Google Earth (Keyhole) Markup Language (kml)

This format can...

KML, the Keyhole Markup Language, is used by Keyhole and Google Earth. There are features in this file format that GPSBabel doesn't support - such as camera views - but waypoints, tracks, and routes work well.

Google Earth also uses GPSBabel internally for receiver communications and several file format imports and exports.

deficon option

Default icon name.

This option specifies the default name for waypoint icons

lines option

Export linestrings for tracks and routes.

When this option is nonzero, GPSBabel draws lines between points in tracks and routes. The default value for this option is 1, which causes lines to be drawn by default. To disable line-drawing, specify lines=0.

points option

Export placemarks for tracks and routes.

When this option is nonzero, GPSBabel draws placemarks for tracks and routes. The default value for this option is 1, which causes placemarks to be drawn. To disable drawing of placemarks, specify points=0.

line_width option

Width of lines, in pixels.

This option specifies the width of the drawn lines in pixels. The default value is six pixels.

line_color option

Line color, specified in hex AABBGGRR.

This option specifies the line color as a hexadecimal number in AABBGGRR format, where A is alpha, B is blue, G is green, and R is red.

floating option

Altitudes are absolute and not clamped to ground.

When this option is nonzero, altitudes are allowed to float above or below the ground surface. By default, this option is zero so that altitudes are clamped to the ground. Specify floating=1 to allow them to float.

This option is more useful to pilots than to hikers.

extrude option

Draw extrusion line from trackpoint to ground.

This option is a boolean flag to specicy whether Google Earth should draw lines from trackpoints to the ground. It defaults to '0', which means no extrusion lines are drawn. The option of '1' is, of course, most useful for points that aren't actually on the ground such as those be captured from planes.

trackdata option

Include extended data for trackpoints (default = 1).

This is a boolean flag that controls whether GPSBabel writes extensive data for each trackpoint generated. By default computed speed, timestamps, and so on are written with the default of '1' for this option. If you are writing large tracks and do not value this information, you can reduce the size of the generated file substantially by turning this flag off by setting it to '0'.

units option

Units used when writing comments ('s'tatute or 'm'etric).

Units is a simple option. Specify 's' for "statute" (miles, feet, and other things that don't sensibly convert to each other, but are craved by Americans) or 'm' for "metric".

labels option

Display labels on track and routepoints (default = 1).

When this option is zero, no labels are added for track and route points. This option defaults to one, so labels are added by default.

max_position_points option

Retain at most this number of position points (0 = unlimited).

This option allows you to specify the number of points kept in the 'snail trail' generated in the realtime tracking mode.