Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!


Click here to return to the 'Google Earth - A GPS Waypoint Manager' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Google Earth - A GPS Waypoint Manager
Authored by: syzygies on Jan 25, '06 11:46:29AM

Google Earth (OS X version) may not yet be upgradeable to versions that can interact with GPS devices, but it can import and export folders of locations, in two formats. One of these, ".kml", is XML, easily munged into other formats used by existing software that interfaces with GPS units.

I see Google Earth as the logical home for my GPS waypoint data, the best place to edit, annotate, and correct it, before exporting to GPS devices. Until the day when Google Earth supports direct export to GPS devices, I need to export via their .kml files.

I am actively sorting out how to best do this, and writing PERL scripts to do the text munging; I'll post a hint when I'm done. I have historically used MacGPS Pro to interface with a Garmin eTrex via a USB-to-serial adapter; it uses an understandable tabbed text format, but is not drag-and-drop. I see alternatives listed, e.g. on VersionTracker.

As a collaborative endeavor, anyone want to weigh in on the slickest way to do this?



[ Reply to This | # ]
Google Earth - A GPS Waypoint Manager
Authored by: syzygies on Jan 25, '06 03:10:20PM

Aha! GPSBabel not only understands .kml files, but will talk directly to my serial-to-usb converter and Garmin GPS device. I've recovered my old waypoints, they all show up in Google Earth where I can edit them and save as a new .kml file.

GPSBabel is a command-line tool (there is apparently a GUI somewhere, but I couldn't find it). I used fink to install expat, then executed make mac-usbfree in the GPSBabel source directory, then figured out a command line to talk to my Garmin. Here the hard part was figuring out my device name. A sample line for reading from my Garmin was for me:

gpsbabel -i garmin -f /dev/cu.KeySerial1 -o kml -F Waypoints.kml

It will be easy to wrap such lines in tiny AppleScript applications, to get one-click uploads to the Garmin after saving from Google Earth to a canonical location.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Google Earth - A GPS Waypoint Manager
Authored by: syzygies on Jan 31, '06 08:49:26AM

I have a working solution; I'll wait until it's more stable to post it. Basically, the .kml format as written by Google Earth is too whacky for GPSBabel to decode successfully, even though this format is ostensibly supported. However, it's a pretty easy Perl script to strip out the essential information and write a barebones .gpx file, which many programs including GPSBabel can transfer to devices such as a Garmin.

Programming Perl for this is a distinct pleasure. In contrast:

I've gone slightly mad trying to manage hierarchical folders in Google Earth's "Places" left panel. Folders spring open at the slightest provocation, and hop over their intended target when one's goal is to instead move one folder into another. I've had the best luck with wide left arcs, but I truly do not know what obscure sign language is wanted here, and I often want to stab a ball point pen into my display. I can calmly use even a dreadful language like AppleScript, so this isn't my basic temperament. Something is very wrong here.

There was one a gag Mac app (back in 1984) that looked like a system error "bomb" alert, but any attempt to click "ok" just caused the dialog to squirt over somewhere else on the screen. I haven't thought of that gag app in two decades, but this part of the Google Earth interface reminds me of it.

I have heard that Google is enamored with Python. If they've got religion, it will be a long time before they can convince themselves this even needs a fix.



[ Reply to This | # ]