teamwsmf Posted August 1, 2002 Share Posted August 1, 2002 Well no sooner had I posted the thought that maybe there ought to be a Source Forge project set up to coordinate the various ways to get geocaching data into our various devices then I find this Source Forge project.... http://sourceforge.net/projects/gpsbabel/ Its very very new and I dont know if it will be working with all the stuff from Groundspeak, but its worth a look over time. If this doesnt work, maybe others can start up a project to act as the Rossetta Stone of formats so that the inclusion factor of data exchange eclipses the exclusion factor. ----- "Gee, remeber when geocaching was all about helping each other out?" Synaptical Cacher ---------------------------- TeamWSMF@wsmf.org Link to comment
teamwsmf Posted August 1, 2002 Author Share Posted August 1, 2002 http://www.cableone.net/cdwissenbach/map.htm "This free program allows you to plan and record your trips with a GPS receiver and share your local knowledge of trails with others. You can also use the program to print topographic maps with these trails, either on a single page or as a mosaic on many sheets of paper. The base maps for the program are the familiar USGS maps, converted by the Government with your tax money to digital raster graphics (DRG) files. (These same maps are repackaged and sold back to you by several software companies as very expensive cereal boxes.) The trail overlays are either drawn by you and written to the GPS receiver, or logged by you with the GPS receiver. The files are saved in an open, non-proprietary format, called GPX, for GPs eXchange. " ---------------------------- TeamWSMF@wsmf.org Link to comment
robertlipe Posted August 1, 2002 Share Posted August 1, 2002 quote:Originally posted by TeamWSMF:Well no sooner had I posted the thought that maybe there ought to be a Source Forge project set up to coordinate the various ways to get geocaching data into our various devices then I find this Source Forge project.... http://sourceforge.net/projects/gpsbabel/ That would be mine. :-) It's not about geocaching in particular, but it would probably be of interest to some cachers. I was holding off on an announcmeent until I had web pages and such in place. I've used the code in various forms for months now, so I feel much better about the code than I do, say, the doc. quote:Its very very new and I dont know if it will be working with all the stuff from Groundspeak, but its worth a look over time. At this moment, it reads and writes the *.loc's from Groundspeak just fine. It also reads and writes GPX, Mapsend, PCX5,Magellan serial, and a bunch of other stuff. So if you want to do something like take the *.loc from the GC reports and plunk them into Mapsend or Mapsource, that's not too painful to do do. quote:If this doesnt work, maybe others can start up a project to act as the Rossetta Stone of formats so that the inclusion factor of data exchange eclipses the exclusion factor. Something like that is already in the works. I've contributed what I learned about various file formats while creating gpsbabel in the hopes that others don't have to untangle more evil closed file formats. Link to comment
+culpc Posted August 1, 2002 Share Posted August 1, 2002 This sounds like a cool utility. Another that seems to work pretty well (haven't played with it much) is Geobuddy. Takes the EasyGPS *.loc files and converts them to MapSource or the MapSend (I think that's what the Magellan program is called). Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son! Link to comment
+culpc Posted August 1, 2002 Share Posted August 1, 2002 This sounds like a cool utility. Another that seems to work pretty well (haven't played with it much) is Geobuddy. Takes the EasyGPS *.loc files and converts them to MapSource or the MapSend (I think that's what the Magellan program is called). Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son! Link to comment
robertlipe Posted August 1, 2002 Share Posted August 1, 2002 quote:Originally posted by ChazC:This sounds like a cool utility. Another that seems to work pretty well (haven't played with it much) is http://www.geobuddy.com/. Takes the EasyGPS *.loc files and converts them to MapSource or the MapSend (I think that's what the Magellan p I contacted the author of geobuddy long ago. The author wasn't interested in releasing source or discussing details, which helped people using OSes that geobuddy didn't support exactly zero. This strengthened my resolve to write gpsbabel, which does does reads and writes files in all the mentioned formats and does it with completely open source so others can learn from it. So while geobuddy solves some problems for some people, that experience encouraged me to make my program completely free, or at least GPL to keep it- and the information learned in the development of it- free. Wanna know what I'm writing to the 148'th byte of mapsend and whether it's intentional or random? Here's my source... This is why I had to research the file formats for both Magellan Mapsend (documented, but vaguely and in an esoteric place- still I applaud them for opening it) and MapSource (still awaiting formal doc; pcx5 file imports a poor substitute). I just don't understand proprietary "lock in" on data file formats when the data in the file is MINE. I don't understand it with word processors and I don't understand it with waypoints. P.S. When it came time to name the program (scant hours before submitting it to sourceforget) it was a coin-toss between gpsbabel and gpsrosetta. I actually delivered a public talk on "the rosetta stone" about a year ago. :-) Link to comment
Recommended Posts