Wintec WBT-202 on Apple using Wine

One of the advantages of the Wintec WBT-202 GPS data logger is that you can read the logged GPS data on any computer.
To change the configuration, Wintec has made available the WBT_Tool utility.
However, this is only available for Windows. That’s an issue if you have a Mac (or Linux).
Luckily, there is a pretty easy way to use wbt_tool to configure your Wintec GPS data logger on your Mac (or Linux).

This page describes how to get WBT_Tool running on your Mac, ideal if you don’t want to use VMware Fusion or Parallels.

WBT_Tool allows you to configure the WBT-202 GPS receiver, but it also allows you to export the proprietary .tes data files to other formats. E.g. a nice Google Maps view or a very complete .kmz file for Google Earth.

If you do not need to adjust the configuration and if you just want basic data from your GPS, then you don’t need WBT_Tool. Just mount the GPS device and use GPSBabel to convert the .tes file.

Bonus tip: export to GPX and then use PhotoGPSEditor to add the location information to your pictures.

Overview

Wine is the way to run Windows applications on Mac OS X, Linux, etc. And: without a Microsoft OS. I used WineBottler, but others will do as well (e.g. Wineskin).

WBT_Tool.exe is normally stored on the GPS reveiver itself. In our case we will bottle it and create a link to the GPS data folder. That’s pretty much it.

Instructions

1. Download the WBT_Tool from Wintec and unrar it (e.g. using The Unarchiver)
2. Download WineBottler and open the .dmg file.
3. Drag Wine and Winebottler to the Applications folder.
4. Start Winebottler and wait for it to complete initialization. This can take several minutes.
5. Click on “Create Custom Prefixes”, use “select File…” to point to the WBT_Tool.exe that you downloaded.
6. Click Install, give it a name (e.g. WBT_Tool) and a location (e.g. Desktop). This creates an Apple application that runs WBT_Tool. However, the application will fail without the final steps.
7. In Winebottler you will find in the main pane the newly created prefix, in my case “WBT_Tool (Working copy)”. Click on the magnifying glass to the right. This opens the Finder.
8. In that Finder window go to “drive_c > winebottler”, here you find the WBT_Tool.exe that we installed.
9. In a second Finder window go to the attached GPS device (attach using USB, turn the device on and off).
10. WBT_Tool needs to access files on the GPS receiver, otherwise it will not run (error message “can’t find system file”).
1. start Terminal, type “ln -s ” (note the space at the end);
2. in the GPS Finder window, drag the small proxy icon at the top of the window to the Terminal;
3. in Terminal, type “/WBT202 ” (note the space at the end);
4. in the Winebottler Finder window, drag the small proxy icon at the top of the window to the Terminal;
5. the result should look something like this:
   [cc width=”115%”]ln -s /Volumes/name_of_gps/WBT202 /Users/your_username/Library/Application\ Support/Wine/prefixes/wbt\ tool/drive_c/winebottler[/cc]
6. press enter
11. We’re done. You can close Winebottler and the Finder windows.
12. From now on you can run the WBT_Tool.app you created.

 

2 Responses to “Wintec WBT-202 on Apple using Wine”

1. Ralf says:

   July 26, 2013 at 16:25

   Great tutorial, but unfortunately I can’t get it to work.
   Winebottler does not show the prefix after installation (and it is not in the appropriate system folder). Any hints, before I have to dive into winebottler manual?

   cheers

   Reply
   • winfred says:

     July 26, 2013 at 18:59

     Looking at the docs is probably the best thing to do. I have a different setup at the moment (GPS from Bad Elf), so I can not check it quickly. Sorry!

     Reply

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