bincio-activity/docs/elevation.md

Elevation gain calculation — problem analysis and roadmap

The problem

Bincio's current algorithm naively accumulates every positive elevation delta between consecutive track points. This always overestimates real climbing because it treats sensor noise as genuine ascent. The overestimation ranges from insignificant on long mountain rides to catastrophic on flat routes where 100% of the reported gain is noise.

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Current algorithm (metrics.py:_elevation)

def _elevation(pts):
    elevations = [p.elevation_m for p in pts if p.elevation_m is not None]
    gain = loss = 0.0
    for a, b in zip(elevations, elevations[1:]):
        diff = b - a
        if diff > 0:
            gain += diff
        else:
            loss += diff
    return gain, loss

Every positive step — including 0.1m GPS jitter, barometric quantization steps of 0.2m, and random-walk noise — is counted as climbing. There is no filtering, smoothing, or minimum-step threshold of any kind.

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Root causes of overestimation

1. GPS-derived altitude noise

GPS units measure altitude from satellite triangulation. This is inherently less accurate than horizontal positioning: typical GPS altitude error is ±5–15m, and the error follows a correlated random walk. On a flat route, the track oscillates above and below the true elevation, and the positive half of those oscillations accumulates as phantom climbing.

Characteristic signature: elevation range far smaller than reported gain; nearly 100% of deltas are sub-1m; median step size is 0.0m.

2. Barometric altimeter quantization

Devices with a barometric sensor report higher-quality data, but they still apply internal smoothing and quantise the output to fixed increments (commonly 0.2m or 0.4m). The device holds the reading steady for several seconds, then steps to the next quantised value. Small-but-real oscillations at the quantisation boundary (e.g. hovering between 128.2m and 128.4m while essentially flat) produce repeated tiny up/down steps that accumulate.

Characteristic signature: many repeated identical elevations (device holding); most transitions are 0.0m, 0.2m or 0.4m; significant fraction of gain from sub-1m steps even on a real climb.

3. High sampling rate amplifying both effects

At 1 Hz, both GPS and barometric sensors produce more noise steps per meter of real climbing than at lower rates. Downsampling to 1 Hz (as the timeseries writer does) does not eliminate noise already present in the source data.

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Case studies

Activity 1 — diego_p, 2026-04-11T051441Z (Wahoo ELEMNT, GPX)

• URL: https://bincio.org/activity/2026-04-11T051441Z/
• Bincio reports: 353.6m gain
• Correct estimate: ~150–160m (Wahoo device's own reading, which applies internal thresholding)
• Excess: ~200m (56% overestimate)

Metric	Value
Points	15,721
Elevation range	−10.6m to +5.4m (16m total span)
Median |delta|	0.000m
Zero-change steps	12,358 (79%)
Sub-0.5m steps	3,339 (21%)
Steps ≥ 1m	0 (0%)
Gain from sub-1m steps	353.6m (100% of total)

Diagnosis: This is a flat coastal route. The GPS altitude range is only 16m. Every single metre of reported gain is sub-1m GPS jitter — no real climbing is recorded at all. Even a 1m threshold would produce exactly 0m gain, which is wrong in the other direction (the route may have minor real undulation). The Wahoo device's own algorithm uses internal hysteresis to report ~153m.

Activity 2 — m4xw3ll__, 2026-04-14T161945Z (Bryton Rider, FIT)

• URL: http://95.216.55.151/activity/2026-04-14T161945Z/
• Bincio reports: 1285.2m gain
• Correct estimate: ~885m (Strava / device reading)
• Excess: ~400m (45% overestimate)

Metric	Value
Points	6,583
Elevation range	0.0m to 454.0m (454m total span)
Median |delta|	0.000m
Zero-change steps	4,077 (62%)
Sub-0.5m steps	769 (12%)
0.5–1m steps	647 (10%)
1–2m steps	921 (14%)
2m+ steps	168 (3%)
Gain from sub-1m steps	484.0m (38% of total)

Diagnosis: Real climbing exists (0–454m) but 38% of the reported gain comes from sub-1m barometric quantization noise. The Bryton records elevation at ≈0.2m increments. At quantization boundaries the device oscillates producing repeated tiny up/down steps. A simple 1m threshold gives 801m (10% below truth); 2m gives only 221m (too aggressive). Pure threshold-based filtering doesn't work well here.

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Alternative algorithms

A. Simple threshold

Only count a step if it exceeds min_step_m:

gain += diff if diff >= min_step_m else 0

Pros: trivial to implement, zero overhead.
Cons: flat/hiking routes with gradual slopes produce many steps < threshold that together represent real climbing. A 2m threshold already loses 30% of real gain on the Bryton activity. Requires per-device tuning that is impractical.

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B. Hysteresis / dead-band accumulation

Track a "committed" elevation. Only commit a new elevation when it differs from the last committed value by more than threshold_m. Accumulate from committed to committed only.

def _elevation_hysteresis(elevations, threshold_m=10.0):
    gain = loss = 0.0
    committed = elevations[0]
    for e in elevations[1:]:
        diff = e - committed
        if abs(diff) >= threshold_m:
            if diff > 0:
                gain += diff
            else:
                loss += abs(diff)
            committed = e
    return gain, loss

Pros: naturally handles both GPS drift and barometric quantization; used by Strava (proprietary variant), RideWithGPS (10m default), and GPSies (5m).
Cons: threshold choice is critical and device-dependent. On a genuine 8m climb followed by descent, a 10m threshold records zero. Needs to be lower for cycling than hiking (slopes are smoother, sensors better).

Results on our case studies with threshold=10m:

• Wahoo flat (correct ~153m): would likely produce 0–30m. Fixes the gross overcount but may undercount real minor undulation.
• Bryton climb (correct ~885m): would need evaluation on the raw data.

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C. Moving-average pre-smoothing

Apply a sliding-window mean or Gaussian blur to the elevation series, then accumulate naively.

import statistics

def smooth(elevations, window=30):
    half = window // 2
    out = []
    for i, e in enumerate(elevations):
        lo, hi = max(0, i - half), min(len(elevations), i + half + 1)
        out.append(statistics.mean(elevations[lo:hi]))
    return out

gain, loss = _elevation(smooth(elevations, window=30))

Pros: easy to implement; smoothing removes high-frequency noise while preserving long-wavelength terrain.
Cons: loses real short climbs (e.g. a 20m ramp over 20 seconds is averaged to near-flat). Window size needs tuning per sample rate. Edge effects at start/end.

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D. Savitzky-Golay filter

A polynomial least-squares smoothing filter that better preserves peaks and troughs than a simple moving average. Available in scipy.signal.savgol_filter (scipy is already an indirect dependency via numpy, which is used nowhere critical — but adding scipy is a dependency choice).

Pros: better terrain shape preservation than moving average; standard in scientific signal processing.
Cons: requires scipy; harder to implement without it; window/order tuning still required.

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E. Kalman filter (device-class-aware)

A Kalman filter can be tuned with separate process noise and measurement noise parameters for GPS vs barometric data. This is what high-end cycling computers do internally.

Pros: theoretically optimal; can be parameterised per device class.
Cons: significantly more complex; requires knowing the device class (GPS-only vs barometric); still requires parameter tuning.

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F. Source-aware strategy

Use different algorithms depending on the file type and whether the device reported enhanced (barometric) altitude:

• FIT file with enhanced_altitude field: barometric data, use hysteresis 5m
• FIT file with GPS altitude only: treat as GPS, use hysteresis 10–15m or discard altitude entirely and use a DEM lookup
• GPX with <ele> tag: assume GPS unless <extensions> contains barometric fields; use hysteresis 10–15m
• Strava-enriched data: Strava's API provides corrected altitude arrays; use as-is with hysteresis 2m to catch quantization

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What Strava/Garmin/others do

Platform	Method
Strava	Proprietary; replaces raw altitude with DEM-corrected data for GPS-only devices; applies internal smoothing before accumulation
Garmin Connect	Uses enhanced_altitude (barometric), applies Kalman filter on-device; Connect re-applies server-side smoothing
Wahoo	On-device hysteresis (≈3m threshold); the GPX file contains already-smoothed altitude
RideWithGPS	10m hysteresis by default, configurable
Komoot	DEM correction + smoothing
TrainingPeaks	Configurable threshold (5m default)

Strava's approach of DEM (Digital Elevation Model) correction is the gold standard for GPS-only tracks: replace the noisy GPS altitude entirely with the ground truth from a 30m-resolution DEM such as SRTM. This requires an additional data source (e.g. the Open-Elevation API or a locally hosted SRTM tile set) but completely eliminates GPS altitude noise.

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Recommended fix

Given the two failure modes observed:

Short term — ✅ Implemented (2026-04-20)

Hysteresis accumulation with source-aware thresholds, applied at extract time:

Source	Threshold
FIT with enhanced_altitude (barometric)	5 m
FIT with GPS altitude	10 m
GPX	10 m
TCX	10 m

ParsedActivity.altitude_source is set by each parser ("barometric" / "gps" / "unknown"). _elevation() in metrics.py selects the threshold from this value.

New activities extracted after this change benefit automatically. Existing activities require re-extraction from source files.

Medium term — ✅ Implemented (2026-04-20)

On-demand DEM correction via the edit drawer, using the Open-Elevation API (SRTM30 data):

1. GPS track subsampled to one point per 10 s to minimise API calls.
2. Terrain elevation fetched via POST https://api.open-elevation.com/api/v1/lookup in batches of 512.
3. DEM elevation linearly interpolated back to the full 1 Hz series.
4. 5 m hysteresis applied to the interpolated series.
5. Timeseries and activity JSON patched in place; chart and stats update immediately.

Implementation: bincio/extract/dem.py + POST /api/activity/{id}/recalculate-elevation on both servers. Default endpoint: https://api.open-elevation.com; override with --dem-url or DEM_URL env var.

This is the recommended fix for activities uploaded before the hysteresis improvement, or any activity where GPS noise is severe.

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Implementation status

File	Status
bincio/extract/models.py	✅ altitude_source field added
bincio/extract/parsers/fit.py	✅ detects enhanced_altitude vs GPS
bincio/extract/parsers/gpx.py	✅ sets altitude_source = "gps"
bincio/extract/parsers/tcx.py	✅ sets altitude_source = "gps"
bincio/extract/metrics.py	✅ hysteresis _elevation() with source-aware threshold
bincio/extract/dem.py	✅ lookup_elevations() + recalculate_elevation()
bincio/serve/server.py	✅ POST /api/activity/{id}/recalculate-elevation
bincio/edit/server.py	✅ same endpoint (single-user)
site/src/components/EditDrawer.svelte	✅ "Recalculate from terrain map" button
tests/test_metrics.py	✅ 5 parametric tests