[Novalug] Mappery, topo -- state of??

Theodore Ruegsegger gruntly@gmail.com
Fri Jan 17 17:38:31 EST 2014


Beartooth wrote:

>         Ever since my abrupt retirement in '98, I've been using
> GPSs and software mostly from Garmin -- but never been able to do
> so any where near satisfactorily under Linux.
>
>         Wine reached a stage a couple years back where it could
> install, launch, and run the software; but only once for a few
> days was I able to get it to talk to my GPSs. That, alas!, is the
> prime point of the whole deal: to enable me to make and
> manipulate maps *to* *scale* of terrain, den trees, game trails,
> spots for stands, etc.
>...
>         So where to start?? Has any of you yet played with this
> stuff enough to give advice?

I use a Garmin GPS receiver for hiking and geocaching. I keep all the
tracks of where I've been, as well as waypoints for stuff that matters
to me (mainly places I've planted pawpaws here in Massachusetts, but
that's another story). I use an app called Viking to keep track of all
this stuff and generate maps as needed. Viking is free software, is in
the repositories of most distros and runs on Windows as well.

I believe Viking is capable of talking directly to the GPS receiver
but I've never had any need for that, since I can plug the device into
a USB port and read and write to it like a thumb drive. Mostly I read
the file called Current.gpx, from which I extract tracks and waypoints
as needed. I load waypoints onto it via gpx files assembled in Viking.
And of course I load geocaches from gpx files compiled via
geocaching.com.

I like Viking for many reasons, particularly since it stores all the
data in gpx format which is a kind of XML. It can display maps and
aerial/satellite imagery from many sources (alas, not Google Maps any
longer, presumably because Google has some objection).

Adding custom maps is doable, if a bit tedious.

Does any of this overlap with your requirements? I've become
comfortable with its quirks and will be happy to share with anyone
interested.

Ted Ruegsegger



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