Importing GPX files into Base Camp

Former Member over 14 years ago

I have some feedback to hopefully improve your Base Camp application.

I have written an application to take our coordinate file and convert it to a waypoint or track GPX file. In my attempt to get the GPX file to import into Base Camp I discovered a couple problems I really wish you could address in a future version:
1) If there is an error importing the file it would be helpful to identify the line number and/or xml element where the error occured "Unknown error opening import file" is not useful to try to determine WHERE in the GPX file the error occurs.
2) This one took over an hour to figure out:
<gpxx:DisplayColor>green</gpxx:DisplayColor>
Notice that lower case "green" is one cause for unknown error. Your Base Camp application will generate an error unless it is proper case "Green". Please consider fixing the code in Base Camp to mitigate this error or identify the specific error when displaying error information to the user.

My experience with importing GPX files into Base Camp is that its really picky and just does not display enough diagonstic information. I do like the application however and it handles our basic needs.

Thanks,
Terry

0 Former Member over 12 years ago

Hi Don,

There is no magic involved. If you do a search on anything that is in the Nuvi's map database (eg. POIs, addresses, cities, intersections) and it is found, there will be ... must be ... a geographic location (eg. set of coordinates) associated with it already in the map database.

That does *not* mean those coordinates are accurate. They may just be a best approximation.

Cities are a great example. You can search for a city. It will be found. You can route to it and the Nuvi will take you there, with appropriate directions along the way.

But where is it going to take you????

The city I live in is only 200,000 people but it still covers a fair bit of real estate. Having the Nuvi bring you here won't necessarily be helpful unless you just want to randomly explore the place. So where will you end up if you just pick a city?

If you do a search for a city and then tell it to show the map you will see that it is going to take you to the approximate geographic centre of the city. Or where the geographic centre of the city was the last time it was surveyed. Or perhaps the city managers have designated a point at some popular intersection in the middle of downtown. I don't really know how the coordinates are decided on, but there are definitely coordinates that can be routed to.

I expect this may also apply to the parks in your example. If you can search and find them on the Nuvi from the "Where To?" menu, you can be assured there will be coordinates. But you would have to display the map to see exactly where in the park you would end up. It might just take you to the main gate. Or it might take you to the main park office. Or it might be recorded as the geographic centre of the park. Or .... you get the idea.

So you have options.

First, there usually is no point in simply searching for something in the Nuvi's map database and then saving it as a Favorite. It's already in the map database, ready to be found any time you like. And if it's likely you may want to find it again in the very near term, it will be in the Recently Found list. The exception would be if you want to look up an address and you expect you will be navigating to it on some regular future basis and don't want to depend on it staying in the Recently Found list until the next time you need it. Then you would save it as a Favorite. Finding a Favorite is a lot easier than going through the address search routine again.

So, option 1 is to save something from a search as a Favorite. On my Nuvi 765T when you get the results of a search you have three options available. You can tap the big green GO button. You can tap the MAP button to display it on the map. Or you can tap the SAVE button to save it in your Favorites. This will take you to a screen that lets you enter a name for it and save it.

Option 2. If you tap the MAP button to display the location on the map, you will also get a SAVE button. So you don't need to decide to save it as a Favorite until you look on the map to see where the Nuvi thinks it is.

Option 3. You can actually go somewhere. When you are there, with the map displayed, tap the car icon (by default it's the big blue triangle that shows where you are on the map). This brings up the "where am I?" screen with a bunch of interesting and potentially useful information, including your coordinates. At the bottom there is a Save Location button to let you save your current position to your Favorites.

I hope that helps.

...ken...