.names files to Google Earth

Richary · Post by **Richary** » 07 February 07 10:24 pm

We are looking for a way of quickly adding a lot of info to google earth to allow quick lookups at work. Now I have various .names files for use with OziExplorer, and looking at these they are basically in .CSV format.

Is there any easy way of converting these to .kml so they can be used with Google Earth? Or .GPX/.LOC that Google Earth also supports?

I tried downloading GPXtoPOI but it just crashes with no msg when I try to run it.

murf · Post by **murf** » 07 February 07 11:16 pm

I would have said your best bet was GPSBabel:
http://www.gpsbabel.org/htmldoc-develop ... nicsv.html

However after looking at the .names files I have for Oziexplorer, im not sure they are enough like a CSV for anything to easily read them...

Have you got them opening successfully in something like Excel? If you've got that far, gpsbabel will easily get you the rest of the way. Unfortunately I suspect that the files are a custom Oziexplorer format, and your best bet might be to contact the guy who wrote OziExp. to see if he has a tool, or at least more info on the file format...

Good luck with it, let us know if you find a solution! I'd be interested to know what you work out.

Cheers.

Richary · Post by **Richary** » 08 February 07 12:23 am

Yes, I clicked on them in Windows and it asked what I wanted to open them in. When I said Excel it imported them fine, so I could strip the fields I don't need before importing if I need to.

Thanks, will d/l that at work and try it out. Cheers.

JackHenry · Post by **JackHenry** » 08 February 07 7:38 am

Ozi Explorer allows you to save files in Google Earth format. Load them into OZI as WPT files and then save them as KML files.

Or there is a GSAK macro available to export them as KML files.

riblit · Post by **riblit** » 08 February 07 10:07 am

The ozi .name file format is an xbase variant. (dBASE, foxpro, paradox etc) - Oziexplorer is written in Delphi (pascal) the Borland Database Engine is an xbase variant.

To read the data - rename the file from xxx.name to xxx.dbf and open in dBASE. If you don't have dbase you can use Access.
Create an empty access database.
Populate the database by importing data ( File -> Get External Data -> Import)
Set "Files of type " to one of the dBASE types - I have used both dBASE III and dBASE IV
The jet database engine I have can't find long file names so when I copy the names file I make sure it has an 8.3 name.

Once you have the data in access you can export an xml file, open it in your favourite text editor and change it to a kml ( an exercise for the reader) or make your own arrangements with the other export formats available.

Richary · Post by **Richary** » 08 February 07 11:25 pm

Thanks. Had more luck with GPSbabel, couldn't make Access export the right file.

It generates a pretty big KMZ as expected which slows things right down until you zoom in a fair way.

Cheers

fehrgo · Post by **fehrgo** » 09 February 07 2:18 am

riblit wrote:The ozi .name file format is an xbase variant. (dBASE, foxpro, paradox etc) - Oziexplorer is written in Delphi (pascal) the Borland Database Engine is an xbase variant.
...

Sometimes I am amazed by the sheer wealth of knowledge that our reviewers have. And I'm not just sucking up!

theUMP · Post by **theUMP** » 09 February 07 12:53 pm

fehrgo wrote:Sometimes I am amazed by the sheer wealth of knowledge that our reviewers have. And I'm not just sucking up!

Yep, between us we know about cooking, computers, classical music, Asian culture, electronics, 4WDing, literature, and so on and on!
Mind you, when you divide it into three heads, it's a little less impressive...

Bronze · Post by **Bronze** » 10 February 07 1:46 pm

Riblit has a beautiful head...

compared to his other amphibious mate.