Ventus GPS Route Logger G730

You need one tool if you want to use Ventus GPS Logger G730 with Linux but if you want to get more out of your logger you might want to use gpsbabel too. Most important one is skytraq-datalogger you can find on it’s website and second one is gpsbabel which you should example find using apt-get. I will also use secure copy (scp) to send my tracks to a server. You can also use GPS Visualizer to get your track to map easily.

• Skytraq-datalogger you will need this to get data from the Ventus GPS and to delete tracks after you don’t need them on the device anymore.
• GPSBabel to convert coordinates to more suitable formats. Example gpx to kml (So google maps and google earth would understand it better)

Dump data from Ventus to file (This seems to work best right after you turn on your logger):

skytraq-datalogger --dump >> output.xml

/dev/ttyUSB0 is default device which skytraq-datalogger uses so if you have tried this few times (and you logger is on) and you don’t get anything out from your logger you should check if this dev is right device and if not then use –dev /dev/rightdev to tell skytraq-datalogger which device to use. If you don’t know which device your logger is just run dmesg after you have plugged logger in to your USB port and you should see something like:

[702159.634422] usb 3-1: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0

and there you can see which device you should use to talk with your GPS route logger.

Convert output.xml to output.kml:

gpsbabel -i gpx -f output.xml -o kml,lines=1,points=0,units=m,trackdirection=1 -F output.kml

Upload data to server using secure copy:

scp output.kml username@ssh.server.com:~

This will send output.kml to ssh.server.com server under usersname’s home.

One way to show your track on the map is to go maps.google.com and write URL to your .kml (also .xml files work) file on the search field.

When you have downloaded all the track from the logger you probably want to delete all tracks from it:

skytraq-datalogger --delete

If you want to convert your tracks to other formats you can use gpsbabel-gui which can be found (after installing):

/usr/bin/gpsbabelfe

Ofcourse command line version of gpsbabel will work too but it will be easier to test things with gui version.