Inspired by Aaron Parecki who has been [tracking his location since 2008](https://aaronparecki.com/gps/ "location tracking") with an iPhone app ([Overland](https://overland.p3k.app/ "Overland")) and a server side tracking API ([Compass](https://github.com/aaronpk/Compass "Compass")), i decided to go for a similar approach.

I wanted to track my position constantly with my Android smartphone, save the data to a Postgres database and use the data to display an map with all locations i have ever been to.

To be able to track my position i needed an stable android app and after some tinkering around with different tracking apps i found [OwnTracks](https://owntracks.org/ "OwnTracks")  which basically has all i need (and a good [documentation](https://owntracks.org/booklet/ "OwnTracks Documentation") of it).

## OwnTracks

> The OwnTracks app runs in the background on your Android or iOS device and waits for the smart phone to tell it that the device has moved, whereupon OwnTracks sends out a message with its current coordinates (and a few other things we'll discuss in a moment).

With different settings for the app i could tailor the app exactly to my needs because i wanted the app to check my position every second and when i have moved more than two meters from my last known position it should send a POST-Request to my Strapi instance which will store the location data in a Postgres database.

In the following screenshot you can see the settings i am using for OwnTracks.

![Screenshot_OwnTracks settings.jpg](/uploads/Screenshot_Own_Tracks_settings_c7d95a33be.jpg)

The most important seetings for me are the mode **Significant location change mode**, **locatorDisplacement**, **locatorInterval**, **ignoreInaccurateLocations** and the **url** for the POST-request..

The **significant location change mode** is a mode which will let you decide in which interval you want to track your position. I am using the **locationInterval** '1' which will track my position every second with an **LocatorDisplacement** of 2 which will check if i moved away two meters away from my last known position. If i did it will send an POST-request with the location data to the given url if the position data isn't more inaccurate than 100 meters.

Because the app has to run always in the background you probably have to switch off energy saving modes for your smartphone which might disable the background functionality. 
Be warned: You probably will have to charge your smartphone more often. Also sometimes the app has some tracking error if you are using parallel some other tracking app for example for activities like strava.

The url for the POST-request is an strapi API url which looks like 'https://strapi.url/location'. Strapi will then automatically handle the request and store the data in whatever database and table you have configured for Strapi. 

I am using the following attributes where the most important are **lat** (latitude), **lon** (longitude) and **alt** (altitude).

![Screenshot Location Table.png](/uploads/Screenshot_Location_Table_eee78ddafe.png)

I am also saving the velocity, battery level of the smartphone and some more data which will be displayed at my [/now](/now "/now") page. The velocity and altitude are quite inaccurate though which probably also depends on the smartphone.

## Web-Map

**Edit 25.01.2022:** 
Recently i switched to a server side approach to visualise the data because rendering about one million points on client side takes way too long. So i built a tile server which is serving PNG-tiles with the location data. Right now the [/map](/map) is created with OpenLayers.

If you are curious how you can set up a tile server which is serving data from Postgres with Mapnik, Apache and Nginx you can skip the following content and head directly to the article [Manually building a tile server (20.04 LTS)](https://switch2osm.org/serving-tiles/manually-building-a-tile-server-20-04-lts/ "Manually building a tile server (20.04 LTS)") and follow all steps except **Stylesheet configuration** because in the Mapnik stylesheet you have to create your custom style and a connection with your PostgreSQL table where your data is stored. See [How to create a Mapnik Stylesheet for displaying any data from PostgreSQL/PostGIS](/articles/how-to-create-a-mapnik-stylesheet-for-displaying-any-data-from-postgre-sql-post-gis "How to create a Mapnik Stylesheet for displaying any data from PostgreSQL/PostGIS").

If you only want to render some 'small' amount of data you can continue with the following.

At the beginning i rendered the data on client side with deck.gl. The following steps describe how to display data from PostgreSQL with deck.gl and Next.js (which is outdated for the /map page).

Due to the fact that amount of data is growing and growing i use [Prisma](https://www.prisma.io/ "Prisma") to get the data directly from postgres. If i would use the methods provided by Strapi it takes quite some time to generate the page with the map.

At the moment the [/map](/map "/map") page is built very simple:

```js
import Layout from '@/components/layout/layout'
import SEO from '@/components/seo/seo'
import Title from '@/components/title/page-title'
import styled from 'styled-components';
import media from 'styled-media-query';
import { getLocationsCount } from "@/lib/data/external/cms"
import prisma from '@/lib/utils/prisma'
import dynamic from 'next/dynamic'

const Livemap = dynamic(
  () => import('@/components/maps/deckgl/livemap'),
)

const MapContainer = styled.div`
  margin: auto;
  max-width: 1200px;
  padding: var(--space);
  ${media.lessThan('medium')`
    padding: var(--space-sm);
  `}
`

const Description = styled.p`
  max-width: 1200px;
  margin: auto;
  padding: 0 var(--space) var(--space) var(--space);
  ${media.lessThan('medium')`
    padding-left: var(--space-sm);
    padding-right: var(--space-sm);
  `}
`

const InternalLink = styled.a`
  color: var(--text-color);
  border-bottom: 1px solid var(--thirdy-color);
  cursor: pointer;
  :hover {
    border-bottom: 1px solid transparent;
  }
`

export default function Map({ locations, locationsCount } ) {

  
  return (
    <Layout>
  
      <SEO   
        title="Map"
        slug="map"
      />
      <Title>Map</Title>
      
      <MapContainer>
        <Livemap data={locations} />
      </MapContainer>
      <Description>
        Since 2021-03-02 i am tracking my current location. Right now there are {locationsCount} locations displayed on the map. 
        The map is always centered at my last known position.
      </Description>
      <Description>
        If you are curious how that works have a look at the article <InternalLink href="/articles/how-i-track-my-location-and-display-the-data-on-my-website" title="How i track my location and display the data on my website">How i track my location and display the data on my website</InternalLink> where i am describing the details behind it.
      </Description>    
    </Layout>
  )
}

export async function getStaticProps() {
  const locationsCount = (await getLocationsCount()) || []
  
  const locations = await prisma.locations.findMany({
    select: {
      lat: true,
      lon: true,
      alt: true,
      vel: false,
    },
  });

  return {
    revalidate:  86400,
    props: {
      locations,
      locationsCount
    }
  }
}
  

```

Everyday it fetches all the location data and passes it to the map-component.

Performance wise i made some bad experience with the default mapping libraries Leaflet and OpenLayers because of the client side rendered data but after some research i decided to go with [deck.gl](/https://deck.gl/ "deck.gl") which is made for visualizing large scale datasets.

```js
import React, { useState } from 'react';
import {StaticMap, LinearInterpolator, WebMercatorViewport} from 'react-map-gl';
import DeckGL from '@deck.gl/react';
import {ScatterplotLayer} from '@deck.gl/layers';
import styled from 'styled-components'

const MapContainer = styled.div`
    position: relative;
    height: 600px;
`


export default function Livemap({
  data,
}) {
    const [viewport, setViewport] = useState({
        longitude: data.slice(-1)[0].lon,
        latitude: data.slice(-1)[0].lat,
        zoom: 12,
        bearing: 0,
        pitch: 0,
    });


    const layers = [
        new ScatterplotLayer({
          id: 'scatter-plot',
          data,
          opacity: 0.1,
          stroked: false,
          filled: true,
          radiusScale: 3,
          radiusMinPixels: 0.65,
          getPosition: d => [d.lon, d.lat, 0 /*d.alt*/],
          getFillColor: d => [Math.sqrt(d.vel*20), 184, 50],
        })
    ];

    
    
    return (
        <MapContainer>
            <DeckGL layers={layers} initialViewState={viewport} controller={true}>
                <StaticMap 
                    reuseMaps 
                    mapStyle="https://basemaps.cartocdn.com/gl/dark-matter-gl-style/style.json" 
                    preventStyleDiffing={true} 
    
                />
            </DeckGL>
        </MapContainer>
  )
}

```

I am using an scatterplot layer which will render every location as point and adjusts the color based on the velocity. The viewport is always centered at the last known location and as basemap i am using dark-matter for the both dark and light mode. 

You can find more information about the deck.gl map at the [deck.gl scatterplot example](https://deck.gl/examples/scatterplot-layer/).

How i constantly track my location and display a web-map with all the locations

## FME Home license

FME (Feature Manipulation Engine) is a powerful and the most used spatial ETL tool for the migration and processing of [spatial data](/articles/what-are-geodata "What is geodata?") and non-spatial data. The software is very flexible and powerful. It can also handle very large amounts of data without problems.

Feature Manipulation Engine supports over 300 different data sources such as [GIS](/articles/what-is-gis-geographic-information-system "What is GIS?") - databases] (PostGIS, MySQL, Oracle, of course also most non-spatial databases), CAD files ( DWG, DXF), raster data, web services, coordinate lists, XML, KML, GML, GeoJSON and much more.

The software is very easy to use and it comes with a nice graphical user interface, in which the source and target data model or format is specified. This also makes complex processing processes very clear.

In between the readers and writers, countless so-called [transformers](https://cdn.safe.com/resources/fme/FME-Transformer-Reference-Guide.pdf "FME Transformers") can be used, with which the data can be processed before being imported into a new data source. This workflow can also be supplemented with Python or SQL scripts.

Safe Software offers FME in three versions:

*   FME Desktop
*   FME Server
*   FME Cloud

That sounds great, but you still have no idea?

You can apply for a free (home) license for FME Desktop at [Free Licenses for Home Use](https://www.safe.com/free-fme-licenses/home-use/ "Free Licenses for Home Use"). If you are a student you can apply for a separate license [here](https://www.safe.com/free-fme-licenses/students/).

**This license is of course only for personal and not commercial projects.**

Submitting the application is very easy. All you have to do is enter your name, your email address, your company if applicable, and how you will use the license. Here it is enough to simply write that you want to get to know the program and of course want to learn it.

As soon as the application has been accepted, you will receive an email with the license key.

On the page [Downloads](https://www.safe.com/support/support-resources/fme-downloads/ "Downloads") you can then download the desktop version and enter the license key you received after the installation process. The license is valid for one year (four months for students) and can be expanded as required.

There is a [Knowledge Base](https://community.safe.com/page/knowledge-base) where you can find thousands of tutorials.

For more complex problems, it is also advisable to take a look at [gis-stackexchange.com](https://gis.stackexchange.com/).


SQL

How i constantly track my location and display a web-map with all the locations
Max DietrichMax Dietrich

Free FME-licence for private use
Max DietrichMax Dietrich

SQL

How i constantly track my location and display a web-map with all the locationsMax DietrichMax Dietrich

Free FME-licence for private useMax DietrichMax Dietrich

How i constantly track my location and display a web-map with all the locations
Max DietrichMax Dietrich

Free FME-licence for private use
Max DietrichMax Dietrich