Visualizing sightings and spots on a map: My Maps, GPX and apps

After a few years of spotting, the logbook is full but the overview is missing: Which fences have you already stood at? Where did you get your best sightings? Which airports are still missing? A spreadsheet answers such questions only with effort, a map at a glance. If you want to visualize sightings and spots on a map, you don’t need a GIS degree – but you do need some clean data and the right tool. This guide shows you how to prepare your data, what Google My Maps and GPX files can do, where OpenStreetMap tools shine and when a spotting app saves you the whole detour.

The short answer

You visualize sightings by giving every spot coordinates and linking your logbook entries to it via a spot name. You then import this data as a spreadsheet into Google My Maps, save it as GPX waypoints for satnav and outdoor apps, or build your own map with an OpenStreetMap tool such as uMap. Alternatively, you use a spotting app that brings sighting, photo and place together as soon as you log them.

Which way is right depends on how you document today – notebook, spreadsheet or app; the article Paper or digital logbook compares the options. If you keep your logbook in a spreadsheet anyway – for example following the guide Spotting logbook in Excel or Google Sheets – you are done with My Maps in half an hour. If you are on the road a lot and want to find spots again out in the field, GPX serves you better.

Step zero: data that can be mapped

Before you open a mapping tool, it is worth taking a look at your own logbook. Most spotters note date, registration, type, airline and airport – but rarely the exact location. For a map you need two separate lists:

• Spot list: one entry per location, with a unique name, airport, latitude, longitude and a short description (viewing direction, best runway direction, access).
• Sighting list: one entry per sighting, with date, registration, type, airline and the spot name from the first list.

The spot name is the link. Always write it exactly the same – “Affenfelsen HAM” and “Hamburg Affenfelsen” are two different places to any software. How to set up a logbook in general is explained in the guide Documenting sightings: the logbook.

It is best to record coordinates in decimal degrees with a period as the separator, that is, latitude and longitude as decimal numbers without degrees-minutes-seconds notation. Four to five decimal places are enough: the fifth place corresponds to roughly one meter of latitude – you don’t need to place a fence section more precisely than that. You get the values from any map application by right-clicking or long-pressing the place, or automatically from the GPS data of your photos. How that works is covered in the guide Geotagging aircraft photos.

Column	Example content	What it is used for
spot	Visitors’ hill MUC	Link to the sighting list, title of the map point
airport	MUC	Filtering and grouping by airport
latitude	Decimal degrees, e.g. 48.xxxxx	Position of the point
longitude	Decimal degrees, e.g. 11.xxxxx	Position of the point
view	North, runway 08R/26L	Description in the info window
status	visited / wish	Layer or symbol color

Google My Maps: the quick way to your own spotting map

Google My Maps is a free tool for creating your own maps based on Google Maps. For spotters it is usually the first choice because it reads spreadsheets directly and the results are also visible in the Google Maps app on your smartphone.

What My Maps imports

According to Google’s help pages, My Maps accepts CSV, TSV, KML, KMZ, GPX, XLSX and Google Sheets as well as photos from Google Drive or Google Photos. The first spreadsheet row must contain column titles, and at least one column needs location information – coordinates, addresses or place names. Unzipped KML and KMZ files may be up to 5 MB, other files up to 40 MB. A single import file may also contain at most 2,000 rows.

How to set up the map

Know the limits

In its help pages, Google lists up to 2,000 lines, shapes or places per layer and up to 10,000 per map, plus a maximum of 50,000 points in lines and shapes and 20,000 cells in the data tables of a map. The cell limit in particular quickly becomes relevant with many columns: 2,000 spots with ten columns each already fill it. For a spot collection that is plenty. If, on the other hand, you enter every single sighting as its own point, you quickly exceed the layer limit with an active logbook. That is why the rule is: spots on the map, sightings in the spreadsheet – and only selected highlights as additional points.

You can export finished maps as KML or KMZ and take them along to Google Earth or other programs. That way you are not permanently tied to My Maps.

GPX: the neutral format for on the road

GPX stands for GPS Exchange Format, an open, XML-based format for exchanging GPS data between programs. The current version is 1.1, whose schema was published in 2004. The big advantage: almost every navigation, outdoor and map app can open GPX files.

GPX knows three data types:

• Waypoints (wpt): individual places with name, description, elevation and timestamp. This is the type for your spots.
• Routes (rte): ordered sequences of points, such as a planned tour from the parking lot to the spot or a loop around the airport fence.
• Tracks (trk): recorded paths, for example the route you actually cycled between several spots.

Two details from the specification matter for spotters. First, all coordinates refer to the WGS84 reference system – the same one used by GPS and common map applications. Second, times are in UTC, not local time. If you save sightings with timestamps as waypoints, the displayed time in Germany is therefore off by one hour (winter) or two hours (summer) unless the app converts it.

What GPX is good for with spotters

• Spots on your satnav or in the outdoor app: Waypoints guide you to the right fence section out in the field, even if the spot has no address.
• Planning spot tours: A route connects several locations around an airport, for example when the runway direction in use changes during the day.
• Exchange with other spotters: A GPX file can be passed on regardless of platform and account.
• Documenting your own routes: A recorded track later shows you everywhere you were on a given day – handy as a supplement to the logbook.

Browser-based editors such as gpx.studio are suitable for editing, an open-source project under the MIT license that creates and edits GPX files on an OpenStreetMap map. If you want to generate waypoints from a spreadsheet, the route via My Maps is practical: import, check, export as KML and convert to GPX if needed.

OpenStreetMap tools: uMap and others

If you don’t want to store your data with Google, you will find good alternatives in the OpenStreetMap world. uMap is a free, open-source tool under the AGPLv3 license that lets you build your own maps on OpenStreetMap backgrounds and embed them on websites. The project documentation describes, among other things, how to create maps from a spreadsheet and how to include GPX traces. Depending on the instance, uMap even works without a user account.

For spotters, OpenStreetMap has a tangible advantage: airport infrastructure such as runways, taxiways, aprons and fences is often mapped in great detail there. Your spots then sit right next to the structures you photograph. What OSM is good for in the spot search is explained in the article OpenStreetMap for spotters.

For a first overview of unfamiliar terrain, though, the satellite image remains unbeatable. How to scout airports in advance with Google Maps, Google Earth and Street View is covered in the guide Satellite maps for airport scouting. Incidentally, Google Earth reads the KML files you export from My Maps.

Tools compared

Criterion	Google My Maps	GPX file + editor	uMap (OpenStreetMap)	Spotting app
Getting started	very easy	medium	medium	very easy
Import from spreadsheet	direct (CSV, XLSX, Sheets)	via conversion	possible	not needed
Use on the road	via Google Maps	satnav, outdoor apps	in the browser	directly in the app
Account required	Google account	no	no, depending on the instance	yes
Sharing	by link	pass on the file	link or embed	in the community
Link to sightings	manual	manual	manual	automatic when posting

What a good spotting map shows

A map only becomes useful when it answers questions. These layers have proven their worth:

• Visited spots: all locations where you have already taken photos, with viewing direction and a note on the matching runway direction in use. At Hamburg Airport, for example, the Affenfelsen and the observation deck differ significantly in perspective and light.
• Wish-list spots: places you still want to visit – set apart by color so that when planning a trip you immediately see what is nearby. How to find such locations at an unfamiliar airport in the first place is shown in the guide Finding spots at an unfamiliar airport.
• Airports visited: one point per airport where you have spotted. This makes a nice collection map on the side; the guide Keeping airports and spots visited as a collection has ideas for that.
• Highlight sightings: rare registrations, special liveries or types you only caught once. A single point is worthwhile here because the story belongs to the place.

For spots at large airports such as Munich Airport, it helps to note in the description for which runway direction a location works. The Munich Airport visitors’ hill, for example, lies between the two runways – depending on viewing direction you need a different time window.

From map to statistics

Once you have kept spots and sightings cleanly separate and linked them via the spot name, you can also analyze the data: how many sightings per spot, which airlines at which location, which spots you haven’t visited in years. For such questions a spreadsheet is better than a map. How to build meaningful metrics is described in the article Analyzing spotting statistics.

When an app saves you the detour

Spreadsheet, import, export – all of that is a workaround for the fact that sighting and place are separated at the time of logging. Spotting apps solve this at the source: when you post, you enter the airport and spot directly, and the link happens automatically. You will find an overview of apps for logging in the comparison of logbook apps.

Privacy and spotter etiquette

A map tells more than you think. Before you share it publicly, check these points:

• No starting point at home. If your photos or tracks begin where you live, the map reveals your address. Trim the beginning of tracks or share only waypoints.
• Mind the timestamps. Sightings with date and time show when you are regularly where. For a public map, spots without time information are enough.
• Permitted locations only. Don’t mark places that are on operational grounds, private property or behind barriers. Anyone who shares a map sends others there. What is allowed at the fence is summarized in the article Is plane spotting allowed?.
• Be especially careful with military airfields. Stricter rules often apply around military airfields; background is in the guide Photographing military airfields.
• Choose sharing settings deliberately. My Maps and uMap offer different sharing levels, such as only for you or for everyone with the link. Before sharing, check which level is active – for the spotter group the link is usually enough.

Conclusion

A spotting map stands or falls with the data behind it. If you give every spot coordinates and link sightings via a unique spot name, you can choose your tool almost freely: Google My Maps for quick spreadsheet import and sharing by link, GPX for satnav and outdoor apps, uMap for a map on an OpenStreetMap basis without a Google account. Keep the map lean – spots as points, sightings in the spreadsheet, highlights as an extra layer – and check what the map reveals about you before every share.