Saturday, September 18, 2010

Converting GPS Tracks to Routes to view in Google Maps

For the ADVODNA GPS Track Viewer to display tracks recorded by our GPS (a Zumo 660) or for them to be be viewed in any other Google Maps-based app, tracks need to be converted to routes. The Google API only understands Routes, not Tracks. To do this, I use a very handy little program called GPSBabel

Settings:

Input File: 2010-04-15 Baja Tracks.gpx
Format: GPX XML

Filters –> Miscellaneous –> Transform: Tracks –> Routes: Check “delete” (removes tracks from converted file)

Filters –> Routes & Tracks –> Simplify: Limit to 1000 Points (note: each point seems to be about 1kb of resulting file size)

Output File: 2010-04-15 Baja Converted Routes.gpx
Format: GPX XML

Converted file looks like this: