Hey, I'm Tobi.
After burning out some time ago, I took a long motorbike trip to recover. I recorded my trip with a GPS tracker but didn't know what to do with the data. So, I created a tool to visualize the route.
Current I publish 2 walking videos per week on YouTube [1] also with a GPX Animation in the intro. For the GPX track I currently use the free GPX Animator [1] with some scripting of the CLI args.
I have experimented also with Mapbox and Remotion and could get nicer results than GPX Animator but it's not even worth the render time. Same for Google Earth Studio - it's just too slow as I often create batches of 5-6 videos per day. How long does one 20s video take to render - 4K60?
One thing I'd love to have is not just the GPX track but photos or video snippets popping up geo-located - maybe even info boxes for more than just a moving line. This could be coming from Wikipedia etc or some custom JSON data. There is potential to improve map animations but I can't see how I would recoup the cost per video. For me it would be worth less than $0.50 per video on my volume of 100+ videos per year. The web interface and video looks nice though the pricing is out of reach.
I wish you success and maybe there really is a market for premium priced GPX Animations. For me personally this could only work as a standalone app in the $30-$50 price range only.
I like the idea of the snippets popping out along the way. I would clearly use it for my website (https://trekstories.c100k.eu).
Another good use case I see, is for race organizers to showcase the route on their website. That would look more modern compared to the usual low-res screenshot. Something like this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5GjuRS9sVA
Fantastic feedback, thanks! Yeah, I am still figuring things out and your response gives me some perspective of how the videos might be used as well.
Regarding rendering time: 20s at 4k60 takes around 6 minutes. There is, highly likely, a way to make this more performant but it's not on the priority list at this moment.
As user pmdfgy mentioned, outdoor events is exactly the market I am focusing right now: Marathons, bike or trails races. Most of them have a simple map of their race, if at all, and when it comes to more extreme races like running or cycling in the mountains I'd like to see a preview of what I am getting into as a participant.
One of my first users, the Vietnam Mountain Trail Series, uses it to visualize their races like the Vietnam Mountain Marathon. They've put it on their YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5GMPNfEDbU
Nice job ! I've tried with a hiking GPX. It works pretty well and the sliders to adjust the settings are great. However, I'm seeing weird vertical lines on the map.
Ugh, yeah, that's a bug with Mapbox itself.
I need to update to their latest version but it comes with some downgrades for me.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. It happens rarely but it happens -- and I need to fix it. Will focus on this soon.
I have experimented also with Mapbox and Remotion and could get nicer results than GPX Animator but it's not even worth the render time. Same for Google Earth Studio - it's just too slow as I often create batches of 5-6 videos per day. How long does one 20s video take to render - 4K60?
One thing I'd love to have is not just the GPX track but photos or video snippets popping up geo-located - maybe even info boxes for more than just a moving line. This could be coming from Wikipedia etc or some custom JSON data. There is potential to improve map animations but I can't see how I would recoup the cost per video. For me it would be worth less than $0.50 per video on my volume of 100+ videos per year. The web interface and video looks nice though the pricing is out of reach.
I wish you success and maybe there really is a market for premium priced GPX Animations. For me personally this could only work as a standalone app in the $30-$50 price range only.
Good job on the polishing!
[1]https://www.youtube.com/@poptravelorg [2]https://gpx-animator.app/
Another good use case I see, is for race organizers to showcase the route on their website. That would look more modern compared to the usual low-res screenshot. Something like this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5GjuRS9sVA
Regarding rendering time: 20s at 4k60 takes around 6 minutes. There is, highly likely, a way to make this more performant but it's not on the priority list at this moment.
As user pmdfgy mentioned, outdoor events is exactly the market I am focusing right now: Marathons, bike or trails races. Most of them have a simple map of their race, if at all, and when it comes to more extreme races like running or cycling in the mountains I'd like to see a preview of what I am getting into as a participant.
One of my first users, the Vietnam Mountain Trail Series, uses it to visualize their races like the Vietnam Mountain Marathon. They've put it on their YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5GMPNfEDbU