Google earth head scratcher

[LinXG]

Hope someone can help.

 

Google Earth seems to have stopped allowing me to display track logs. I've tried the same file on a couple of computers but nothing displays. It's a gpx file which I can open and view the contents of. I can load the file in Mapsource but not in Google Earth.

 

On the Google Earth sidebar the Temporary Places --> GPS Device --> Tracks are all checked. The tracklog name should appear but does not.

 

The only other thing that seems odd is the Date slider won't go past Dec 4, 2010 and today is Dec 9,2010. I cannot set the date past Dec 4, 2010 in the tools menu.

 

Any thoughts, suggestions, ideas as to what is happening would be greatly appreciated.

[+kevenh]

What's the date range of your track?

 

Have you tried both ends of the date slider?

[+dfx]

you need to check all 3 checkboxes that pop up when you import the file, most importantly the "generate KML linestrings" one or whatever it's called.

 

but you will get better results if you convert the GPX tracklog to KML format first with an external application, as GE always seems to drop some information when importing a GPX directly. either it has a certain maximum number of track points it will import and will drop the rest, or it has a certain minimum distance between track points and will drop the rest. in any case, the tracklog will lose detail.

[LinXG]

Well I finally got the track log into Google Earth, but not without a lot of work.

 

Normally track logs from my Garmin GPS can be imported without difficulty. It's generally very easy and painless.

 

The problem appears to be related to how Garmin, at least in this case, creates the gpx file. After failing to import the track into Google Earth, I opened it with Mapsource - no problem there. However I could not import the saved gpx file to Google Earth.

 

Next I connected the GPS to Fugawi and imported the file, no problems here either and again saved it as a gpx file. Still no luck importing into Google Earth.

 

Next I uploaded my gpx file to my PN-60 and sync'd it with the Delorme Topo software. The track log pops up just fine. I then export the track as a gpx file and finally I could import it into Google Earth.

 

I compared the gpx files created by Mapsource, Fugawi and Top North America and while the location coordinates are the same, the files don't look the same.

 

Happy ending, thanks guys

[+Map Monkey]

The latest Google Earth is the problem, not Garmin.

 

I've had the same problem with the timestamp in GPX files not being used correctly by Google Earth IIRC.

 

A program called GPXTimeStripper (google that, i'm on a work computer and can't access the link ) will fix the problem, especially when opening multiple GPX files into GE.

 

mm

[robertlipe]

If you open a GPX file in Earth, the time slider will be adjusted to the extents of that file. If you open multiples, it'll be adjusted to the most recently read, so if you want to see all the data, you may have to adjust the slider a bit or merge the files all together externally before doing so.

 

Post an affected GPX file that's problematic for you and a description of precisely why is brings you sadness for authoritative comment. (ONe that's not been through a half dozen other pieces of software greatly preferred.)