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After reading this, I found that Mathematica could be a useful tool to analyse GPS data from a navigating vessel at sea. But this example is for land-based fixed positions, i.e. the position of a lake on the globe.

Suppose a computer is on a ship, and we want to import the GPS position of the ship into the computer. Then Mathematica has this tool:

https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/FindGeoLocation.html

This attempts to find the current geo location of the computer. But to my knowledge, this position includes only latitude and longitude.

If it does include height-estimation, it may also be that FindGeolocation is inaccurate on height-estimation.

Does Mathematica have a program that can import GPS data from a navigating vessel with both latitude, longitude and height over sea level?

I would like to import data from a GPS readout into Mathematica in real-time, and wonder therefore if there are specific functionalities in Mathematica to receive data from a GPS and directly feed it into a command line, ie. particular codes that automatize the conversion of GPS data into a regular dataset in the format

{{time_1,height over sea level_1}, {t_2,h_2},....{t_n,h_n}}

Thanks

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    $\begingroup$ Ok, tried to add some more. $\endgroup$
    – Superunknown
    Commented Dec 8, 2022 at 10:39
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    $\begingroup$ The docs say: "FindGeoLocation returns a GeoPosition object containing {latitude,longitude} or {latitude,longitude,elevation} or containing Missing["NotAvailable"] if it cannot find an explicit geodetic location.". So if a GPS is available, and not just a location guessed from IP or address, elevation should be available. Otherwise, if the GPS can be addressed via a system call, USB or serial interfaces, it will depend on the nature of the calls available and the format they are returned. Do you have a more specific example? $\endgroup$
    – rhermans
    Commented Dec 8, 2022 at 11:17
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, consider the ship navigating on a rough sea. Then the elevation of the ship (with the computer with Mathematica installed on board) is oscillating over the sea according to the wave-train. Then take the height-coordinates in real time and prepare them as a set of points on a 2D plot, where x is the time dimension, and y is the amplitude. $\endgroup$
    – Superunknown
    Commented Dec 8, 2022 at 11:41
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    $\begingroup$ Many GPS devices will export NMEA data to a serial interface. (See, e.g.,: learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/gps-basics/reading-gps-data). A solution is to open a serial connection (reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/device/Serial.html) and then to write your own function that parses the NMEA string into the input for a GeoPosition reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/GeoPosition.html $\endgroup$
    – Joshua Schrier
    Commented Dec 8, 2022 at 18:56

1 Answer 1

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The best way to extract the height from a GPS position is via the command:

GeoElevationData[FindGeoLocation[]]

This gives the output of the height where the computer is located:

Out12: 10.0 m

Alternatively of the height where the IP address is routed from:

 GeoElevationData[FindGeoLocation[ip]]

Out13: 82 m

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