ANN: GPSBabel 1.4.3 beta - includes new Geocache presentation in Google Earth

[robertlipe]

GPSBabel is the workhorse behind many (most?) of the programs that convert common GPS formats and/or communicate with GPS receivers, especially in Geocaching land. It's a free (as in Open Source, not just zero price) program that I've been working on for about ten years.

 

We've collected about a year's worth of fixes and enhancements and published them as a new beta at http://www.gpsbabel.org/news/20111112.html so please check it out to confirm that it works at least as well as it used to. (It should, since it passes our regression tests, even under valgrind.) it should work on pretty much any computer/OS combo that's viable in modern times.

 

This release is planned to be a long-duration release so we can rip apart some of the insides to improve things in the future. Of notable interest to this crowd is a rewritten presentation of geocaches in KML, the format used by Google Earth. As geocache density has grown and the power of both KML and Google Earth's embedded KML browser has adopted common web standards, our existing KML writer was looking dated. Now we use smaller icons and only pop labels on a hover and we display the cache page in three handy tabs in the ballon - the geocache page, the logs, and bunch of links to a bunch of maps. The display of maps and ballon content is thus much neater. I welcome your feedback on that soon as it'll eventually be the default when you drag-n-drop a PQ into Earth.

 

Additionally, we're now on Google Plus at https://plus.google.com/b/107768246097696975936/

 

Enjoy.

Chief Babel-Head Robert

[John E Cache]

KML worked great on my gpx. I thought I would try upgrading the GPSBabel bundled in the Google Earth program directory and it appears to be missing. Will the new GPSBabel be integrated into Google Earth?

[+user13371]

Robert: Big improvement on rendering GPX into KML in Google Earth - thanks. I replaced the gpsbabel resource in my copy of Google Earth and it's snazzy!

[robertlipe]

KML worked great on my gpx. I thought I would try upgrading the GPSBabel bundled in the Google Earth program directory and it appears to be missing.

Thanx for shaking it down. All versions of Google Earth for desktop (not plugin, not Android, not iOS) include a stand-alone GPSBabel.

Will the new GPSBabel be integrated into Google Earth?

"it'll eventually be the default when you drag-n-drop a PQ into Earth." :-) The integration schedule into Earth isn't entirely clear. It'll probably be in Earth after it gets some air time in GPSBabel release.

 

Portland Cyclist, thanx for the feedback.

Edited November 25, 2011 by robertlipe

[+myotis]

Thanks for updating.

 

I like to trace stuff in GoogleEarth and then add it to my Garmin trails maps. In GE, I save as a KML file and then I had a .bat file I would run to convert to MapSource (from Mapsource I would edit and then add to the trail map). With the new version, the .bat file did not work. Looks like the comands have changed. So I ran the GUI and converted to MapSource gdb. However, MapSource will not open the file saying it is not a valid MapSource file. If I change to MapSource mps it works. I've edited my batch file to the new comands and it works. But I thought you might want to know there appears to be a problem with the MapSource gdb. Also in GE its easier to save to KMZ than KML. I cannot find a setting for KMZ, is there one? Thanks.