PDtoGPX - program for importing/exporting routes and waypoints on iQue

[evenlu]

Hello,
The new mapsource 6.5b made it possible to import and export GPX files in mapsource. I have made the first attempt to make a program to make it easy to send waypoints and thus routes to/from the iQue<->mapsource. I have named the program PDtoGPX (Palm Desktop to GPS Exchange Format).

Please see my homepage for more info: http://www.home.no/even-lund/index.html if you want to check it out.
Regards Even

[apersson850]

Interesting approach. Will t least paste some of the holes in the communication capabilities of the iQue.

You noticed he's from a Nordic country, didn't you? :D

[evenlu]

Sorry if somebody downloaded the program now and tried to convert waypoints to Palm Desktop. The names came up wrong. This error is now fixed.

Anders, you are absolutely right. The program is perfect for Nordic users :D

Even

[orangerider]

Originally posted by evenlu
Hello,
The new mapsource 6.5b made it possible to import and export GPX files in mapsource. I have made the first attempt to make a program to make it easy to send waypoints and thus routes to/from the iQue<->mapsource. I have named the program PDtoGPX (Palm Desktop to GPS Exchange Format).

Please see my homepage for more info: http://www.home.no/even-lund/index.html if you want to check it out.
Regards Even

I am surprised their is not more interest in this program all though I havent figured out how to use it yet. I was hoping their would be more discussion on this subject and I could pick up some pointers.:rolleyes:

[Greyfox]

Originally posted by orangerider
I am surprised their is not more interest in this program all though I havent figured out how to use it yet. I was hoping their would be more discussion on this subject and I could pick up some pointers.:rolleyes:

In the short time since downloading this program, I have also run into a few difficulties getting it to work. The first stage of the process seems to work OK, but I haven't yet been able to load the file into Mapsouce 6.5.0 beta with out generating error messages. It's probably something I am doing wrong (or not doing) and I had intended to persue it further before commenting on the forum, however after reading your posting I thought I should at least wave the flag to assure the author that there is interest in the program.

[orangerider]

Originally posted by Greyfox
In the short time since downloading this program, I have also run into a few difficulties getting it to work. The first stage of the process seems to work OK, but I haven't yet been able to load the file into Mapsouce 6.5.0 beta with out generating error messages. It's probably something I am doing wrong (or not doing) and I had intended to persue it further before commenting on the forum, however after reading your posting I thought I should at least wave the flag to assure the author that there is interest in the program.

I get an error right at the start no doubt my fault. I can not find a file for the waypoints. I think I am totally confused but am still very interested in making this work. Do i have to some how create this file. Thanks for replying to this message . If you get this all figured out some extra instructions would be greatly appreciated. :)

[evenlu]

I have been away for a week and not been able to read the forum. The program is quite fresh - plenty of errors are probably still to solve so please send me a mail with the files you are having problems with (comma seperated txt files from Palm Desktop or gpx files from Mapsource), and I will look into it as soon as possible. If you find it difficult to use the program I can probably make a small guide on how to use it. Are everyone having problems?

[frebe]

There are plenty of interesting waypoints (points of interest) available in the TomTom Navigator (OV2) format,
e.g. http://www.pocketgps.co.uk/tomtompoi.php

Can they be converted to the Garmin format and imported/exported with PDtoGPX - and if so, how does one go about it?
Thank you,

[II00I00I]

search the net for the following utilities:
POI2WPT or POIConvertor.
With these you can convert .ov2 to PCX5 format, which you can import into MapSource.

[frebe]

Thanks Bart! Will try that.
And the PCX5 format then works with PDtoGPX?

[evenlu]

I haven't tried those converters, but it will be possible once opened in mapsource to save as gpx and then use pdtogpx to make the waypoints available on the ique.

[Greyfox]

Originally posted by orangerider
I get an error right at the start no doubt my fault. I can not find a file for the waypoints. I think I am totally confused but am still very interested in making this work. Do i have to some how create this file. Thanks for replying to this message . If you get this all figured out some extra instructions would be greatly appreciated. :)

The following are my observations to date in regards to to transferring waypoints from the iQue address book to Mapsource using this program.

1. You need to explicitly specify the extension ".txt" when exporting the comma delimited text file from Palm desk otherwise the output file will default to a .csv extension.

2. You need to explicitly specify the extension ".gpx" when saving the output file from PD2GPX otherwise the output file will have no extension, despite the indicated "save as type" information. (needs correction).

3. Regardless of which address book fields are ticked for export from Palm desk, PD2GPX appears to only use the LAST NAME and the CUSTOM 4 (GPS co-ordinates) fields. If any address book entry has a blank LAST NAME field such as is commonly the case for Company records, then the resulting blank field in the .gpx file will cause an error when trying to load the file into Mapsource.
Since PD2GPX seems able to handle a quite lengthy "name" field, it may be preferable if the LAST NAME, FIRST NAME and COMPANY NAME fields were concatenated to produce the "name" field in the .gpx output file, in the meantime you need to make sure all the entries that are exported from the Palm Desk have a valid LAST NAME field.

4. The program appears to pass on entries with duplicated names.

5. Whilst the .gpx file output from PD2GPX has fields for "cmt" (COMMENT?) and "desc" (DESCRIPTION?), I have noticed that these always contain "02-JAN-00 3:11". Perhaps one of these be used to pass on the "CATAGORY" which at present gets lost in the process.

6 The .gpx file output from PD2GPX has a field for "sym" (SYMBOL?) which seems to always contain "Waypoint". Would be nice if it could pass on a reference to the symbol actually used for the iQue waypoint.

Hope this is of some help.

[evenlu]

Thank you for your reply Greyfox:

1. This is a problem from Palm Desktop. I have now included cvs as input in PDtoGPX.
2. This problem is now fixed. All files will be saved as typed filename + the extension gpx regardless of typed name: test.gpx is thus saved as test.gpx.gpx...
3. Fixed. Now the name field in the gpx file will contain Firstname, Lastname, Title, and Company. Excluded fields will not be saved.
4. Now there will be no duplicates as long as the fields are different (see 3).
5. I have now removed the field containing comments since it is only crap anyway. I first thought it was necessary in order to open gpx files. I will change this later to include the category as you mentioned.
6. The symbol field contains 'waypoint' since I want to put it in the waypoint folder in Palm Desktop. I later discovered that regardless of the name put in the category field of the text file I can import it to any folder I choose in Palm Desktop as long as I have opened the correct folder. I could off course save different waypoints in different folders with names like 'oval, red', 'Gas station' etc, but I would rather like to export the equivalent symbol from mapsource to the symbol description in the text file ('B0024') so that I get the correct symbol on the iQue. I currently don't know how the different symbols are stored on the iQue since I don't know how to change symbols on the iQue. The symbol list would be very interesting to know...

Regards Even

[T^2]

I've uploaded waypoints from the IQue to Mapsource - that worked fine.

However, I keep getting a "Range check error." when I try to open a .gpx file from mapsource. What gives?

[evenlu]

I'm sorry if the converter is still buggy. I just tried to do the same conversion and it worked fine for both waypoints and a route. Do you have the latest version (28. nov)? I know that earlier versions had an error allocating the wrong arraysize and gave range check error... Please send me a dummy gpx file T^2 and I will look into it.

evenlund@broadpark.no

[Greyfox]

Evenlu, Thanks for the very fast response to my posting. I have now downloaded the 28/11/04 revision and hope to be able to give it a workout over the next few days. The changes you have described should make this a very useful utility for iQue users.

[Greyfox]

Originally posted by evenlu
I'm sorry if the converter is still buggy. I just tried to do the same conversion and it worked fine for both waypoints and a route. Do you have the latest version (28. nov)? I know that earlier versions had an error allocating the wrong arraysize and gave range check error... Please send me a dummy gpx file T^2 and I will look into it.

evenlund@broadpark.no

I also experienced range error messages, however I found that if I unticked the "Note" field when exporting the file from Palm desk the files would then process without the error.

I have also found that an "&" character in any of the fields that are now concatinated to produce the "Name" field will prevent not only that waypoint, but all others in the same file from loading into Mapsource.

[evenlu]

The range check errors you are experiencing when trying to open a PD txt file is due to including lineshifts in the note section. PDtoGPX is based on textfiles where all waypoints are on one separate line. When including a note section with several lines the output txt file from PD will also have several lines for each waypoint (see for yourself) and PDtoGPX will not read it correctly. I rarely use the note field, and therefore have not come over the error before. To fix it do like Grayfox - exclude the notefield when exporting from PD. You can also remove the notes or keep it on only one line.

Many characters will not be tolerated by Mapsource when trying to open a gpx file. '&' is one of them. I will not try to find alternative names for all of them but from now on '&' is converted to 'and' and '#' to 'no'. The extended scandinavian alphabet also have conversions to fit my need. I have also conversions for 'ß'='ss' and 'ñ' ='n' to aßist germans and spanish speaking people. Please contact me if any others are really necessary.

Even

[T^2]

Originally posted by evenlu
I'm sorry if the converter is still buggy. I just tried to do the same conversion and it worked fine for both waypoints and a route. Do you have the latest version (28. nov)? I know that earlier versions had an error allocating the wrong arraysize and gave range check error... Please send me a dummy gpx file T^2 and I will look into it.

evenlund@broadpark.no

I still can't open a .gpx file. Here is a dummy gpx file to look at:

[evenlu]

Found that little sucker! I tried to put the result of the coordinate conversion in a too small variable. That means that the former versions had problems with coordinates too far away from the zero-meridian (USA). It seems fine now- at least did the dummy file work out nice both with the route and the waypoint :D Please download the latest version!

[strumble]

I have been following this forum with great interest.

Can you list the main abilities of this program so far?
Can I prepare a route in Mapsource and transfer it to the iQue?

Thank you,

[evenlu]

For more info see the homepage:

www.home.no/even-lund

In summary PDtoGPX make it possible to transfer waypoints from iQue to the latest version of Garmin Mapsource or from Mapsource to iQue in an easy way. By connecting separate waypoints it is possible to make routes out of them. It really fills in some holes that Garmin left.

[T^2]

Yup that did it. It's working fine now. Thanks for the hard work.



Originally posted by evenlu
Found that little sucker! I tried to put the result of the coordinate conversion in a too small variable. That means that the former versions had problems with coordinates too far away from the zero-meridian (USA). It seems fine now- at least did the dummy file work out nice both with the route and the waypoint :D Please download the latest version!

[evenlu]

Here is a dummy gpx file to look at:

Tip:
I would recommend creating waypoints before making the route. By naming the waypoints 001, 002, 003... it's easier to connect them later.

[Greyfox]

Originally posted by evenlu


3. Fixed. Now the name field in the gpx file will contain Firstname, Lastname, Title, and Company. Excluded fields will not be saved.



Even- this worked well and really makes the program very useful for me, and no doubt many others, however I would like to suggest a further enhancement.

If there are blank fields ahead of the field that contains information (for example if First Name, Last Name, and Title are blank, and Company contains information) then the "Waypoint" name output contains a leading comma.

It would be really nice if the program could remove the leading comma.

[evenlu]

It would be really nice if the program could remove the leading comma.

Fixed

[Greyfox]

Even,

Minor problem (I hope) - the latest version (December 1st) doesn't seem to save the .gpx file when processing waypoints from Palm Desk to Mapsource. This was/is OK using the previous November 30th issue.

[evenlu]

I know the reason for the problem and will easily fix it later today. Yesterday I was busy making an external power pack for my iQue.

[evenlu]

Greyfox - PDtoGPX should we working fine now. The extra time I needed was due to a shutdown I had, losing my unsaved program.

[Greyfox]

Originally posted by evenlu
Greyfox - PDtoGPX should we working fine now.

Yes that's done the trick.

For the benefit of others who may be following this thread, I would suggest that this program is possibly the most convenient way now available for transferring waypoint names and co-ordinates from Palm Desktop into Mapsource.

For those who haven't yet tried it or visited the web page, it is a single, relatively small executable file that operates under Windows, requires no additional third party software (other than Palm Desktop) and does not require loading any additional software into the iQue. There is a minor point to watch for users who have multiline notes attached to address book entries (which has been covered elsewhere in the thread and is overcome by simply unticking the Notes field), but otherwise it's a breeze to use.

PDtoGPX also has the ability to transfer waypoints and route waypoints from Mapsource back to the iQue via Palm Desktop.

thank you for making the program available Even.

[strumble]

Thank you,
It worked first time!!
Now I can work with identical Waypoints both in MapSource and Palm Desktop.
Still playing with the application.

[JohnVa]

Thanks for ur hard work on this program.

John

[JohnVa]

Thanks for ur hard work on this program.

John

[evenlu]

I have now included som extra characters for conversion. This is the special character conversion list at the moment: Æ, Ø, Å, æ, ø, å, ö, Ö, ä, Ä, #, &, ß, ñ, @, €, £, $, % and §.

Some people are asking if I can make a step by step instruction on how to use the program. This is allready existing on the homepage and found here (http://www.home.no/even-lund/documents/examples.html).

[strumble]

A great program.

The initial problem I had with the € symbol has now been resolved. [My French Waypoints contained the Peage charges from 2004, so that I could get the approx. cash ready in the future]

1100 waypoints successfully transferred.
Don't forget the Application has been updated 23.01.05

[thodge]

Hello,
First off...Thank you for writing this program! I just found it today(5/13/05) and it fills a large hole in the Garmin design!

This question may have been asked already (although I didn't see it) or I'm still doing something wrong. Anyway, here goes...

I successfully transferred my iQue waypoints to Mapsource using your method and code. However, the waypoint symbology is always displayed as a black square in Mapsource.

Am I doing something incorrectly or is there no means of getting the symbology type to also transfer to Mapsource?

Thanks!
Tim

[- The Raven -]

Hi.

First, thanks for a great idea. This will be a very useful tool with the ton of waypoints I create each time I place a cache or try out a multi-cache while geocaching.

I would like to propose that the the following characters should be added to the list characters that are not supported: é, è, à

From my tests, I feel there should be a way to overcome this problem although I admit I have no idea what it involves. I have performed the following test: loaded a CSV file with accentuated characters into PDtoGPX and created a GPX output. Loaded this GPX file with the Geocaching Swiss Army Knife (GSAK) and then extracted it again in GPX format. The new GPX loads without problems in MapSource even though the accentuated characters are still there.

I suppose GSAK treats those characters in a particular way that makes them more palatable to MapSource afterward. If someone could find out what GSAK does, it would be great if PDtoGPX could do the same!

Thanks again. In the meantime, I'll add the GSAK step to using PDtoGPX in order to keep my accentuated characters.

[oupiglet]

I'm reviving a very old topic today. I haven't needed Betty to do this until now. I'm trying to get waypoints from Betty to Mapsource and see that this program can do it. My question is how to I make my waypoints .gpx files??? Maybe I'll just missing something obvious.

[oupiglet]

Nevermind!!! I figured it out!