always have autoconnect in the GPS and it does autoconnect but that's it, not GE.

Also the problem I metioned before is that when goops tries to auto start GE I get this error (see Photo). It is a bit annoying since i have to click on retry when GE starts so it will go away.

Thanks for the example RPM.

I think you may be confusing the "Eye alt" in GE and the range in AutoZoom.cfg.

The range in AutoZoom.cfg is the distance from your "eye" to the cursor. It's not the same as the "Eye alt" in the bottom right of the GE view. "Eye alt" is the altitude of your "eye" relative to sea level, so it will vary depending on your current tilt and the elevation of the cursor.

To see this more clearly, turn off "Tilt" in GooPs and set it manually in GE so you are looking directly down on the cursor. The "Eye alt" should now read the current range (from AutoZoom.cfg) plus the elevation of the cursor above sea level.

I did see a speed rounding error in the GooPs AutoZoom config stuff. For example the 45-55 mph row is used when the speed is between 55 and 55.4 (or maybe 55.9).

I didn't see any problem with GooPs using the wrong images based on speed (except for the rounding problem). Perhaps you were expecting the image to change based on the "Eye alt" in GE?

Currently GooPs only autostarts GE when the "Start Demo" button is pressed or when the "Add/Update" button is pressed in the "Options" dialog. I'll have to see if I can find a workaround for the switch/retry dialog problem.
Having a GooPsServers in your My Places folder shouldn't have any effect on whether the dialog comes up.

Originally Posted by RPM_VR4

?

Space: GooPs does (optionally) auto-load GE when you start the demo or connect to the GPS. If you enable auto-connect to GPS, it should auto-load GE immediately. Also, what error dialogue do you get? You should not save your temporary places when you exit GE. If you do not have any GooPs server in your "My Places" then you should not get any error.

David: Just make something like this:

Code:

0, -2000, -80, pic.png, -.5
5, -500, -45
25, -3000, -60, pic.png, -.75
45, -8000, -75
55, -12000, -50, pic.png

You should see it mixing pics and zoom levels where it shouldn't.

Originally Posted by 97GST

I'm guessing i'm just stupid, I downloaded Goops, and all it is is some tiny program with a few small buttons. Do I need google earth also? and if so, is there any way around the 400 dolor subscription?

Yes you need Google Earth to use Goops. What Goops dose is that it read the NMEA data from your GPS and basically projects your location live in Google Earth. BUT Google Earth is FREE!!! No $400 subscription. Just go here and download. http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html

Only the Pro version needs subscription.