Good news - yesterday I was approached by someone who wanted to repair a corrupted FIT file. None of the other available tools could repair the files. GOTOES was the only tool that could repair the file, but because it was from a Triathlon, the user was losing their swim/transition/bike/transition/run differentiation when they outputted from GOTOES.
I realized that my tools aren't just used for merging; they are also used to repair corrupted FIT files, so I added a new feature where if the tool believes there might be multisport data in your source FIT file, GOTOES will give you an option to insert that data. The checkbox appears here/looks like this:
- The option to add MultiSport data will appear if you upload a FIT file that has "other" in the "Activity Type" field. Please contact me if you have a Multisport file where this checkbox is not appearing.
- Screen Shot 2023-06-06 at 9.16.13 AM.png (22.36 KiB) Viewed 32133 times
When you check this box, the tool will try and retrieve all of the multisport data from your file. That multisport data will be applied to your final output file. You will notice that the "Activity Type / Sport" option becomes grayed out. Likewise, ALL of the override fields become grayed out and a "Multisport" placeholder appears in the override fields. This is because it is not possible to apply a SINGLE override to an activity that contains MULTIPLE activities. I surmise that this is why other applications such as Strava and Garmin Connect simply divide your full Triathlons up into 5 separate activities when you upload them (example shown below)
- Due to the complexities of handling multiple files nested inside of one file, Strava and Garmin simply break the single Multisport activity into separate activities.
In this case, the user was not merging files; they just wanted to upload a single file, remove the corruption, and then have GOTOES rebuild the activity from scratch. That is a perfect use of this new feature on GOTOES. If you're trying to merge files, however, things might get a little more tricky with this new feature.
If you're merging overlapping files, such as trying to add heart rate to a position file, that should work very well (always be sure to select "Smart Trim" in this case).
If you're merging files end-to-end, however, your ride stats are going to reflect the values in the original source files - which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your use case.
As always, you can use the contact form on GOTOES to reach out; I'll ask you to send me your files and I might be able to fix things for you. I always learn about new use-cases from my users who are trying to do "creative" merges
... and that is how new features get added to the tools.