JOSM/Plugins/LiveGPS

LiveGPS

Supports live GPS input ("moving dot") through a TCP connection to a running gpsd instance.

Prerequisites

• gpsd must be accessible via TCP/IP (usually running on localhost), one of:
  • official gpsd (not available for Windows)
  • gpsd on Windows (requires cygwin)
  • Traveling salesman with it's gpsd-emulation
• a GPS device supported by gpsd must be connected and should have a satellite fix

The gpsd package should be available for any recent Linux distribution. If it's not already installed, use your favourite package manager. The gpsd on Windows requires an installed cygwin (no big deal), please follow the instructions. For OSX you can use the gpsdX variant, it comes with a nice installer and graphical configuration program.

Usage

After the plugin was installed and enabled, a new menu entry LiveGPS appears.

With "Capture GPS Track" the LiveGPS plugin will try to connect to gpsd. If gpsd is running and the GPS has a satellite fix, a red triangle should appear on the JOSM map that marks the current position. At deeper zoom levels you would also notice a cyan oval, that displays the position estimate. There's now also a new layer "LiveGPS layer" where small dots of the current position will be added every XXX seconds.

As default behaviour, the map is centered to the current GPS position every XXX seconds now, or when cursor leaves configured rectangle in the center of screen. If "Auto-Center to current Position" is disabled, the red circle moves around the map (and probably out of the map as you move around). Using "Center Once" will, well, center the map once.

On the left toolbar, you will also find a new "Show GPS data" icon that enables a "Live GPS" panel showing some status information.

Configuration settings

You can tweak LiveGps through the settings in JOSM.

key	default	type	meaning
livegps.gpsd.host	localhost	string	Host, where gpsd runs on.
livegps.gpsd.port	2947	number	Port, where gpsd runs on.
livegps.refresh_interval_msec	250	milliseconds	Refresh the display only once within this interval.
livegps.center_interval_msec	5000	milliseconds	Re-center the display at this interval (if autocentering enabled). Value of 0 disables time based recentering.
livegps.center_factor	80	%	Re-center the display if the cursor exits a rectangular area at center of the screen, which size is center_factor of the entire screen.
livegps.cursor_height	20	pixels	Height of the "triangular" position cursor.
livegps.cursor_width	10	pixels	Width of the "triangular" position cursor.
livegps.cursor_thickness	4	pixels	Thickness of the "triangular" position cursor.
color.livegps.position	RED	color	Color of the position cursor.
color.livegps.position_estimate	CYAN	color	Color of the estimated position confidence oval.