I have made some corrections and improvements to the PERL converter script for Garmin TCX files. This simple script extracts an activity from a TCX file (exported from the Garmin Training Center tool) and converts it to a Google Earth KML file. Previous version are still available on my previous article on this topic: “Convert tools for Garmin Training Center“.

My Training Center release is the 2.0.3 for Mac OS X, the TCX file is available through the “export” function of the file menu, it generates an XML file with all your activities, training and routes.

Download here : convert-tcx-tokml.pl

Usage:

1. first export the database from the Training Center to a TCX file (here 20081221.tcx)
2. ./convert-tcx-tokml.pl -f 20081221.tcx

   Available laps (using -l to specify one)
   
   [...]
   2008-11-29T13:10:39Z    Biking    3255s  17449m
   2008-12-16T12:13:44Z    Biking    1984s  34914m
   2008-12-21T13:01:04Z    Biking    9411s  18254m

3. On the activity list find the one you want to convert and use the first field in the -l option:
   ./convert-tcx-tokml.pl -f 20081221.tcx -l 2008-11-29T13:10:39Z > my_activity.kml
4. The generated KML file could directly be loaded in GoogleEarth
5. You can customize the two XML fields with a text editor in the KML file in order to get a better presentation in Google Earth
6. A compressed KMZ version could be obtained with the zip command, useful for sharing by email :
   zip a my_activity.kmz my_activity.kml

I am the owner (happy) of a Garmin 305 Edge GPS, but rather quickly noted that the product quality was not reproduced on the software which accompanies it.

Even if the main basic functionalities are present, the Training Center tool is missing export features towards market standards, mainly GPX and the KML, respectively an exchange format between GPS products and a representation format for Google Earth.

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