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Cannot import gpx files

Former Member over 13 years ago

Hi,

Im new to GSP technology and recently purchased a Garmin 62s. Im having a lot of difficulties uploading maps to the GPS. They are in .gpx extension.
Let me explain better: I have some shapefiles in QGIS that i saved to .gpx format. But after this i cant open the files with basecamp neither maspsource, it says "import error". If i try manually and transfer them to the gpx directory in GARMIN it doesnt work also. Im pretty sure that im doing anything wrong but since my experience with GPS is fairly new i would need any help possible to be able to transfer to my GPS.

Regards
Nuno

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

GPX files do not contain maps. This is at least how we look at it.

That's why I am moving this thread from the "Installing Maps" forum to the BaseCamp forum.

You are trying to do the right thing if you are using BaseCamp to transfer data from GPX files to your 62.

Most likely the GPX files you are trying to import into BaseCamp are faulty and cannot be read by our apps (or our units apparently).

You could try attaching an example GPX file and hopefully someone will point out what is wrong with them.

Alternatively, you could try using GPSBabel (http://www.gpsbabel.org/) to fix the GPX files. Choose GPX as both input and output format and see if GPSBabel can handle it.

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

yep i already used GPSbabel to do that and it seems to handle fine. I cant attach the file is 5mb :-)

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

here it is the file:

http://www.mediafire.com/?d4kqc9dq9zm3udj

Thank you

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

My largest Track file (.gpx) is 179kb for a trail which is 110miles long. Your file is 5.6mb! I have no idea what a "shapefile" is, but .gpx files are "normally" used for Tracks.

When I open your file in EasyGPS, it shows up as a Route, not a Track. It also contains lots of Waypoints, but they are all at N45.00000, E060.00000.

The Route data shows numerous points with 0 distance and numerous waypoints within that segment.

Very Strange.
I am not an expert on .gpx files, and certainly not Routes, but as an example:
one of my .gpx Track files has this format:
<trkpt lat="34.183897096663713" lon="-114.22572297044098"/>

Your file has this:
<rtept lat="449965.051" lon="217273.328">

It looks to me--your Lat & Long are not formatted correctly.

Sorry I can't help much more than that with this file.

Try to download a .gpx file from MapMyRide as an example and Import it to BC or MS and then Send to your 62s. Does it look ok?

Ron

0 stuartmw over 13 years ago

The posted GPX file contains nothing but routes along with custom "extensions" (to the GPX format). Presumably these define the various "shapefiles". In short the file does NOT contain maps.

As already stated the latitude/longitude format is not in decimal degrees but some other (decimal) format.

I ran the file through the XML Validator at

http://www.validome.org/xml/

and it is valid (i.e. correctly formatted according to the schema) but I'm not surprised that MapSource/BaseCamp can't import it.

The bottom line is that the file, at least to me, wouldn't provide much information (just "outlines") even if you were able to import it. You would NOT get any maps on your 62S.

0 kganshirt over 13 years ago

If you really want to use the shapefile as a map, you have to create a map from it. You can't just arbitrarily dump it into a GPX file and hope for the best.

Mapsource and Basecamp expect map files to be in *.IMG format so even if you have managed to get the shapefile info into a legitimate GPX format, neither program will use that info to display a map. Both programs expect things like tracks and routes and waypoints in GPX files but not maps.

I'm pretty sure you need to run either the original shapefile, or possibly the GPX file you have created, through a utility(ies) that will produce a proper Garmin-compatible *.IMG map file.

...ken...

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

There's a program called DNRGarmin that converts shapefiles to .gpx files (never used it), so I'm guessing this is an example of something similar. But .gpx files are going to be a bit kludgy for use as maps. I saw a program that somebody wrote to actually build maps from .gpx files. It was kind of cool actually but I don't know where I saw this... maybe in one of the other forums here?

Shapefiles are vector data that can be in the form of either polygons, polylines or points. But each shapefile can only contain one of those types. They can also have a lot of data associated with each entity via a separate .dbf file. I don't think a .gpx file can contain that much data on the individual objects.

As for what the problem is... sorry, no idea. But that's what I know about shapefiles. :)

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

In QGIS you have to reproject the layer (see vector/datamanagement/reproject) to WGS84/EPSG4326 and then export to GPX