Create an Android GPS tracking application

Question

Recently  I ve taken up android development as a hobby and was looking to develop an application that can find and track a users position using Google Maps   Once the application has a GPS lock  it can track their movements by drawing a route using an overlay class   I ve seen similar applications like Mytracks that are open source but they re too complex for me right now   Ideally i d love to create an application that looks like this    Here is my code below without the imports   What I m trying to do is create an array of geopoints  Every time the location changes a new geopoint is created  I then try to use a for loop to iterate through each geopoint and draw a path between them   public class Tracking extends MapActivity implements LocationListener    LocationManager locman  LocationListener loclis  Location Location  private MapView map   List lt GeoPoint gt  geoPointsArray   new ArrayList lt GeoPoint gt     private MapController controller  String provider   LocationManager GPS PROVIDER  double lat  double lon    Override public void onCreate Bundle savedInstanceState        super onCreate savedInstanceState       setContentView R layout map       initMapView        initMyLocation        locman    LocationManager  getSystemService Context LOCATION SERVICE          locman requestLocationUpdates provider 60000  100 loclis          Location   locman getLastKnownLocation provider           Find and initialize the map view     private void initMapView         map    MapView  findViewById R id map       controller   map getController        map setSatellite false       map setBuiltInZoomControls true          Find Current Position on Map     private void initMyLocation         final MyLocationOverlay overlay   new MyLocationOverlay this  map       overlay enableMyLocation        overlay enableCompass       does not work in emulator     overlay runOnFirstFix new Runnable             public void run                    Zoom in to current location             controller setZoom 24               controller animateTo overlay getMyLocation                           map getOverlays   add overlay       Override public void onLocationChanged Location location        if  Location    null            lat   Location getLatitude            lon   Location getLongitude            GeoPoint New geopoint   new GeoPoint  int   lat   1e6                    int   lon   1e6            controller animateTo New geopoint              class MyOverlay extends Overlay       public MyOverlay                public void draw Canvas canvas  MapView mapv  boolean shadow            super draw canvas  mapv  shadow            Projection projection   map getProjection            Path p   new Path            for  int i   0  i  lt  geoPointsArray size    i                  if  i    geoPointsArray size   - 1                    break                            Point from   new Point                Point to   new Point                projection toPixels geoPointsArray get i   from               projection toPixels geoPointsArray get i   1   to               p moveTo from x  from y               p lineTo to x  to y                     Paint mPaint   new Paint            mPaint setStyle Style STROKE           mPaint setColor 0xFFFF0000           mPaint setAntiAlias true           canvas drawPath p  mPaint           super draw canvas  map  shadow             Override public void onProviderDisabled String provider           TODO Auto-generated method stub      Override public void onProviderEnabled String provider           TODO Auto-generated method stub      Override public void onStatusChanged String provider  int status  Bundle extras           TODO Auto-generated method stub      Override protected boolean isRouteDisplayed            TODO Auto-generated method stub     return false        The application runs fine without errors but there is no path drawn  the location dot just moves as i move   Any help would be greatly appreciated  Thanks

User · Answer

Basically you need following things to make location detector android app

Location Listener, which detect current location
Marker to add and animate when person moves
Polyline to add path on person's movement
Services for sending and receiving location
Rest API / Firebase Realtime Database to store and fetch locations

Now if you write each of these module yourself then it needs much time and efforts. So it would be better to use ready resources that are being maintained already.

Using all these resources, you will be able to create an flawless android location detection app.

1. Location Listening

You will first need to listen for current location of user. You can use any of below libraries to quick start.

Google Play Location Samples

This library provide last known location, location updates

Location Manager

With this library you just need to provide a Configuration object with your requirements, and you will receive a location or a fail reason with all the stuff are described above handled.

Live Location Sharing

Use this open source repo of the Hypertrack Live app to build live location sharing experience within your app within a few hours. HyperTrack Live app helps you share your Live Location with friends and family through your favorite messaging app when you are on the way to meet up. HyperTrack Live uses HyperTrack APIs and SDKs.

2. Markers Library

Google Maps Android API utility library

Marker clustering — handles the display of a large number of points
Heat maps — display a large number of points as a heat map
IconGenerator — display text on your Markers
Poly decoding and encoding — compact encoding for paths, interoperability with Maps API web services
Spherical geometry — for example: computeDistance, computeHeading, computeArea
KML — displays KML data
GeoJSON — displays and styles GeoJSON data

3. Polyline Libraries

DrawRouteMaps

If you want to add route maps feature in your apps you can use DrawRouteMaps to make you work more easier. This is lib will help you to draw route maps between two point LatLng.

trail-android

Simple, smooth animation for route / polylines on google maps using projections. (WIP)

Google-Directions-Android

This project allows you to calculate the direction between two locations and display the route on a Google Map using the Google Directions API.

A map demo app for quick start with maps

User · Answer

The source code for the Android mobile application open-gpstracker which you appreciated is available here    You can checkout the code using SVN client application or via Git    svn checkout http   open-gpstracker googlecode com svn trunk  open-gpstracker-read-only git clone https   code google com p open-gpstracker    Debugging the source code will surely help you

[android] Create an Android GPS tracking application

1. Location Listening

2. Markers Library

3. Polyline Libraries

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