Imported KMZ files from Google Maps lose custom icons

New InReach user just getting set up for a big expedition. Just discovered the 500 max waypoints limitation. That's a bummer.

But what I'm asking about here is another problem. When I export a .kmz file from Google Maps with a bunch of waypoints and try to import it to inreach.garmin.com, I get an "unsupported media type" error. The file itself with all waypoints does load, but custom icons that are set to not. This seems related to the error message above.

Is there a certain subset of icons I should be using on Google Maps if I wash to have them carry over to the InReach?

0 twolpert over 7 years ago

Have never tried this. A KML exported from the Garmin inReach website references a very limited set of icons, but the references are to .png files below maps.google.com/kml/, just like what you see in a .kml generated by Google Earth.

Edited to add: Of course, my sample is very small and uses only one symbol for waypoints - the blue flag.

The Explorer+ supports a set of 80 symbols for waypoints. You can see these by editing the symbol for an existing waypoint. However, I have no idea how - or if - these map from the icon tags in the KML onto the device (via the inReach web site).

Hopefully, somebody with more experience with this will chime in here.

0 CowboySlim over 7 years ago

Truly guessing here as I can't recall using KML. Maybe it's a KML limitation. If you export in GPX format and then import to inReach site as such it might work.

0 rm120 over 7 years ago

Thanks @Tom and CowboySlim! Yeah, I poked around a bit in the KML and KMZ files exported by google maps, as well as the GPX that Maps exports from inreach.

It's relatively easy to remap icons on the InReach site -- and once corrected there, are accurately represented on the device, too.

That's interesting the KML from the Garmin site also points to icons hosted by Google. That suggests it should be possible to map the core set of InReach icons to those on Google Maps, and then use only those.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

I don't do InReach or even Google mapping or routing as general rule, but I did poke around in a KMZ file posted in another thread recently out of curiosity. That particular unzipped KMZ file of a route was several hundred highway and street miles with a dozen or so "Waypoints". In between the waypoints there were over three thousand thinned points that looked a lot like they came out of a Garmin Nuvi track. FWIW.

Speaking of Iridium, there were ten or more new comm satellites shot off from VAFB this morning at 7:13AM PDT.