View My Tracks User’s Guide View My Tracks - User’s Guide Table of Contents Overview – GPS track files ........................................................................................................................................... 3 Acquiring a Google (or Gmail) account ........................................................................................................................ 3 Storing your GPS track files online ............................................................................................................................... 3 Creating your Owner Profile ......................................................................................................................................... 4 Authorization Request ............................................................................................................................................... 4 The Profile Page ........................................................................................................................................................ 5 Uploading your GPS track files ..................................................................................................................................... 7 View Tracks page .......................................................................................................................................................... 9 Right side – Trackpoint information .......................................................................................................................... 9 Distances between trackpoints - Disclaimer ............................................................................................................ 12 Long trackpoint time intervals ................................................................................................................................. 12 Select a trackpoint – drop down list ......................................................................................................................... 13 Performance data display ......................................................................................................................................... 14 Time zone differences - Trackpoint and user .......................................................................................................... 14 Track date selection – Clickable Calendar............................................................................................................... 14 Track date selection – Sorting and filtering the list ................................................................................................. 16 Left side – A map of the entire track ....................................................................................................................... 18 View charts for the track .......................................................................................................................................... 20 Other features .............................................................................................................................................................. 21 Owner profile setting – Minimum distance between trackpoints ............................................................................ 21 Owner profile setting – Maximum trackpoints to show .......................................................................................... 22 Trackpoint filtering .................................................................................................................................................. 22 Using revised trackpoint speeds .............................................................................................................................. 24 Using CSV files ....................................................................................................................................................... 25 Multiple Owner profiles .......................................................................................................................................... 25 Owner profile setting – Include subfolders .............................................................................................................. 25 Other files appearing in your folder ......................................................................................................................... 26 Allowing others to view your data ............................................................................................................................... 26 Restrictions on Viewers ........................................................................................................................................... 29 Owners and Viewers – Additional comments ......................................................................................................... 30 Questions, suggestions, comments, issues? ................................................................................................................. 30 Appendix I – Capturing tracking files into Google Drive ........................................................................................... 31 Naming your tracking files ...................................................................................................................................... 31 View My Tracks – User’s Guide Page: 1 Revised: 9/19/2021 Appendix II – Using subfolders ................................................................................................................................... 32 Appendix III – Managing Viewer access .................................................................................................................... 33 Method 1 - Use the website to manage Viewer access ............................................................................................ 33 Method 2 - Manage Viewer access yourself ............................................................................................................ 34 View My Tracks – User’s Guide Page: 2 Revised: 9/19/2021 Overview – GPS track files Many people use GPS devices to record the routes they take during outdoor activities and while traveling. In some cases, smart phones are used instead and there are dozens of GPS smart phone apps available for this purpose. Also, some fitness devices capture GPS data about the route taken during workouts. But regardless of the tool used, the information captured is stored on the device. This information contains details about the route, referred to as a GPS track, and a GPS track has one or more trackpoints. Each trackpoint contains the GPS co-ordinates and other data about one point on the route, and there may be many trackpoints in a GPS track. Usually the trackpoints are recorded at specific time or distance intervals. In many cases the GPS track data can be extracted from the device into various file types for use elsewhere. Among the commonly used file types are GPX, TCX, and CSV (CSV files are described in more detail later). This website reads track files of these types and displays the information. Acquiring a Google (or Gmail) account In order to use this website you must have a Google (or Gmail) account, which you can easily obtain for free. If you don’t already have one, you can get your Google account here. NOTE: If you are using this website to view GPS tracking data belonging to other people and don’t intent to store your own data, then skip forward to the View Tracks page section. All the information you need to know is contained there. Storing your GPS track files online This website reads your track files and displays the data, including a map of the entire track, and also adds relevant information. For all of this to work, you must make your files available to the website. The solution is to have you store these files in Google Drive, which is a free online storage facility. Once your files are stored there, the website user needs to only specify the date of their activity, and the selected data will be displayed. Most other GPS viewing websites require you to load your GPS track files on every usage, even when choosing a file viewed previously. But once a track file is stored in Google Drive, it’s easily available for repeated use via this website. As the owner of a Google account you automatically get 15 gigabytes of free space in Google Drive, enough space to store thousands of files. Not familiar with Google Drive? No need to worry. This website will handle all the Google Drive functions for you. But if you have knowledge of Google Drive and would prefer to handle View My Tracks – User’s Guide Page: 3 Revised: 9/19/2021 those operations yourself, information for this is included in the appendices of this document. NOTE: All the data you store in Google Drive is accessible only by you, unless you allow other people to view it. More on this later. Creating your Owner Profile Once you have a Google (or Gmail) account, then you can create your website profile. Select Owner Profiles from the website’s home page. NOTE: In some cases, a profile is created automatically. When that happens, the following steps can be used to modify an auto-created profile, if needed. Authorization Request The first time you use the website, several authorization request pages are displayed asking if the website may access your information in Google Drive. After Sign in/Authorize is selected, then you’ll see: View My Tracks – User’s Guide Page: