I export my Garmin 305 data to construct a map using the GMap4 service:
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.html
The Garmin GPX data is useless because it does seem to contain start/end points.
So I am using the KML export data.
The problem is that the raw KML data doesn't map well and is a very large file.
This is a view of a hike using the raw, unedited Garmin KML data. The data file is 1845k!
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?q=https://sites.google.com/site/joe00data/home/hike-data/activity_93285866.kml
As you can see, this data produces a black blob icon at every data point, which makes reading the map difficult and is unnecessary.
So I figured out how to edit the KML data to remove all the way point data except for the start and end points. Doing this gets the files size down to 154k, a substantial difference. It also eliminates all the black blob icons and produces a usable map.
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?q=https://sites.google.com/site/joe00data/home/hike-data/activity_93285866-2.kml
WHY does Garmin put all the excess way points in with an icon for each point? What is the purpose/value of doing this?
If that format is needed for some particular reason, is there any way to encourage Garmin to produce an additional smaller export file so that I (and perhpas others) would not have to manually edit the KML file? Maybe call it KML2?
