Linux / Viking Mapping Software

[+javamutt]

Just wondering if anyone out there has done much work with the Linux mapping software Viking? Been looking for something that can plot my waypoints on a map from a GPS download, and this seems to be the best thing out there for linux without Vmware. I'm not talking about moving map software here - something more along the lines of ExpertGPS.

 

So how about it, any opinions on Viking?

[team_tar]

I don't know Viking, but will give a look at it. I usually use GPS Manager, a TCk/Tk based software, you may find it at:

GPSman homepage

It plots wp, tracks and routes on a georeferenced map even if georeferentiation is less refined than, for example, in OziExplorer.

Has a strange interface, but once you get used to its "group" phylosophy, is truly powerful for WP, routes and tracks management. Powerful track editing (MUCH better than Ozi). And the nice part is that if you install freeware Tcl/Tk on windows, with some (simple) hacking works even there, may you need it.

And being based on Tcl, is not binary: all the routines are in ascii, so if you are familiar with the language you may modify it at will.

[+javamutt]

I've been playing with GPSman as well and I agree about the interface being a bit unusual. It seems to have a lot of functionality, but at the moment I've found gpsbabel + nawk and other UN*X tools to be even more powerful for the odd management needs. Most of the file formats are easy enough to use with Nawk/Perl.

 

What I've really been lacking was a way to plot all current caches in a park, then be able to click on an open area of the topo and generate a waypoint which could be conveniently uploaded to my GPS or saved to a file and then uploaded. I currently need to boot into Win2k to do that since ExpertGPS won't run under WINE (although EasyGPS runs nicely excepting upload/download). What I'd kill for is either ExpertGPS running nicely under WINE, or a linux version of ExpertGPS. Viking seems to be very close, and can map either aerial shots or topos, but it's not as intuitive.

 

Should have posted the link earlier. Viking can be found here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/viking/

 

Thee only thing I didn't pick up was why it uses (what seems to be) an unusual format (gpspoint) for its plotting. They have a custom version of gpsbabel to support it.

[robertlipe]

I've been playing with GPSman as well and I agree about the interface being a bit unusual. It seems to have a lot of functionality, but at the moment I've found gpsbabel + nawk and other UN*X tools to be even more powerful for the odd management needs. Most of the file formats are easy enough to use with Nawk/Perl.

 

What I've really been lacking was a way to plot all current caches in a park, then be able to click on an open area of the topo and generate a waypoint which could be conveniently uploaded to my GPS or saved to a file and then uploaded. I currently need to boot into Win2k to do that since ExpertGPS won't run under WINE (although EasyGPS runs nicely excepting upload/download). What I'd kill for is either ExpertGPS running nicely under WINE, or a linux version of ExpertGPS. Viking seems to be very close, and can map either aerial shots or topos, but it's not as intuitive.

 

Should have posted the link earlier. Viking can be found here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/viking/

 

Thee only thing I didn't pick up was why it uses (what seems to be) an unusual format (gpspoint) for its plotting. They have a custom version of gpsbabel to support it.

A) If you find yourself using GPSBabel and still reverting to Nawk/Perl very often, drop me a line about what's wrong with GPSBabel. (Assuming you're doing anything like actual file manipulation and now just a remedial awk '{print $3}' or something just to avoid creating a custom style...)

 

This page seemed vacant, but if they're using a custom version of GPSBabel and are willing to put a little bit of energy into integrating it into the official version, I hear the chief BabelHead is a pretty reasonable guy on such things and welcomes new formats.