How to apply gps locations to dives?

[Peter Reinold]

Hi guys,

I love subsurface and decided to make it my main dive log software as it runs basically on any available device and is compatible with different dive computers. So if I ever want to switch devices or dive computers, I can and dont have to migrate my logbook. Great job guys.

One thing I miss, or I can't find it, is a "statistic page". with some useful and maybe some unnecessary info like

• number of dives
• deepest dive
• longest dive
• number of dive sites
• ...

you know the usual. Anyway, this is not why I am posting here. 

I need some help figuring out location services and how to apply the fixes to my dives.

So here's what happened.

• DC and phone are on the same time
• Started running location services in subsurface mobile as soon as we left the dock. Yeah unnecessary to start that early, but it was only a short trip and it would make sure that I have a fix by the time we reach the dive site.
• did 2 dives
• after the 2 dives, I imported the dives from my Perdix AI via Bluetooth into subsurface mobile
• stopped location services
• clicked on apply GPS fixes
• when I opened one of the two dives, there was no location. the map it button was gray. I clicked on edit the dive and no GPS location was shown.

However, when I edit a dive and click on the location field, a list with dive sites pops up. It shows my previous dive sites, I previously entered and it showed 4 "blank dive sites". I get it, as the dive sites, from the location services haven't been named yet. But that way it's impossible to see which location belongs to which dive. 

What am I doing wrong? I mean if the GPS locations would be added to the dive, I should be able to hit the map it button to see the location or not? Then I could edit the actual location later on in Subsurface on my Windows PC. I was also confused as it gave me 4 locations instead of 2. I don't know how the app came up with the 4 locations, but basically every dive site had "two locations" in the list, but of course, the name field was blank.

I had to go the long way via "Show GPS fixes" and then manually find the closest time to match it with my dive computer dive start time. Is there no easier way? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for all the great work you guys do.

Subsurface Mobile version 2.2.3 (4.9.3.147)

[Robert C. Helling]

Am Dienstag, 22. Oktober 2019 02:35:11 UTC+2 schrieb Peter Reinold:

One thing I miss, or I can't find it, is a "statistic page". with some useful and maybe some unnecessary info like

• number of dives
• deepest dive
• longest dive
• number of dive sites
• ...

you know the usual. Anyway, this is not why I am posting here. 

That part of your question I can answer:

Select the dives you are interested in (possibly the entire divest) or using a filter. Then click on the statistics tab. In my example you see that I selected 16 dives.

For "the deepest/longest" etc, click on the specific header of the divest and it will be sorted accordingly (in my example you see my longest dives).

Hope that helps.

Robert

 

[Dirk Hohndel]

On Oct 21, 2019, at 8:35 PM, Peter Reinold <mcc....@gmail.com> wrote:

I need some help figuring out location services and how to apply the fixes to my dives.

So here's what happened.

• DC and phone are on the same time
• Started running location services in subsurface mobile as soon as we left the dock. Yeah unnecessary to start that early, but it was only a short trip and it would make sure that I have a fix by the time we reach the dive site.
• did 2 dives
• after the 2 dives, I imported the dives from my Perdix AI via Bluetooth into subsurface mobile
• stopped location services
• clicked on apply GPS fixes
• when I opened one of the two dives, there was no location. the map it button was gray. I clicked on edit the dive and no GPS location was shown.

However, when I edit a dive and click on the location field, a list with dive sites pops up. It shows my previous dive sites, I previously entered and it showed 4 "blank dive sites". I get it, as the dive sites, from the location services haven't been named yet. But that way it's impossible to see which location belongs to which dive. 

What am I doing wrong? I mean if the GPS locations would be added to the dive, I should be able to hit the map it button to see the location or not? Then I could edit the actual location later on in Subsurface on my Windows PC. I was also confused as it gave me 4 locations instead of 2. I don't know how the app came up with the 4 locations, but basically every dive site had "two locations" in the list, but of course, the name field was blank.

So the location service simply runs in the background and records GPS fixes. It doesn't know (by itself) when you go diving.

I have noticed with very recent Android versions (9 and 10) that at least on some phones Subsurface-mobile running the GPS service is getting killed by the OS, presumably to save power.

And because I added a Garmin dive watch with GPS capability, I don't use the location service anymore, so I haven't tested it recently. I will do that today to see if I inadvertently broke something.

Anyway, you should have a list of fixes on your phone that tells you for how long the service ran and how many fixes it took:

I had to go the long way via "Show GPS fixes" and then manually find the closest time to match it with my dive computer dive start time. Is there no easier way? Am I doing something wrong?

So from that description I gather that you had appropriate fixes for those two dives?

Can you tell me the time stamps of those fixes, relative to the beginning and end of the dive? I.e. fix at 8:01, dive started at 8:45, lasted 45 minutes, next fix at 10:15, no fix in between. Or fix at 8:01, dive started at 8:10, next fix at 8:15?

Because normally you should simply be able to apply the fixes and it should do the right thing. But it's entirely possible that this got broken at some point and no one noticed...

/D

[Peter Reinold]

Hi Dirk,

yeah the location service of subsurface run fine and it wasn't killed. I have a bunch of gps fixes in the list.

The first dive started at 2:27 pm. The closest location fixes just before and after are 2:24pm and 2:33pm. I have a whole bunch before and during the actual dive which lasted about 46 minutes. 

Second dive started at 4:09 pm. Closest location fixes are 3:57pm and 4:29. also a bunch of location fixes before and during the dive. This dive lasted 24 minutes.

This are also the gps fixes I used to enter the dive location manually into subsurface by adding the dive site on Subsurface Windows Desktop. 

Thanks a lot for the quick reply. 

Maybe it's just something I am doing wrong. As mentioned, if I edit a dive on mobile, I can select a location, but the location has no name, and as I did multiple dives, I don't know which location would be actually for which dive. I get that, the software doesn't know the location name, I was just hopping the GPS coordinates woudl be applied automatically and then I can name the site in dive site management later on Desktop after syncing. 

best regards,

Peter

On Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 6:35:58 AM UTC-4, Dirk wrote:

[Stuart Vernon]

I think there is some funkiness in Subsurface-mobile on Android related to doing Apply GPS Fixes and dives not showing that they have a location, even though they do.

 

Exiting from Subsurface-mobile and running it again seems like that “fixes” it so that the dives then show with the Map button enabled.

 

I think. I have not spent any time trying to develop a set of reproducible steps.

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[Dirk Hohndel]

I can confirm Stuart's analysis that the fixes are indeed applied and the dive list is just not correctly refreshed.

I'm working on finding a clean way to address this right now. Stay tuned.

/D

[Peter Reinold]

Thanks a lot. 

This is probably one of the best features of Subsurface. I love it. I was still able to location tag it, but I had to do all the work manually. Take your time, and I really appreciate the effort. 

[Dirk Hohndel]

So the latest beta version seems to do a very reasonable job for me.

I assume that you don't have "fresh" data to try with, but maybe you can create a second account (just do name...@your.email as email address - the stuff after plus will be ignored by your MTA and you'll still get the PIN email -- you can ask me to delete the account when you're done). Where you copy your dive data, remove the GPS info, and try applying it again on the phone... or you can wait testing it until your next dive trip, of course :-)

Thanks

/D

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[Peter Reinold]

I signed up for the beta and I am planning on going diving again soon. I will update here with my experience.

Thanks guys,

Its just such an awesome app.

On Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 8:14:51 AM UTC-7, Dirk wrote:

So the latest beta version seems to do a very reasonable job for me.

I assume that you don't have "fresh" data to try with, but maybe you can create a second account (just do na...@your.email as email address - the stuff after plus will be ignored by your MTA and you'll still get the PIN email -- you can ask me to delete the account when you're done). Where you copy your dive data, remove the GPS info, and try applying it again on the phone... or you can wait testing it until your next dive trip, of course :-)

Thanks

/D

On Oct 22, 2019, at 8:18 PM, Peter Reinold <mcc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks a lot. 

This is probably one of the best features of Subsurface. I love it. I was still able to location tag it, but I had to do all the work manually. Take your time, and I really appreciate the effort. 

On Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 4:28:43 PM UTC-4, Dirk wrote:

I can confirm Stuart's analysis that the fixes are indeed applied and the dive list is just not correctly refreshed.

I'm working on finding a clean way to address this right now. Stay tuned.

/D

On Oct 22, 2019, at 2:40 PM, Stuart Vernon wrote:

I think there is some funkiness in Subsurface-mobile on Android related to doing Apply GPS Fixes and dives not showing that they have a location, even though they do.

 

Exiting from Subsurface-mobile and running it again seems like that “fixes” it so that the dives then show with the Map button enabled.

 

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[Dirk Hohndel]

Always happy about reviews on Google Play.

As it happens, pretty much everyone who has something fail on them gives us a piss poor review... but most people who like the app don't bother it seems.
We have more than seven thousand users, about 5000 of which access the cloud at least once a quarter (so apparently are using it), and 166 reviews...

/D

[Jaspal Sahota]

Bit OT, but thanks for the (gentle) reminder...I've just stuck a +ve review on the apple app store :)

On Monday, 28 October 2019 11:54:27 UTC, Dirk wrote:

Always happy about reviews on Google Play.

As it happens, pretty much everyone who has something fail on them gives us a piss poor review... but most people who like the app don't bother it seems.
We have more than seven thousand users, about 5000 of which access the cloud at least once a quarter (so apparently are using it), and 166 reviews...

/D

[Marc MERLIN]

Hi Dirk,

As you know, I just came back from a trip to Palau, I have 34 dives, not a single one got a GPS fix.

I tried to run the old subsurface app, it ran for a while with the notification icon so that it didn't get killed by android (I run Q), but the upload is hopelessly broken and it won't upload any of those data points.

I also tried to use subsurface-mobile's GPS > run location service, but the UI is not working well.

I get no top icon that it's running, so it's invisible (and more likely to be killed by android).

Worse, if it get killed by android, I can't tell, since it runs completely silently with no UI feedback at all, except if you go back in the GPS menu and see that it now offers 'disable location service'

I kind of gave up on it during the trip and now see in GPS that I have 10 saved data points in GPS fixes menu, but none were applied to any dive, even if they happened on the same days. So, even for the few points I have, they didn't get applied to my dives.

To be fair, most of my devices were downloaded on my computer and then later synced to my phone via cloud, but at that point I was hoping the GPS data would get added, and it did not.

More generally, I used a real garmin GPS to log the dive locations (because long tender rides to the reef, and my phone stayed on the main boat where it's safe). Is there any way today to take a GPX track or a bunch of GPX points, and apply them to a list of dives after I specify the local time offset?

On Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 8:14:51 AM UTC-7, Dirk wrote:

So the latest beta version seems to do a very reasonable job for me.

I assume that you don't have "fresh" data to try with, but maybe you can create a second account (just do na...@your.email as email address - the stuff after plus will be ignored by your MTA and you'll still get the PIN email -- you can ask me to delete the account when you're done). Where you copy your dive data, remove the GPS info, and try applying it again on the phone... or you can wait testing it until your next dive trip, of course :-)

[Linus Torvalds]

On Tue, Dec 3, 2019 at 1:15 PM Marc MERLIN <ma...@merlins.org> wrote:
>
> More generally, I used a real garmin GPS to log the dive locations (because long tender rides to the reef, and my phone stayed on the main boat where it's safe). Is there any way today to take a GPX track or a bunch of GPX points, and apply them to a list of dives after I specify the local time offset?

Can you send me an XML file with your dives, along with the GPX
file(s) to go with them, and I'll take a look. I do think a GPX track
would be better than what we do now.

Of course, both Dirk and I end up just using the Garmin Descent Mk1
and getting GPS fixes that way, but it's not a great dive computer in
other respects. I'm hoping that they'll do a new revision on it
(better dive UI and air integration, which are the two main downsides
of the Descent Mk1)

It might not be until next week that I actually get around to things,
I'm in the kernel merge window right now.

Linus

[Willem Ferguson]

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I have a small app written in Tk/Tcl for doing this merging from a gpx file into a xml dive log. If you are interested I can send to you privately, but it required either Linux or mingw for windows.

Kind regards,

willem

This message and attachments are subject to a disclaimer.
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[Marc MERLIN]

On Tuesday, December 3, 2019 at 1:25:49 PM UTC-8, Linus Torvalds wrote:

Can you send me an XML file with your dives, along with the GPX
file(s) to go with them, and I'll take a look. I do think a GPX track
would be better than what we do now.

Sorry for the slow answer.

Sure thing. 

http://marc.merlins.org/perso/gps/data/20191107_Palau.gpx

(I don't mind sharing it publicly, nothing private in there)

In graphical form, it looks like this: http://marc.merlins.org/perso/gps/gmap/20191108_Palau_Siren.php?center=trk[3]

I has both a full GPS track and a waypoint for each dive, so the GPS match could happen on either (although using the GPS track is of course more precise).

I'd just have to make sure that there is a timezone attached to my dive computer times, or it won't know how to cross match non GMT times (dive computer) with GMT times (GPS)

Of course, both Dirk and I end up just using the Garmin Descent Mk1
and getting GPS fixes that way, but it's not a great dive computer in
other respects. I'm hoping that they'll do a new revision on it
(better dive UI and air integration, which are the two main downsides
of the Descent Mk1)

Yes, I read your review, which is why I didn't buy it :)

 

It might not be until next week that I actually get around to things,
I'm in the kernel merge window right now.

No rush at all, I can re-add GPS locations anytime in the future, that's not a big deal at all.

Thanks,

Marc 

[Marc MERLIN]

On Tuesday, December 3, 2019 at 9:00:11 PM UTC-8, Willem Ferguson wrote:

I have a small app written in Tk/Tcl for doing this merging from a gpx file into a xml dive log. If you are interested I can send to you privately, but it required either Linux or mingw for windows.

Kind regards,

willem

Sure, would love to try it out too. I'm on linux, so tcl/tk is fine.

Just curious, where in subsurface, do you tell it what timezone the dive time is in?

Or do you tell your script the timezone offset (not unlike gpsPhoto) so that it can properly match times?

Thanks,

Marc

[Linus Torvalds]

On Mon, Dec 9, 2019 at 3:06 PM Marc MERLIN <ma...@merlins.org> wrote:
>
> On Tuesday, December 3, 2019 at 1:25:49 PM UTC-8, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>>
>>
>> Can you send me an XML file with your dives, along with the GPX
>> file(s) to go with them, and I'll take a look. I do think a GPX track
>> would be better than what we do now.
>
>
> Sorry for the slow answer.
>
> Sure thing.
> http://marc.merlins.org/perso/gps/data/20191107_Palau.gpx
> (I don't mind sharing it publicly, nothing private in there)

I'd like to get the subsurface XML file with your dives too, so that I
can then match that up with the gpx info, and actually have something
to test with..

You might want to send that part in private.

Linus

[mcc....@gmail.com]

Hi guys,

okay, still having issues with the GPS locations. So I started the location service as I went on the dive and it also shows the GPS fixes and locations in the Subsurface app. After my dives I downloaded the dive data from my Perdix AI which worked fine.

THen I selected apply location fixes (or something like that, I don't know exactly what it was called as it is now shown anymore). When I did this, the whole app forze forever. i waited and waited hoping it would "process" like crazy the locations and add it to the dives. After about 20 minutes I had to force close the app, as the app just didn't react anymore. 

After a restart, I still see my new dives, the GPS location cache but no more the option to apply it to the dive. What can I do now?

THanks.

[Dirk Hohndel]

It appears that the 'apply GPS fixes' feature got broken at some point - and worse, the collection of GPS fixes is no longer working reliably with iOS 14 or Android 12.

The former should be fixable - or I should be able to at least find a way around this.
The latter I am not sure I know how to fix. The new privacy rules in both platforms make it excruciatingly painful to be allowed to record GPS data in the background - and I'm not sure I'm willing to get on that treadmill again. I have spent so much time trying to follow the Byzantine rules that Google is putting in place and it still now appears to fail on a large subset of current Android devices. This just isn't a lot of fun to waste my time on.

/D

[mcc....@gmail.com]

Hi,

thanks for the quick reply. Well that sounds sad but I understand. How well does the GPS trail feature in the desktop software work? Can I just use any GPS software and create an gpx file and it will be matched by time?

[Robert C. Helling]

Yes, from within the dive site management, you can import a gpx file. You will find this described in the user manual if you search for "GPS".

Let me mention that you cal also use location data from images: Simply use your phone to take a picture at the dive site and import that to you dive. If the dive does not have GPS data yet, it will take the coordinates of the image. For me, this is the easiest way to transfer location data to a dive.

Best

Robert