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Simple GPS data visualization using Python and Open Street Maps
There is an easy way of visualizing the GPS data on the maps.
Visualization of the GPS data can be challenging when using programming languages. Some interesting Python packages can be used for such purposes. But, it can be hard to install and use them in some cases, especially if you have only a simple task to do. This article will show the simple but effective GPS records visualization method using Python and Open Street Maps (OSM). If you want to skip straight to the code, visit https://github.com/tisljaricleo/GPS-visualization-Python.
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The goal
The image below shows the goal of this method. There are three main elements that need to be included:
- Map image — map in some image format like .png, .jpg, etc.
- GPS records — records that consist of (latitude, longitude) pairs.
- Geographical coordinates — conversion from pixels to geographical coordinates.
Setup & Data
The easiest way to use code below is to install VS Code or some other IDE for editing Python code. Python Jupyter notebook users could encounter some problems or additional setup. The easiest way is to run main.py script directly from one of the IDEs.
For this article, a small GPS dataset is used collected with the Columbus V-990 logger that I’ve carried in my pocket for two days. Data is available at the github repository.
It is a simple (latitude, longitude) dataset with around 35000 records and looks like this:
