CUCC Expedition Handbook

Saving GPS tracks and locations

The end-result you are trying to achieve

What you are trying to do is to get your recorded locations (waypoints) and wanderings (tracks)

recorded somewhere,
eventually appear properly in the cave survey database.

To make this happen you have to transfer the tracks and waypoints in a GPX file to the right place.

For most people, the simplest way to achieve this is described in the simplified upload instructions below. If this does not work for you, try the general upload instructions further down the page.

(If you are looking for how to upload some photos instead, those instructions are here).

This page is part of the My Phone on Expo instructions.

Simplified upload instructions

Based on an Android phone in 2024.

Connect your phone to a laptop in USB mass storage mode ("File transfer" option in Android).
Locate the GPX file in the folder that should have popped up representing your phone storage. For a clean OsmAnd installation on Android in 2024, GPX files can be found in:
```
/Internal shared storage/Android/data/net.osmand/files/tracks/rec
```
Copy the file to a temporary location on the laptop
Go to the GPX upload form. Log in with the usual cave:beer password.
If there is already a propsepctor directory listed in your name, navigate to it. Otherwise create one in the same format using the form at the bottom of the page first.
Browse to your GPX file, rename it to something sensible (all lower case names preferred) and press Upload.

Editing your tracks

We would much rather have any track than nothing at all: any weirdness can be fixed later. But if you really want to edit out the glitches yourself, the online GPX editor GPX Studio is very good. Or you can download GPSprune to your laptop (it's a java app) and run it locally.

General upload instructions

Get the GPX file that holds your locations and wanderings from your phone.
Upload the GPX file to the proper place.

Getting the GPX data out of your phone or device

Use the "Wikilocs" app (or another app with GPS tracking function) to record your track as you walk across the plateau.
When you have finished your walk and are back on the internet, publish your track using the app.
In the app, if there is an option to "share" your track by email:
- Share it with yourself i.e. email it to your own email address.
- Share it with someone who knows how to do the GPX thing and upload it properly.
On your laptop (or possibly on your phone) look at the email and visit the web page by clicking on the link.
The web page has a "Download" button: click on it.
It may give you options such as "Garmin", or "File". Choose "File".
It will ask for a filename to use. Pick something like "northplat-asmith-2018-07-29" (if your name is Aaron Smith)
A GPX file "northplat-asmith-2018-07-29.gpx" will be downloaded to the Downloads folder on your laptop.
Write a note in the expo logbook to say what you have done with a short description of what you saw and found.

Congratulations. You now have your track recorded using GPS as a GPX file.

Upload instructions

Email the public link from the app to someone who knows how to do it.
Email the GPX file to someone who knows how to do it.
GPX files are small enough for email systems, so don't be shy of adding them as attachments.
Write a note in the expo logbook to say what you have done with a short description of what you saw and found.

If you can't find someone who knows how to do it, find the most extreme nerd you can find and point them at the Expert instructions below.

Slightly less simple upload instructions

Using your own laptop on expo, or after you return from expo, use the "more complex" instructions for uploading photos to /uploads/, but upload your GPX files instead. But none of this will work on your own laptop until you have also done the key-pair setup procedure.

More complex upload instructions

OK you now have a file produced by your device, something like XTR20170714X2345.GPX .

First you rename it to something recognisable such as 'top-camp-to-toilet-grike.gpx' (all lower case).
On the expo laptop copy it to a folder in/home/expo/Downloads/gpslogs/YourName/
Tell someone you have done it.
Write a note in the expo logbook to say what you have done with a short description of what you saw and found.

Experts only

GPX data is stored in two places.

initially in expofiles/gpslogs/...
some key selected tracks are later stored in the cave survey repository :loser:

GPS tracks are voluminous and we also get a lot of repetition as people tend to follow the same routes for part of their walks. So the initial raw data is kept in

expofiles/gpslogs/<year>/<MyName>/

e.g.

expofiles/gpslogs/2018/PhilipSargent/

and you can create sub-folders for raw data and edited data, or for different parts of the plateau. You should always keep the raw, untouched data as well as any hand-edited data.

The process for uploading the GPX files to a specific folder expofiles/gpslogs/... is exactly the same as for uploading photographs, so go to these "more complex" instructions to learn how to do it.

Note the naming convention for this folder created by Philip Sargent in 2018. Human names in folders in expofiles are written in CamelCase; not lower-case letters. This is for consistency with the naming for uploading photos.

If you have edited GPS tracks and waypoints with no extraneous data then, after agreeing this with other people as to its qualityand appropriateness, it will go into the Loser git repository in folder /gpx/<year>/ e.g.
:loser:/2018/stone-bridge-to-fischgesicht_aday-2018-07-12.gpx

Note the naming convention for this file created by Anthony Day on July 12th 2018. Everything in any repository is always named using lower-case letters.

Go back to My Phone on Expo