wildlife2 Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 Hi, My new mac laptop is on the way. I would love some advice on purchasing a gps and useing it to record waypoints and tracks to make a map on my computer. I want the map to look like a google map ariel photo with trails and waypoints drawn in. my thoughts after a little reading online: garmin 60csx gps babel to convert to google earth language work in google earth to draw my maps features from gps data and from my eye. Am i on the right track? Will i be able to do what I want on a mac? What else should I look into? My first project will be to make a map with layers of points and trails showing the wildlife sign on a 200 acre parcel that is mixed between woods and fields. I figured the gps would help me collect lots of data and then place it precisley on a map. Then I could check the same placs year to year to keep track of changes. I am looking forward to getting these new toys. Thanks, wildlife2 Quote Link to comment
+BiscuitMunchers Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 I'm not sure this is going to help you, since I don't have a Mac. I just tried this with my Garmiin Oregon 400T and a PC. I was able to bring the data from the GPSr right into Google Earth. It had both the waypoints and the tracks. Quote Link to comment
+fegan Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 It sounds like you simply want to see where you've been (waypoints/tracks) in Google Earth. If your Garmin GPS came with MapSource (mine did)...all you need to do is load the waypoints/tracks into MapSource then choose, View In Google Earth from the View menu. If you have Google Earth loaded on your system, you'll see the waypoints/tracks in Google Earth. Quote Link to comment
+splashy Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 (edited) As you can make "maps" with Google Earth by copying roads/rivers and marking waypoints, this "map" you can load this file into your gps ( after converting ) Edited August 8, 2009 by splashy Quote Link to comment
+Crid Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 Depending on your location, OpenStreetMap may already have your area well mapped. And if bits are unmapped, you could contribute to the map data yourself. The editing software is Java-based, so it can be run on a Mac (I use both a Mac and a PC and it runs on both). There is also a Java utility called mkgmap that can take OpenStreetMap data and turn it into Garmin map files which can be loaded into a Garmin GPS (so long as it supports maps). OpenStreetMap is open source, so this is quite legal. The website is openstreetmap.org. Quote Link to comment
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