Google Earth does GPS

[Keith W]

If you own a GPS and use Google Earth, you now have a good reason to upgrade to the latest version, if you haven't already. It used to be that when you clicked on 'GPS' under the Tools menu, you'd get a message saying this tool was only available to paid Google Plus subscribers. Since Google no longer offers Google Plus they have opened up the GPS import feature in Google Earth 5.

The import is done directly from your GPS. You need to hook up your GPS to your computer and turn it on, then go to the GPS tool in Google Earth and do the import. This works for both Garmin and Magellan, and will connect using USB or serial com ports. My Garmin eTrex Legend uses a serial cable and it worked like a charm.

You can choose to import tracks, waypoints, and routes, and it will grab everything from your GPS and stick it under the Temporary Places section in the Places sidebar. At that point you can save specific items to your My Places in Google Earth and save this as a KML file, which others can open in Google Earth to see your data. I've attached the track of my Shark River Slough trip with selected waypoints. You don't need to upgrade to Google Earth 5 to view the KML files, only if you want to use the GPS feature and import your own stuff. Later on I'll post a detailed explanation of how I saved the specific data that you see in my file.

To view the Shark River Slough Trip.kml file, download the file and save it somewhere on your computer. In Google Earth, go to the File menu, click Open and locate the downloaded file. Highlight the file and click Open. Spin the Google Earth globe back to south Florida and zoom in to see the track and waypoints.

This is a very cool thing, folks. We now have a way to share our GPS tracks with each other without having to worry about incompatible GPS file formats. Too bad we can't export the Google stuff and pull it into the GPS. There is another tool called gpsbabel that I've been playing with that should do just that across all GPS platforms, and as soon as I get it worked out I'll post my info.

[0hmgywazkroze]

Thanks for this. Maybe I'm too wussy to actually hit the open sawgrass for an overnight at this point, even if it was wet. I've always wanted to make out to panther mound though. This would be a good group trip for at least two canoes.  Also the big cypress nps website has a bunch of cool KML files too.....