compare_gpx is a python3 script that uses the Needleman-Wunsch algorithm to align GPS tracks in GPX files so they can be compared.

Running the following commands should be enough to setup a virtual environment to run the script:

python3 -m venv --without-pip venv
source venv/bin/activate
curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | python
deactivate
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements

More information about the implementation can be found on my blog in the posts:

• How to compare GPS tracks
• How to distribute GPS points evenly

The tests can be run with the following command:

venv/bin/nosetests

• cmpgpx.py performs and plots the alignment
• dist.py performs and plots only the distribution of points

The image below is an example of a comparison between thun_1_even.gpx and thun_2_even.gpx with the distance cutoff set to 10. The blue points indicate matches, whereas the red and orange indicate differences.

This was created with the following command:

cmpgpx.py -e 20 examples/thun_1_raw.gpx examples/thun_2_raw.gpx

This is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain. See UNLICENSE for more information.