GPX (data transfer)

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GPX, or GPS eXchange Format is an XML schema designed for describing GPS data between software applications.

It can be used to describe waypoints, tracks, and routes. The format is open and can be used without the need to pay licence fees. Its tags store location, elevation, and time and can in this way be used to interchange data between GPS devices and software packages. Such computer programs allow you for example to view your track, project your track on satellite images (in Google Earth), annotate maps, and tag photographs with the geolocation in the Exif metadata.

Data types

In GPX, a collection of points, with no sequential relationship (the county towns of England, say, or all Skyscrapers in New York), is deemed a collection of individual waypoints. An ordered collection of points may be expressed as a track or a route. Conceptually, tracks are a record of where a person has been, routes are suggestions about where they might go in the future. So, for instance, there might be timestamps for each point in a track (because someone is recording where and when they were there), but timestamps for each point in a route are unlikely to be provided, because the author is suggesting it, and nobody might ever have travelled it.

The minimum properties for a GPX file are latitude and longitude for a single waypoint. All other variables are optional.

See also

• Exchangeable image file format
• Geography Markup Language
• OpenStreetMap, a collaborative project to create free editable maps using GPX traces.
• GPSBabel, used to upload/download/convert GPX files
• Keyhole Markup Language, the equivalent format compatible with Google Earth.
• Point of Interest

References

External links

• Official GPX web site
• TierraWiki, digital trail database and wiki built using a large number of GPX files.
• GDAL/OGR (since version 1.5.0) library supports reading and writing of GPX files.
• gvSIG Mobile is an open-source GIS/SDI mobile client which generates
• GPX AERO Flygoto is an aeronautical geographical information system (GIS aero).

GPX files using a PDA.

• circuitdemarche.com GPX exchange web site with picture!