Re: gpsd with python project

[Gary E. Miller]

Yo Al!

On Tue, 13 Feb 2024 18:54:51 +1300
Al Grant <bigal.nz@gmail.com> wrote:

> I am looking to get started with gpsd and python - but before I go too
> far I am hopeful that some of the people here can confirm my thinking.

Welcome!

> My setup is a RaspPI, USB GPS (Ublox based) and Python - I am however
> doing the development on Windows 10.

Fine, as long as you run gpsd on the Pi/

> The python project is to do with wildlife tracking for conservation
> and running on a RaspPi will be a payload on a drone - every few
> seconds I am expecting the python code on the drone to meet certain
> conditions and record a location with some meta data.

Pretty standard stuff.  Don't need any code at all for that.

> It seems like I could program python to work with the gps directly
> (yuck), there may be other python gps libs, or I could run gpsd.

Decoding raw packets from GNSS receivers is a large and non-trivial job.
And the next time you chnage receiver, you have to d it all over again.

> Is gpsd designed to be an easy interface for programmers to work with?

We think so.  You have several interfaces to choose from.  A pythin client
can just parse the JSON directly, or use the gpsd python module.

> Only drawback I see at this point is I won't be able to develop with
> it on my windows PC?

And why is that?  Python does not run on Windows 10?

> As an aside does anyone know of a good lib for plotting points on a
> map in python and some very light geospatial work like like
> intersection?

Check out gpxlogger in the gpsd package.  Or log with gpscsv and
then do your own interface to the map program of your choice.

RGDS
GARY
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary E. Miller Rellim 109 NW Wilmington Ave., Suite E, Bend, OR 97703
        gem@rellim.com  Tel:+1 541 382 8588

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    "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it." - Lord Kelvin

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