Google Earth and GPS capability

Google will sell you a $20 upgrade so you can feed a GPS signal to
Google Earth. However, GE needs an internet connection to work
properly. So, why would anyone want to connect a GPS device to it?

--
Robert B. Peirce, Venetia, PA 724-941-6883
bob AT peirce-family.com [Mac]
rbp AT cooksonpeirce.com [Office]

Robert Peirce wrote:

I connect my GPS to it quite frequently to get an overview of the area
through which I hiked or bicycled. No need for the $20 upgrade though
since Garmin's MapSource program can automatically send the tracklog to
Google Earth for display (I believe it uses GPSBabel internally for
this function).

Google Earth does not require an Internet connection in order to
function. You can set up a to a 2GB local cache. Anything you view is
stored in cache for quick loading while online, and loading at all
while offline. I use Google Earth frequently while driving, with no
Internet connection. The 2GB cache is at least enough for me to travel
around Portland, Oregon all day long with high resolution everywhere I
go. It will also cache the layers you view as well, such as roads,
buildings, points of interest, etc.

In terms of sending a GPS signal to Google Earth, the Plus version
doesn't support all GPS devices. I wrote a program myself that allows
you to use an NMEA serial GPS device in real-time with Google Earth,
and it works with any version of Google Earth (including the free
version). When I drive, I have Google Earth loaded fullscreen in the
passenger seat and Google Earth follows me around using the live data
from my GPS device. Very, very cool to play with. :)

I have also used Google Earth while flying from Chicago to Portland.
It's just kind of neat to see in Google Earth where your plane is while
you are flying.

So, the short of it is that, even with no Internet connection, there
are a lot of uses for Google Earth and a GPS device as long as your
local cache is full of the areas you'll be in.

http://mboffin.com/EarthBridge is where you can find the program I
wrote. Still in beta, so watch out for bugs and all that if you decide
to try it.

--Dylan

I use ExpertGPS.
From within ExpertGPS, I can "copy a waypoint", and paste that into the
search box of Google Earth. It pastes in something like
"37.61897,-112.21474        8031.0        ...".
I trim that back to the lat,long, and Google will go to that spot.

Not realtime, but handy.
ExpertGPS (or the free EasyGPS) also let me save in gpx format, which
Google imports, so I can fly along my track.


Another nudge toward buying the serial cable for my Garmin. The USB
doesn't play with all the programs that serial NMEA does.


Going the other way doesn't work right. If you copy a placemark, they put
long,lat into the buffer, which you have to manually reverse before
plugging it in to ExpertGPS, or Google Earth (!?!), or maps.google.com.

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5

You should check out Franson GpsGate. You can download it as a 14-day
trial and it has support for some Garmin USB devices. It takes the
Garmin data and translates it to NMEA and then you can output it on any
number of virtual serial ports. Very, very handy. I have a Garmin 18
USB and it works with any NMEA programs if I run it through GpsGate.
(In fact, I use it with my own program, which is written for serial
NMEA devices, and definitely not USB Garmin devices.)

Anyway, with a free trial period, can't hurt to try.