Mapping Hacks

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Chapter 5, Mapping with Gadgets

#51 Speak in Geotongues: GPSBabel to the Rescue

HACK

the name of the input file (or the name of the input serial port); -o gpx speci-

fies the output is a GPX file; and

-F way.gpx (uppercase “F”) provides the

name of the output file (or output serial port).

You can then convert that GPX file to an HTML file that provides a sum-

mary list of the waypoints, with references to extended descriptions of each

point:

$ gpsbabel -i gpx -f way.gpx -o html -F way.html

Exchanging Waypoints and Tracklogs with a GPS

GPSBabel directly supports Garmin and Magellan GPS units. Connect your

GPS to your serial cable, or see “The Serial Port to USB Conundrum”

[Hack

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if you lack a serial port. A Garmin serial GPS is specified with -i garmin,

while a Magellan is indicated with

-i magellan. Use the -f and -F parame-

ters to specify the serial port for your GPS: use

-f when you read from the

GPS and

-F to write to the GPS.

You can get more information by running

gpsbabel -? and by reading the

README file. Here is an example of a command that reads waypoints from

a Garmin GPS and writes them to a GPX-formatted file named waypoint.

gpx. Under Windows, assume the GPS is attached to the first serial port:

C:\> gpsbabel -i garmin -f com1 -o gpx -F waypoint.gpx

Under Linux, assume the GPS is attached to the first serial port (you will

need to run as a user who has rights to read the serial port, ...