Messages

851

Archived Support / HTML Output

« on: July 09, 2005, 04:25:53 PM »

Sorry for the late reply.  Been out riding...

You can do a generate html page without photos just by setting a directory and hitting the html generate button.  There don't have to be any pictures in the time frame of the track.  There might have to be one picture there, though, I'm not sure.  

There's no way to change the output, no.

852

Archived Support / It just goes bye-bye

« on: July 09, 2005, 04:22:18 PM »

Hi,

We should be releasing a new beta either later today or tomorrow.  It has a new exception handling system that hopefully will catch these "poof" errors.  I'll post here when it's out, besides sending out the beta email to those on the list.

Thanks for the patience.

853

Archived Support / Uploading Combined Tracks

« on: June 13, 2005, 09:17:31 PM »

Yes, you should be able to do what you describe using first Make Network to eliminate the duplicates (where you walked out and back) and second, the profile/merge tool to merge up your completed track.

Make Network should leave any lines crossing segments.  If there are lines to begin with (from your GPS) cut them first with the scissors.

854

Archived - Feedback and Comments / HTML ImageMap feature

« on: June 13, 2005, 12:35:15 PM »

Yeah, it can be a pretty cool feature.  There have been some cool examples of what people have done with it.

The problem you describe hasn't been solved cleanly yet, but it needs it.  A quick and dirty solution is to get an EXIF header editing program and move the time stamps of your images so they are more spaced apart.

Or, grab the gps points and separate them by hand.

All of your ideas are good.  We need to give this feature a little more attention.

[Quote]

855

Archived Support / Uploading Combined Tracks

« on: June 11, 2005, 05:46:39 PM »

Quote (Troy Hartman @ June 10 2005,9:31)

Scott, I noticed that the tracks in the files I sent you were broken into separate segments so I used the Profile Tool to merge the tracks. Those same straight lines appeared in TP when I selected multiple segments. Ultimately what I'm trying to accomplish is when I map an entire forest over many different days I want to merge all of those tracks into one contiguous track. I can't seem to get this to happen without these straight lines cutting across the entire map to a different track point.

OK.  So if you're merging a contiguous track from multiple tracks the order that the track is stored in becomes important.  You get those lines if the segment you just added is stored in the reverse order.

So, hit the 'v' key if you get a line from the end of your merged track to the  last segment.  Or, right click and choose 'reverse last segment.'

I guess when you uplaod to the active log it was merging them for you and the same problem was happening -- since some sections are reversed you get lines.  Let me know if this helps you or not.

856

Archived Support / Joining Tracks

« on: June 11, 2005, 05:41:55 PM »

Yep, or you can just open up the file properties for both files and drag n' drop all the waypoints from one to the other.

857

Archived - Feedback and Comments / Waypoint Properties

« on: June 11, 2005, 05:40:46 PM »

Agreed.  I added it to the 'todo' list.  Shouldn't be hard and I get annoyed when programs don't save you a step like that too.

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858

Archived Support / It just goes bye-bye

« on: June 11, 2005, 05:40:03 PM »

Quote (tdcarter @ June 11 2005,12:19)

Scott, Alan, and the rest of the gang.... Okay. I'm thinking Larry's post is either different, or much more involved then my non PA mind can handle. I can play back tracks fine if I disable tile downloading. But I turn it on... and *poof's* start happening at random. They do seem to happen in patterns. One day, I can't play back a track for more then a few minutes without a blow-out. So I finally give up. next day, I play it back and download all the tiles just beautifully. So with my limited knowledge of code (as I'm a sys-admin), I'm assuming it has to be something in the download. Something is timing out badly. Here is a proposal. I can send you some tracks of mine that I've had trouble playing. Maybe when you play them back it'll recreate the problem. Thus narrowing it down to the data of the tilesets I'm downloading or the servers database of them. Or.... if the problem is in my connection or hardware (what??? a sys-admin problem, never..) Why not custom compile a debug version of TF. Insert a loop that writes out a log of each and every time a tile is requested, the ack's received, and any other data necessary. Yeah, It'll slow me down, but in the interest of solving this problem, I'm game. On a similar note, I recently played back a track that covered old data I know I already downloaded. But... it re-downloaded the data again and constantly crashed. I was using the .25m urban tileset. So did it really need to get the data again? Was it redundant? How are you checking for old/outdated tilesets? Was it crashing for no reason? In my maps directory I have a 640m file that was map1 and should have already contained the tiles of the urban data for that area. But now it was making a maps2 file and re-downloading the data. Is that within defined parameters? TC PS If you want to contact direct, get more info and take this post momentarily offline, let me know at tc.carter at charter.net

Hi,

Try cranking your 'tile cache size' setting down all the way, then see if you can still get it to go poof on you.  That's all Larry's fix entails.

It could be a matter of how much available memory you have when you start TopoFusion up.  If the problem is a memory cache that's too large then it should go poof more often if you start it without other programs loaded.

But it could be a download problem, as you're saying.  I agree that making a debug version for you to try is the next step.  Glad you're up for testing it out for us.

Are you 100% sure you already had those maps and that it didn't crash sometime before those tiles got written out?  The starting of a new maps file is suppose to happen at 640mb in case folks want to burn them to CDs (we had to cap them at 2 gig anyway).  It might be that there is something screwy in the mapindex file, though.  Another thing to try is to changing your map directory (starting fresh) temporarily to see if it still poofs.

Go ahead and send me your files for me to playback if none of this helps.

Thanks

[Quote]

859

Archived Support / It just goes bye-bye

« on: June 11, 2005, 05:34:16 PM »

Quote (tdcarter @ June 10 2005,11:49)

I've recently had some 'poofing' for no apparent reason - - until I remembered that I had gradually been increasing the cashe settings, and the memory use settings. I set all of these way back and the poofing stopped. Then I started increasing them again without problems until... I increased my RAM from .75 gb to 1.5 gb. Since TopoFusion uses a percentage of RAM to set the memory use values, these numbers increased a lot. Apparently something (XP SP2 or who knows what) could not use all that dedicated RAM, and I got a poof every time I tried to run TopoFusion. I backed the setttings down, and everything is fine again. By the way Krein, it would be great to know more about the end effect of these settings? For example, for normal use, is their an upper limit beyond which you won't see any difference. Say on the 3D settings. At least that way I could crank up only the settings that really make a difference. Larry reported in another thread. TC

Thanks for reporting your experience and fix.  This will help narrow it down.  My machine only has 512mb, so there may be a bug when the map cache gets too large.  

As for the settings improving things, the memory cache setting will just control how many tiles are stored in memory.  Panning back through tiles you have already loaded into memory will be faster than reading them from disk.  But if you've got 1.5 gb of memory, a setting of %15 or so should be more than enough.  Having more video memory free actually makes more of a difference.  Those maps are loaded instantly.

For 3d, the two settings do make a difference in the quality of the model.  The higher they are cranked the more detail you get, and the slower the display will be.  If you're using the auto-download 3d feature then of course more highly detailed models will take longer to download as well.  So it's a trade off rather than being a matter of which settings really matter.  It depends what kind of system you have and what type of connection.  That's why we made it configurable.

860

Archived Support / Joining Tracks

« on: June 10, 2005, 09:30:22 AM »

Make network is more about splitting tracks up (intelligently) and removing duplicate trails than it is about joining.   Although creating new routes from a network is done with the merge tool.

The merge tool is also the profile tool.  Just click on one segment with the profiler, then hold down shift and click the next one.  If one comes in the wrong direction (evidenced by extra lines) you can reverse it by right clicking and selecting reverse.

861

Archived Support / Uploading Combined Tracks

« on: June 09, 2005, 06:54:13 PM »

OK, that makes a little more sense, but I still see that the first file has most, if not all, of the lines still there.  

In fact there's only two tracks in the 5-31 file, which means you only cut one of the lines?

862

Archived Support / Version 2.6 released

« on: June 09, 2005, 04:26:30 PM »

That would probably be best, yeah.  2.61 will run a bit slower when starting up a 3D view, but otherwise should be fine.

863

Archived Support / Version 2.6 released

« on: June 09, 2005, 03:24:33 PM »

No need.  Sounds like it was just bad output from the server.  I've changed the message so it isn't so confusing.  Thanks for reporting the problem.

864

Archived Support / Version 2.6 released

« on: June 09, 2005, 11:58:49 AM »

Hi,

Can you download and try version 2.61, available from the beta page:

http://www.topofusion.com/beta.php

Just try doing a 3D view once.  Then send the files 'TopoFusion.log' and 'response.txt' (should be in main TF directory) to smorris@topofusion.com

Thanks!

BTW-There is a corona.dll file in this beta and you will need it.  Just unzip everything in the beta zip into your TF dir.  This isn't a release compile so it needs the .dll, but it still should fail as it did before.  Unless it was just a problem with bogus responses from the Nasa server.  At times I have gotten that error message that was just a bad response from the server.

865

Archived Support / Proxy Authentication

« on: June 09, 2005, 11:39:27 AM »

Hi,

Sorry, there is no way to authenticate with the proxy server using TopoFusion.  There may be a possible workaround, but you'd have to ask your network administrator about it.

You're the second person to ask for this feature.  If there is more interest we will add the functionality.

Thanks.

866

Archived Support / Version 2.6 released

« on: June 08, 2005, 10:04:52 PM »

Hi,

Sorry, the error message is out of date.  I'm going to look into why this error is coming up now for a few folks.  It worked OK for you in v2.5, right?

You don't need a corona.dll.  It's been compiled into the program so it isn't necessary anymore.

Thanks.

[Quote]

867

Archived Support / It just goes bye-bye

« on: June 07, 2005, 03:57:19 PM »

Quote (Bob Crane @ May 23 2005,6:48)

Yes, it just disappears without any notice. Really makes you get serious about saving your files often.

Hi Bob,

Can you post or email (to smorris@topofusion.com) your system specs, to the level of detail that Thomas posted above?  Maybe there is a link there.

I'll bug Alan again about some exception handling stuff.  It's disturbing that it just disappears!!

868

Archived - Feedback and Comments / Mapsource(s)???

« on: June 07, 2005, 03:53:20 PM »

Hi,

I'm not sure about the source of google's maps, but I'd guess it's just that they have a different source, not that terraserver isn't keeping up with the USGS.  It would be nice to add support for google maps, but we'll see.

Now the poof problem... this is a hard one because we can't duplicate it locally and so I don't really know where to start looking in the code.  I think I had asked the people who were having the problem (there's either 2 or 3?) to send me systems specs, but I only got a reply from one of them.  There could be a similarity in the systems that might give us a clue as to what's going on.  I probably got yours back, but not anyone elses.

I'll send reminders and/or post about it again.  Thanks for your support of TF and for spreading the word.

869

Archived Support / Compliment; question: google maps support?

« on: June 06, 2005, 09:21:39 PM »

Hi there.

Thanks for the wonderful feedback.  Hearing from folks like you makes all the hard effort that went into TopoFusion more worthwhile.  We do make some money from it, but it's still more of a hobby than a real business for us.  

I love how a GPS can be a record of adventures and trips.  Sometimes efforts to 'capture' an experience ruin the experience itself, but a GPS turned on usually doesn't require any attention.  And it's pretty cool to look back to trips I did years ago and see exactly where I went and when.  It will be odd to go through my GPS data 20 years from now (and laugh at how low resolution it is).

As for google maps, it's a nice map source, no doubt.  I think we'd need to ask them for permission to use their maps first.  Someone suggested that on our forum, but I haven't gotten around to asking them yet.

The code is not available, but we're open to proposals like yours for adding functionality.

To your other question, no, there isn't a way to get that dialog back.  That's something I had not thought of doing, actually.  It does show a nice view of what tracks you have in a file and could be a nice way to further organize/manipulate data.  I'll add the idea to the list and give it some thought.  It might not be too hard to adapt it to work on regular files.  Thanks.

870

Archived Support / New user questions, this time with specifics.

« on: June 03, 2005, 04:57:09 PM »

Sorry, the I mean the file selection drop down at the top of the GPS dialog screen.  Try selecting the file (any file, really) to download the points into, instead of the default of "-New File-" which brings up the save as... dialog.

I'll bet downloading tracks works, but it will be interesting if you can do a save as... from the merge dialog.

871

Archived Support / New user questions, this time with specifics.

« on: June 03, 2005, 04:36:20 PM »

This is odd.  We haven't had any bug reports in serial GPS downloading for some time.  

Can you try downloading your tracklog and see if that also crashes?

Also, try creating a new file, then after you select "Download Waypoints" choose that file in the top drop down box.  This will add the waypoints to that already selected file.  See if that works.  It might be a problem in the save as... dialog, or it could just be in the wrapping up of the GPS xfer.

Thanks.

872

Archived Support / New user questions

« on: June 03, 2005, 04:33:49 PM »

I thought I heard a while back that NG was planning on supporting GPX.  But I don't know if that ever happened or if it's in an update.  Anyone else know?

It's certainly not the only program that doesn't support it.  There are still others that haven't added support.

I'll reply about the eTrex Summit problem in your other thread.  Thanks,.

[Quote]

873

Archived Support / Compliment & a question

« on: June 02, 2005, 10:45:02 AM »

Quote (tymbee @ June 02 2005,7:44)

Quote (Krein @ June 01 2005,8:32) If you click on a file in the fileview and right click -> properties -> trackpoints, you can double click on any trackpoint to have the map re-center the view on that point.  It will also select that point. I discovered this after my original post-- it didn't appear to work that way, but I was looking at a zoomed out view and the point in use was obscured by a clump of camera icons. Great-- it works (now that I know what I'm doing). A BIG frustration we had with Garmin's Mapsource was that the track point properties window was modal. That is, one could check a box to get any given point to display on the map, but the zoom view was fixed and you had to close the window (and loose the point!) to do anything. The flexibility with TF in this regard is infinitely better than MS. Hopefully the ability to be able to view a track on a map then click on a given point and get some info about that point-- such as the track Pt# is something that could be incorporated in future versions. Given the fact that tracks can be sliced/diced and track points moved about, I'm assuming that the initial placement of points is "pure math". If I double click on Pt# 200 for example, that point appears centered and highlighted. However if I move Pt# 200, double clicking that same point finds the Pt# in it's moved position. IOW, there's no real "trackpoint EXIF" going on here, no 2-way link once the point is laid down. Which brings up another question in the idle curiosity category-- why would anyone want to _move_ a trackpoint? I can see wanting to cut a track or remove points, but move? One final suggestion: Although sometimes for our own amusement we use, for example, a boat icon as the "User Type" having a boat cruising at 4k feet over a mountain top does look a bit silly. Think about adding a PLANE! '>

Hah, you're right that we forgot a plane!  I recently noticed that after I finally got my first aerial tracklog from a Cessna 4 seater.  We did some recon on a troublesome mountain range known as the Superstitions.  We were trying to find a passable route for us to bicycle through (i.e. carry our bikes through).  It was pretty cool to use the show 3D tracks feature to see the elevations we were circling at.

If you've got a good icon to use for the plane, please send it (or let me know where it is).

As for moving track points, it's often very useful to clean up tracks afterwards.  When the GPS is not always in an ideal position (running, hiking, etc), errant points are unavoidable.

874

Archived Support / Compliment & a question

« on: June 01, 2005, 07:32:28 PM »

Awesome.  Thanks for the compliment.

The 'other way around' is possible, but unfortunately not what you first described.  Hopefully in future versions that capability will be there.

If you click on a file in the fileview and right click -> properties -> trackpoints, you can double click on any trackpoint to have the map re-center the view on that point.  It will also select that point.

875

Archived Support / Uploading Combined Tracks

« on: June 01, 2005, 07:30:21 PM »

Ok, in the two files you sent me it looks like you had cut some of the extra lines, but not all of them.  So if you uploaded that file (the 6-01-05 file) you should definitely get lines between your tracks.

Maybe you sent the wrong file?

876

Archived Support / Uploading Combined Tracks

« on: May 30, 2005, 09:15:03 PM »

Troy,

Glad you like the program.

Did you run the trail in the same direction the second time?  It might be that some sections are backwards.

Send the files to smorris@topofusion.com and I can take a look.  Also, what GPS unit are you using?

877

Archived Support / Uploading Combined Tracks

« on: May 30, 2005, 05:05:31 PM »

Ok, I'm not sure how the different units behave when you upload to the active log.  As far as I can remember my 60CS can handle multiple tracks in an upload by using the 'new track' flag, as TopoFusion does.

Maybe I'm not understanding what you're doing.  Do you have multiple tracks or just a single track?  If a single track (as you wrote here) then it should all be connected -- it's a single track.

I don't know what you mean by missing data.  Maybe if you explain a bit more about what you're doing.  

My other thought, though, is to try uploading to saved tracks.  Each track (there can be multiple per file) will go to a different saved tracks and they will not be connected.

878

Archived Support / Uploading Combined Tracks

« on: May 30, 2005, 02:10:23 PM »

When you combined the tracks they went into a single track, which means they are connected.  After you save the merged tracks into a file, just go back through and use the scissors to cut the merge points, then you'll they shouldn't be linked anymore.

Or, just upload each tracklog seperately.  

Good luck.

879

Archived Support / Version 2.6 released

« on: May 29, 2005, 02:16:58 PM »

We put out a new version today with some fixes:

2.6 -  [5/29/05]
    Added support for Garmin Forerunner 301 (all but tracklog download worked before)
    Improved interface to Goto coordinate dialog
    Arrow keys now move terrain in 3D view (use shift+arrow)
    Fixed problem with changing printers within a single session
    Fixed problems with tracks that cross 180/-180 longitude border
    Fixed crashes and export bugs in Lap Analysis
 Save dialog goes to default tracks directory after downloading from GPS
 Fixed logbook notes to be multi-line, added label
 Grades now show up as negative when downhill

880

Archived - Feedback and Comments / road grade

« on: May 29, 2005, 02:14:16 PM »

Check out the new version - 2.6.  The grade now shows up as negative, and changing the Y-axis to grade now shows negative and positive as well.  It's more useful than before.  Thanks for pointing this out.

More info Here

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881

Archived - Feedback and Comments / road grade

« on: May 28, 2005, 07:25:18 PM »

Quote (Guest @ May 26 2005,3:55)

Grades would only be negative based on direction of travel. Reversing direction would then make negative grades become positive.

Right.  Reversing it will have that effect.

882

Archived - Feedback and Comments / Elevation Data

« on: May 28, 2005, 07:24:31 PM »

Interesting.  Can you post a picture that shows this?

Are you using auto-downloaded elevation data or DEM files you downloaded yourself?

My guess is auto-downloaded data, which seems odd.  It seems to match well elsewhere.

Thanks.

883

Archived Support / Change wpts to compass degrees

« on: May 27, 2005, 12:29:56 PM »

Agreed, this sounds like a good feature to add that shouldn't take much effort.  Thanks guys.

884

Archived - Feedback and Comments / road grade

« on: May 26, 2005, 10:58:58 AM »

Reversing a route (a track, that is) is easy.  Use the profile/merge tool to click on the track, then hit the "V" key.  Or, with the track selected hit the right mouse button and select "Reverse last segment" in the menu.

As for negative grade, I have no idea why we aren't showing it as negative.  It should be, so thanks for pointing that out.

885

Archived Support / Change wpts to compass degrees

« on: May 26, 2005, 10:54:53 AM »

That sounds like a good idea, hardwire.

What you really need in TF is not a feature that displays waypoints as compass headings, but one that allows you to add a new waypoint given a new bearing.

If you can do it on the GPS and then upload to TF, you're set.  Let us know how it goes.

886

Archived Support / Can't read data from Garmin Etrex Summit

« on: May 26, 2005, 10:52:00 AM »

Hi,

First, TopoFusion can use com ports greater than Com 4.  I know of several users who use a USB->Serial spoofer as you are trying to do.  Unfortunately, it does seem to be hit and miss sometimes, due to flakeness in the USB->Serial conversion.  

None of the GPS functionality is limited in the demo.  The only limitations are the Demo tiles and the limit of 3 files open.  So it should work just fine.

I don't know a way to test if the GPS is there or not using HyperTerminal, except that it shouldn't give you a port error if you talk to it.  If you send something to it and you get a write or read error then you know it's not correctly hooked up.  Could be anything from a broken cable to software (windows) issues.

I'd give the USB-Serial thing another try using TopoFusion.

Let us know how it goes.

887

Archived Support / Change wpts to compass degrees

« on: May 23, 2005, 12:15:26 PM »

No, you can't get a compass bearing between points using TopoFusion.  My reply could have been more helpful the first time, sorry.

I guess property boundaries are commonly described this way?  I have not encountered a use for this, yet, thus it's not in the program.  Anything you can add to educate would help.  Thanks.

888

Archived Support / Export View Question

« on: May 23, 2005, 11:15:46 AM »

Yep, we are working on a way to do this.  Dozens of people have requested this feature, including myself.  Yes, I even requested it of myself.

889

Archived Support / Profile of a track

« on: May 23, 2005, 11:14:32 AM »

Climbing Analysis has the "Add elevations to track" feature, yep.  But it needs to be in a more obvious place.

I'd like to see 3d fly-through also... need to bug Alan about it since he's the brains behind the 3d engine.

[Quote]

890

Archived Support / It just goes bye-bye

« on: May 23, 2005, 11:12:44 AM »

Quote (Bob Crane @ May 22 2005,10:04)

I have been getting the same erratic crash results on my new desktop where I upgraded topofusion. For the first few days it shut down every few minutes, now after a few months it shuts down much less frequently(however I have been doing most of my topofusion work lately on my laptop which I decided not to upgrade to the new 2.5 topofusion) Let me know when you figure it out, by the way, topofusion is still the best program I have used for getting quick maps and editing them without much hassle. THANK YOU VERY MUCH, keep up the good work. bob

Bob, are you seeing the same kind of crash -- no error message, just the program disappearing?

Thanks.  We need to take a closer look at this problem.

891

Archived Support / Change wpts to compass degrees

« on: May 23, 2005, 11:09:44 AM »

I'd have to agree, a waypoint is just a position.  It doesn't have a heading....?

892

Archived Support / Can not view maps

« on: May 23, 2005, 11:07:57 AM »

The problem is that you entered a positive longitude, which is in the other hemisphere.

The "W" fixed it for you.

We're going to make this more obvious in the next version, but it's not a problem of syntax checking!!

893

Archived Support / Base Map Image

« on: May 23, 2005, 11:06:22 AM »

Hi,

No way to import a user map, yet.  Sorry.

You can get satellite imagery for Canada using the Landsat imagery, though.  Much easier than saving and calibrating maps.

894

Archived Support / downloading maps to use while offline

« on: May 23, 2005, 11:05:08 AM »

Available memory is only referring to TopoFusion's cache of maps in memory, not on disk.  The disk cache (mapsX.dat) files are not limited.  Check their size and you should see them growing as you continue to load maps.

895

Archived - Feedback and Comments / A couple of dumb questions

« on: May 23, 2005, 11:01:58 AM »

It's true north.

I'll add the idea of a declination diagram to the todo/idea list.  Thanks for the idea.

896

Archived Support / It just goes bye-bye

« on: April 14, 2005, 04:55:02 PM »

Hi,

Thanks for the report of the problem.  You are the second user to see this behavior.  The other user can't reliably replicate the problem, but it happens randomly when scrolling or zooming aggressively.

I suggested updating his video card drivers, which did not seem to help, but I'd suggest that for you as well.  Can you post (or email) a more detailed system spec?  There may be a common similarity that would help us track it down.  

This is the first we've ever heard of the program just disappearing -- you'd think it could at least give an error message!!

897

Beta Testing / v2.51 - Forerunner 301 support

« on: April 14, 2005, 04:50:54 PM »

Ok, thanks for the report.  Looks like there is another mystery to solve...

898

Beta Testing / v2.51 - Forerunner 301 support

« on: April 12, 2005, 07:14:03 AM »

Just a quick note that we released a new beta version - v2.51 that includes support for the Forerunner 301.  We still don't have heart rate data capability, but tracks now download correctly from the unit.

899

Archived - Feedback and Comments / Forerunner 301

« on: April 12, 2005, 07:12:21 AM »

Great, thanks for testing it.  I've heard back from others that it works as well.

Please try to replicate the problem you found it editing the track.  My guess is that it's an unrelated bug -- but I would still like to know what it is in any case.

Thanks.

900

Archived - Feedback and Comments / Forerunner 301

« on: April 11, 2005, 12:08:19 PM »

I think I have a fix for it.

There's a new beta version - v2.51 that includes it.  I haven't heard back from any 301 users yet (just released today), so I'm not sure if it works or not.

http://www.topofusion.com/beta.php

(if you're a registered user)