Day at the Magic Kingdom Tracked on GPS

automagic

automagic

New Member
Very neat indeed. You would be surprised to know the number of people who keep GPS trackpoints at the parks. Earlier this year I tested several handheld and automotive GPS units around Disney to investigate/compare accuracy and explore photo geocoding capabilities. I typically use GPS and photo geocoding when I go on my research trips but I wanted something fun to use for teaching about GPS and photo geocoding technologies. Essentially the process involves setting your GPS in track mode, walking/riding around taking photos, and then using the computer to geocode (add lat/long) to the photos and build a Google Earth KML or KMZ file. By the way, you can see the high level of error in the GPS track in Space Mountain and Big Thunder. There are several reasons for this, but I won't go in to them. Here is a snippet of GPS track around MK and geocoded images:

wdw_gps.jpg
 
Jellyfish

Jellyfish

New Member
That's an awesome idea, though what does the bits that say like '7.56 mi' mean? :)

The jungle Cruise looked really cool though! :D
 
krankenstein

krankenstein

Well-Known Member
That is a really cool idea. BTMRR is my favorite part. I never really thought about how many times the track crossed itself on that ride! Thanks for sharing this.
 
lpet11984

lpet11984

Well-Known Member
kc1296426 said:
Wow, really cool! You should do this for your entire stay at WDW or something.
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That would be so wild not only to keep track of how far you've traveled while on property, but to see where all the busses took you, the boat rides, all the ride paths, where exactly your room was, how many times you went back for "one more dole whip float" :lookaroun:slurp:
 
Sadiebird

Sadiebird

Member
Original Poster
kc1296426 said:
Wow, really cool! You should do this for your entire stay at WDW or something.
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I think the amount of time you can record on the GPS is limited and we didn't have a laptop with us to transfer the data over, so we just chose to do one day of recording. My husband picked Magic Kingdom because it's my favorite park. :)
 
automagic

automagic

New Member
The only problem is that the GPS tracks of the rides like Big Thunder and Space Mountain are not very accurate at all. In fact, they are off by 10s of meters in places. The GPS can not get an accurate fix to get a reliable latitude and longitude from the satellites when indoors or in tunnels, overhangs, etc. Essentially, if something is blocking the "view" between the GPS and the satellites, then the GPS points and tracks will have a high amount of error. The "blue scribbles" do not actually show the true ride path in those places but instead an interpreted path between GPS points that aren't very reliable. In areas where the GPS has a better view of the sky and satellites, the GPS tracks are a little more accurate(~5 meters). Ideally, if the GPS is WAAS-enabled and were allowed to sit for a while in one place without cover, the accuracy would improve to somewhere around 3 meters and that's pushing it.
 
Sadiebird

Sadiebird

Member
Original Poster
hardcard said:
from the looks of it, it;'s because they were on the TTA at that point.
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Nope. We didn't go on TTA that day. The setting that he used for recording wasn't one of the more detailed settings. It just takes samples every 30 seconds, or something like that, and then connects the dots. So it may have incorrectly connected the dots at that spot.
 

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