Umbrail is a GPX file viewer. GPX (https://www.topografix.com/gpx.asp) is the standard file format for the interchange of GPS data (recorded tracks, waypoints and routes) which is supported by almost all GPS hardware (including smartphones and dedicated receivers) and applications. The application can:
- View recorded tracks on a map, any Marble theme or from WMS server
- Basic analysis: location and elevation information, timings, distances
- Advanced analysis: elevation/speed profile, stop detection
- Edit the data: move or delete points, split/join segments, annotation
- Organise waypoints, photos, notes and audio recordings
- Plan and analyse routes
It uses the KDE Frameworks libraries, including Marble for the map display.
The application is named after the Umbrail Pass in eastern Switzerland, although if you really want it to be an acronym then it could stand for "Useful Map BRowser And Inspector of Logs".
There are some screen shots in the doc/screenshots directory.
This package does not require a full KDE desktop installation, but only the Frameworks libraries (https://develop.kde.org/products/frameworks) and Marble (https://marble.kde.org). CMake is required for building. Your distro should have packages for all of these, either installed as standard or additionally available.
The libkfdialog library (https://github.com/martenjj/libkfdialog) is also required.
QCustomPlot (https://www.qcustomplot.com) is used for the profile plotting. If this is not available as an optional package in whatever distro you are using, you can download and install it from its official site as above. If this is not available then an internal copy will be used.
Some additional KDE libraries can be used if they are available:
Phonon4Qt5 - Multimedia playback library, for playback of audio/video notes https://invent.kde.org/libraries/phonon
KExiv2 - Wrapper around the Exiv2 library, for geolocation of photos https://invent.kde.org/graphics/libkexiv2
Assuming that you have all of these installed or already provided by your distro, go to a suitable build location (e.g. your home directory) and do:
git clone https://github.com/martenjj/umbrail.git
cd umbrail
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
Umbrail works as a standard desktop application, so start it from whatever application launcher you use or by typing its name at the command line. If you have set up appropriate file associations for GPX files (exactly how to do that will depend on the desktop system that you are using, in KDE Plasma go to "System Settings - Personalisation - Applications - File Associations" and select the association for files of type "application/gpx+xml") you can also open a GPX file from a file manager.
The tree structure of the GPX file is shown on the left: the top level file, then below that tracks/routes, segments and track points. Waypoints and audio/video notes are placed in folders; these do not correspond to any structure in the GPX file, but can be used here for organising waypoints.
Any part of the tree can be selected. There are some restrictions on what can be selected: only items of the same type and having the same parent can be selected together. The selected item is highlighted on the map, and the map can be centered to there using "Data - Show on Map" (useful shortcut: Ctrl+G).
The default map display is OpenStreetMap (https://openstreetmap.org).
The map can be zoomed and panned in the usual way. A context menu is available to display address and elevation information, or to create a waypoint or route point, at the clicked position.
The map theme can be changed to any supported by Marble. Run the KDE Marble application to add a new theme, or to connect to a WMS server.
The "Properties" dialogue shows all of the information that is available for the selected item or items. Some information can be changed, which will be reflected in the display and a subsequently saved GPX file.
The operations in the "Edit" menu operate on the selected items. For creating new items, only those which can be placed at the appropriate place in the data tree will be available (for example, a new waypoint can only be created in a folder). "Move Mode" enables dragging and dropping of points (track points, waypoints or route points) on the map and of moveable items in the data tree; this mode is normally disabled to avoid inadvertent changes and to allow drag selection, and will be turned off again if a different item is selected.
The operations in the "Data" menu also mostly operate on the selected items. The "Move Waypoint/Segment/Folder" action moves the selected item to another container (only containers which can accept the item are allowed to be selected). "Locate Stops", "Statistics/Quality" and "Profile" operate on the selected series of points (even across tracks and segments).
Times recorded in a GPX file are UTC. Setting a file time zone displays all times in that time zone instead.
The time zone can be set using the "Properties" of the top level file item, or by "Set Time Zone" in the "Data" menu. The time zone can be changed using the latter operation even if the file is read only, although the setting will not be saved. To set the time zone, use "Change" to select the time zone from a list or use "Get from Location" to look up the time zone from the file location. This requires a configured user name for geonames.org (see "Online Services" below).
If the option "Check time zone when loading" is set in "Configure - Files", if a loaded GPX file does not have a saved time zone then you will be prompted to select one. Resave the file to store the time zone permanently in it.
This shows a plot of the elevation and/or speed for the selected set of points. Elevation can be selected to be either as recorded by the GPS receiver (if this information is available), or by an online DEM (see "Online Services" below). Speed can be selected to be either as recorded by the GPS receiver (if this information is available), or calculated from the incremental track time and distance.
If using the DEM for elevation, then downloading the data the first time it is needed for a particular location may take some time. The plot will be updated when data is available.
An elevation profile is also available for routes, using DEM data only.
This looks for locations in the selected set of points where the position does not appear to change (very much) over a time span. Some movement and position noise is accepted, the detection parameters can be adjusted in the "Locate Stops" dialogue.
The detected stops are initially previewed on the map. If two or more stops are detected close together (possibly there has been a slight change in position), they can be combined by selecting them in the scrolling list and doing "Merge Stops". The stops whose check boxes are turned on will be added to the GPX file, in a folder named as specified, when "Commit" is clicked.
Photo and image files can be added to the data, in order to locate them on the map or annotate a recording. Select a file via "File - Import Photo", the photo will be positioned on the map using whatever data is available. If it contains embedded EXIF data with a position, then it will be placed there; otherwise, if it contains a time then it will be placed at the position of the nearest point with that recorded time. The file time zone must be set correctly for this to work.
A photo can be viewed using "Data - View Media" (useful shortcut: Ctrl+P).
Only a link to the photo file is stored in the GPX file, so it needs to remain in its original place in order to be found. Currently only JPEG files (with the extension ".jpg") are recognised.
Options are available in "Configure - Media" to control photo import and viewing.
If you use the OsmAnd+ app (on Android or iOS) to take notes during trips, you can import and view them along with the track recordings. You will need to download them from your device to a suitable location, then use "Configure - Files - Audio Notes" to specify where they are stored. Loading a GPX file which contains notes will then display them as such, and you can listen to the audio or view the video using "Data - View Media" as above. Photo notes are also accepted as for "Photo Import" above.
Information on similar facilities provided by any other apps would be welcome.
Currently only the file extensions ".3gp" for audio notes and ".mp4" for video notes are recognised.
For notes or waypoints, the "Waypoint Status" options can be used to mark those needing to be done or those that have been actioned or discarded.
The displayed map area or the selected items can be opened in a browser to view OpenStreetMap, Google Maps or Bing Maps. If you need to use a specific web browser to view these maps, then the browser to use can be set in "Configure - Services". Note that the area displayed in the browser may not exactly correspond to the displayed map area, but it should be close enough.
DEM elevation data is provided by Open Topography, which is a free service with no registration required. The data used is the SRTMGL3 model.
If using the "Get time zone from location" facility, the time zone corresponding to a position is found from GeoNames. Using this service requires a user name, so register on GeoNames and then enter your user name in "Configure - Services". You do not need to enter a password here.
The "Position Information" address lookup uses Nominatim. The default Marble map display also uses OpenStreetMap tiles.
Please see those services' privacy policies for information on how they may store and use your data. This may include any user information that you provide for registration, the queries that you make, or the URLs of any data that you download.
If a GPX file is saved, it may not be in the same form as it was originally loaded. All of the GPX objects and tags should be present, but they will have been converted back again from their internal representation which means that there may be a change in textual ordering or in data formats. All of the information should in theory still be there, but this cannot be guaranteed especially if vendor-specific data is included in the file.
For this reason, a backup is made the first time that a GPX file is overwritten (if no previous backup exists).
Please raise an issue on GitHub (at http://github.com/martenjj/umbrail) if there are any problems with installing or using this package. In particular, if there are any incompatibilities with other GPS applications or any desktop environments apart from KDE), or if there are any enhancements you would like to see implemented (or are willing to implement!).
Jonathan Marten, http://github.com/martenjj