2008-06-01

Your Mileage May Vary - TCX2KML Crosses the Atlantic

My Training Center to Google Earth Converter is used quite actively, from all over the world. That's the great thing about a global Internet: Somewhere is always the right weather for running, biking or hiking. And if not, some people have taken a GPS on their ski trip. But for some of these global users, the figures shown by the converter are quite odd. They ran the 26 miles and some yards of a marathon and wondered, what 42.195 kilometers are. They cycled with an average speed of 16 miles per hour and had no idea, how fast 25.7 km/h really are. The metric system was a natural choice for the converter: The data exported by Training Center uses it, and many countries (including mine) have adopted it. But of course there are some deviators. We all know the consequences, but who's to argue? Anywho, I had imperial units on my todo list for the converter - but not with a high priority. Luckily for all those waiting for this feature, NeilFred Picciotto took the initiative and sent me a patch for an additional parameter. Thanks a lot! I was delighted to add it to my converter. Not only is this a nice feature for many users, but I can also add a new sport to the list of activities the converter is used for: NeilFred records his unicycle tours by GPS. How cool is that? I have updated the converter page to let the user choose between metric and imperial units. While at it, I tried the Google Earth plugin to display the result, but had some troubles with it. But I guess that will be the next feature to add. Stay tuned. Please let me know, how you like this extension. And yes, adding other units wouldn't be that hard, NeilFred's patch allows easy addition of more.

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