Rail3D*

   

 

GPS Location


 SpotLog V3 can use the device's GPS to identify location.

To use the GPS location

  • Select "GPS" from the app menu, and tick "AutoLocation":

When GPS is enabled, the device reads the GPS location and sets the location box on the NotePad Screen:

Note that the location box is shaded yellow when GPS auto-location is enabled.

The GPS location is recorded as latitude and longitude coordinates. If "Resolve Locations" is enabled (see settings below), the device will attempt to use the Google Location API to get the name of the locaction (town etc).  Note that this facility will use mobile data to contact the Google service.

If you do not want the device to use mobile data, disable the "Resolve Location" feature in settings.  In this case the app will store the latitude and longitude corrdinates for any records and when next on a WiFi connection will use the Google location service to identify the location from the coordinates.

Untick "Auto-Location" from the GPS sub-menu to turn off GPS location.

Note that on many devices, using the GPS increases battery drain significantly.

Also, please note, the location is only used for a record if the location tick box is ticked on the NotePad screen.

Custom Locations

The Google Location service provides fairly coarse locations : for example all London area stations resolve as "London".  In order to get more specific locations, we can name "Custom Locations"

To name the current location:

  • Enable the GPS auto-location and wait until a GPS fix is achieved and the location name displayed in the location box.

  • Select "Name Current Location" from the app's GPS sub-menu

  • An edit screen is shown with the current GPS coordinates and the location Name. Add or Edit the name as required and click "Update" when finished.

The app uses the custom location name instead of the Google Loction service result when at or near the stored location (see settings below).  So - for example - one could store custom locations for "London Paddington" / "Royal Oak" / "Westbourne Park" / "Old Oak Common" etc instead of the default "London"

The "Radius" of a custom location is set in settngs, with a default value of 1000 metres.  Thus if I set a custom location for "Farringdon Jct", anywhere within 1km of that location will be displayed as "Farringdon Jct"

 

Settings

 

 

You can control how the GPS function works in the app's settings:

  • Use GPS locations - enables the GPS feature

  • Resolve Locations

    If this is ticked, the app can use mobile data to resolve GPS lat/Lon to a named location.  If this is not enabled, the app stores the Lat/Lon and will resolve them later when WiFi data is available.

  • Location Range (metres)

    Specifies the radius around a custom location point that the app recognises as that location.  See Custom Locations above.

  • Minimum custom location

    Specifies the minimum distance between custom locations. The default is 250 metres.  If you use the "Name Location" at a location that is less than this distance from the nearest custom location, you will edit the existing location.  If you are greater than this distance from the nearest custom location, "Name Location" will create a new custom location.

 

 


Manual

 

 

 

 


MRG 06/02/2016 13:34:12