creating a route with .gpx files in garmin basecamp

#CREATING A ROUTE WITH .GPX FILES IN GARMIN BASECAMP FOR FREE#
#CREATING A ROUTE WITH .GPX FILES IN GARMIN BASECAMP CRACK#

Any unit that uses the GPS satellites will expect the GPX data in this WGS 84 format. For example, a coordinate in WGS 84 is -77.508333, and in traditional latitude would be S 77° 30′ 29.9988″ (degrees minutes seconds). You can simplistically think of it as a decimal equivalent of the latitude and longitude that you learned about in school ( and you convert between them with this tool). In a GPX file they are stored in WGS 84 format, which is a mapping reference system created by the U.S. Since your position is the building block of all the geographic data in the GPX file, it’s important to understand the numbers that you’re looking at.īefore I show you the GPX file data for a waypoint, we need to talk about latitude and longitude.

#CREATING A ROUTE WITH .GPX FILES IN GARMIN BASECAMP CRACK#

But if I crack open the actual GPX file from here, it will likely indicate that my position is accurate down to an atom or electron, which is obviously wrong. Understanding Latitude and Longitude in Your GPX File When I look at this position fix on my GPS, it’s saying that the accuracy is 17ft. You can take a look at (the very dry) different types of information that a GPX file can have here, but there are only a few big ones that you need to know about: waypoints, routes, and tracks. Save GPX files in the latest version, GPX 1.1, if you are given an option. Those standard tag names were first established in 2002, and then updated in 2004 with the latest version of GPX, GPX 1.1. In order for that to work, there has to be standard tag names within the GPX file.

#CREATING A ROUTE WITH .GPX FILES IN GARMIN BASECAMP FOR FREE#

The GPX file format is called an “open standard” meaning that it can be used on any device for free regardless of brand. If you don’t use the tags the way they are specified here (e.g. These are some of the naming standards for a waypoint (more later). GPX Tag Naming Standards The tag names in your GPX file are all predefined and documented online.

Other tags, like above, have the latitude and longitude information inside them as attributes, and just have a closing / at the end.

Some tags, like above, have the information between an opening and closing tag: and.

The tags tell the reader (whether a GPS unit or computer) what information is contained between it. Each piece of information in a GPX file is surrounded by tags. GPS Units just look for the XML language in the file and don’t care about the whitespace, although most programs will save it with the indentations to make it easier for humans to work with. Sometimes programs remove all the white space from the GPX file to reduce the file size. If you open a GPX file with a text editor and it’s not formatted nicely like this or is all on one line, just cut and past it into a tool like and XML formatter, process it, and then paste it back to your file. The XML data is indented just like our bulleted list is, and has the same information, but just in the XML format. Instead of plain text like the last image, the GPX file is written in XML (eXtensible Markup Language). Information that is indented belongs to the higher level bullet point. Think of the GPX file like a bulleted outline containing your GPS information.

The GPX file was specified in the text format so that any type of device could easily open and read it without a fuss. There are also more sophisticated tools that offer mapping and are easier to work with, and I’ll talk about those later.

You can open a GPX file with any text editor or word processor. If you open up a GPX file, you’ll see that it’s simply a text file. It might look crazy now, but if you know what to look for, you’ll be able to decode it and understand what you’re looking at. What’s in a GPX File? Here’s what a GPX file looks like if you open it up. Leave a comment and I will do my best to respond. Have a question about the hike or want to see what other people are saying/asking? View the Youtube comments for this video.

Creating a route with .gpx files in garmin basecamp