Exercisers Using GPS Tracking Drawings to Create Art

1 Jan 2015

New Years is the time when many people join the fitness bandwagon. Now, workout enthusiasts are getting creative their exercising using GPS trackers to go on routes that create art with the mapped workout. Perhaps this might be a helpful way to keep those New Years resolution fitness goals past February?

When people who exercise with their GPS tracking device that supports a computerized map, their workouts have the potential to end up on the map. The technology can create a map outline of the exercise route. Usually, though, it’s in the form of a nonsensical shape.

However, some recent fitness enthusiasts have discovered that if they choose their route carefully, they can be more creative and make pictures or words with their workouts using GPS tracking technology.

Bret Lobree is one such exerciser, who rides his bicycle to draw pictures like a turkey when he uses his GPS tracking app. This is what he did this past Thanksgiving, when he rode 52.9 miles just to make a drawing of a turkey on the map.

Lobree is a mechanical engineer by day, who used a mapping website to make the route first, and then cycled through the designed route. He rode the exact route through the streets of San Francisco with the intent of making his turkey drawing.

By looking at a map, these artists/exercisers can think of the outlined design they want, then use the mapping software to try and figure out what streets or terrain allow them to make this design. The route is then added to the app, where GPS tracking technology comes in. Throughout the route, GPS tells them where to go next, and they are finished with a fun piece of art to share on social media.

While any type of exerciser can technically make art with their workouts by using the GPS trackers and mapping technology, it is cyclists who have the best time it seems. They can go the furthest distance in the shortest period of time, and have the ability to take on rough terrain.

Walkers and runners make smaller drawings, but it is more difficult for them to go this many miles. Many of the drawings are made from people who are traveling great distances through cities, often as far as 50-100 miles in a single workout.

When asked why he does the drawings on the tracking maps, Lobree said: “It’s a great way of showing people you can do things other than just ride from A to B to see your city.”


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