How To: Transfer Routes from Navionics App or Google Earth to Chartplotter

Willhound

It took me a bit of hunting around to find the following info, maybe others will find it useful. Many of us are using the Navionics app as a planning guide and/or GPS/Chartplotter back up, but even without it this method works with Google Earth also. Higher end touch screen Chartplotters make creating a route easier, but many others, like mine require a very time consuming and labourious process of picking individual waypoints and adding them one at a time to the route. Navionics does allow direct transfer to Raymarine plotters, but not any others at this time, so here's how to do it.

Navionics App:
1) From main map screen touch the Route Button, Manual, create your route, activate it, hit "Route" button again, "Detail" and at the top right of the screen is a little button to export a route (looks like a little box with an arrow.Or if you already have a route in Navionics the same applies.  Use this to send the route to a PC. It will send it as a .kmz file which is a Google Earth format. I usually just e-mail it to myself. 

2) Open the file in Google Earth. In the dialogue menu on the left of the screen, right click on the name of the .kmz file and choose "Save Place As" and save it under the .kml option to a folder that is easy to find (I just saved to Desktop)



3) Go here https://www.gpsbabel.org/  this is a freeware program that converts map and gps formats.
Pay attention, do NOT click on the first big green button, it's a stupid embedded ad link. Look down a bit and you'll see a button that says "GPSBabel Free Download". Download and install the program to your PC.
Use GPSBabel to convert the .kml file you saved to a .gpx as per the screenshot:

The resulting .gpx file (a format that most GPS' and plotters can read) can be saved to an SD card or transferred to your plotter via cable or whatever means you have to import data if your plotter accepts raw .gpx files. Most companies have a software that allows you to transfer .gpx direct or convert to the native format of the plotter. In my case it is Humminbird PC. Garmin also has one called Garmin Express etc. The route should now be accessible.

Google Earth:
If you do not use the Navionics app you can accomplish the same thing with Google Earth directly. The steps are all the same except you create a "Path" in Google Earth and then follow steps 2 and 3 above. There is also a Youtube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=870LqaEm_Uc
This video is specific to my Humminbird, but the starting steps of creating the path in Google Earth, and converting it in GPSBabel would be the same for any brand. If you search there are all kinds of videos for the different GPS manufacturer's. As always, be careful, a lot of them are pushing paid versions of websites or software to do the .gpx conversion. I find GPSBabel to be easy and it's free. When you close the program a window will pop up asking if you want to donate, but totally optional.

Sounds complicated, but once you've done it a few times you can create and transfer a route in a couple of minutes.

reneechris14

This great info and I will try on my c70,as I have no way to make a route.always labor and time consuming at 1st but gets easier over time.very important for safty.

Willhound

@reneechris14 , your C70 is Raymarine, so you should be able to send it right from Navionics app to the unit. I didn't research it since it didn't apply to me, but if you Google it it is easy to find.
One other thing I should mention  ( when I'm back on on my PC I'll edit the post above) is that a .gpx file is just a database of waypoints. You need to use the software for your GPS to convert them into a route first and send that to the plotter. Otherwise you're back to square one picking through them one at a time.

J3ff

Have the Dragonfly 7 over here... haven't really researched it yet, but I'm pretty sure even though it has wifi and will connect to your tablet/phone there's no way to send routes to it wirelessly, which seems stupid.  Everything I read mentions having to put it on the memory card and then loading it from there... so now I've got 1 phone 1 tablet and 1 chart-plotter all with navionics+ on them, and the chart-plotter will send either the phone or tablet data from the bottom, but the chart-plotter can't receive anything. Dumb if you ask me, hopefully I'm wrong. 

reneechris14

The Raymarime c70 is a 2005 unit the info can only be transferred though a CF card which is hard to come by,even a reader.but the info you posted should work.

Willhound

Ahhh, I see. I have seen a software called RayTech, you are probably familiar with it.
Most of the plotter transfer programs are free if you register the unit, some are paid. But there are other third party freewares out there that will sometimes do it.
I also discovered that although my Humminbird is about 4 years old, no one had ever registered it, so I did, and am now being treated to a 1 year free Navionics + membership/upgrade.

Willhound

@J3ff, yeah I would be surprised if the wi-fi option allows transfer of routes etc. Probably more for pics and music and such. In the Navionics app there's no provision for it, it's either e-mail, twitter or FB.

Stodge

I just discovered that I can share routes from Navionics Web App via Gmail and directly import the Google Earth file it sends into Insight Planner for Lowrance.

Willhound

Cool. So Insight can handle the .kml or .kmz file without needing the in between step with GPSBabel. Others may be able too also.

LaRea

The current generation of Raymarine products running Lighthouse will import .gpx files, according to the manual.  I'm planning to give it a try.  

It's pretty easy to display charts in Google Earth.  You can download them free from NOAA.  Here's a page with instructions:

https://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/csdl/seamlessraster.html 

Stodge

Willhound said:

Cool. So Insight can handle the .kml or .kmz file without needing the in between step with GPSBabel. Others may be able too also.

I was surprised it would import them.

J3ff

Just fyi, got a navionics email this morning that talks about transferring things via wifi.. looks like it's on raymarine stuff now, but coming to the others soon.. https://www.navionics.com/usa/charts/features/plotter-sync/raymarine-how-to

Willhound

Wanted to share a positive customer service experience with Navionics. I noticed after the last update that the app was screwing up the travel time and fuel usage calculations when setting a route. Average cruising speed and fuel burn per hour can be customized in the settings. I contacted Navionics by e-mail on July 8 and quickly received a notice that a case number had been assigned and passed on to the app team. On July 11 I received an update from an app team member saying that they knew about the bug and were hoping to have a fix in an update they were working on and they would notify me when available. On August 4 I received another message saying that the new update was available and that their testing showed the issue to be fixed. And it is...two thumbs up!

viben

I used to follow this procedure, but the newer version of the Navionics app does not seem to allow waypoint/route file export (.kmz file), only .png image files.

Anyone with similar experience?

Ideas for work-arounds?

Willhound

@viben it appears you are correct, the old download button is replaced by a share button. But i discoverd if you share it to yourself by email it appears to export as a .png but if you click on the tiny url it creates and have Google Earth it opens as a .kml file which I think you can then follow through on the rest. In fact it cuts one of the conversion steps out which should make it easier. On my phone now but when I can get to my laptop I'll try a test and see.

EDIT: Just tried it and works great!. In fact, now no need to import into Google Earth. Just "Share" the route via e-mail to yourself. Navionics will show that it is exporting as a .png file but don't worry about it. In the e-mail there will be two links, one to view, one to download. Choose download. It will download as a .kml file. Use GPSBabel (or similar) as per in the instructions above and convert it to .gpx and you're good to go.