How do you organize your GPS track data?

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 10:50 am

How do you organize your GPS track data?

Under "My Garmin" I have subfolders for each hiking area, that is, a subfolder for each of the three saints, plus subfolders for other areas.

After a hike, I transfer GPS track data from the handheld to my PC and save it in the appropriate subfolder adding the word "raw" to the file name. If I have a little bit of time, I "save as" a second time changing the word "raw" to "edited," then I analyze my hike and tidy up track and waypoints. If I screw up and delete too much, I can fall back to the "raw" file.

If I have more time, I copy selected tracks and waypoints from "edited" and paste them into a master file for each hiking area and name the file "composite" (e.g., Baldy composite, San Gorgonio composite, San Jacinto composite). {NB: keep each track to 500 points or less.} Heading out the door to my next hike, I load my handheld with the appropriate "composite" file.

Do you have a system that works?

AlanK · Post by **AlanK** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 3:55 pm

It seems as if you have a pretty good system. I do similar things. I save raw data separately from edited track files. I have lots of folders/subfolders for various geographical areas. I also have a separate set of folders for downloaded tracks from various sources on the Internet.

One issue is data format. I save raw data in gpx format but I also have gdb, kml, kmz, and tpo files from the same hikes. So far, I have kept several sets of folders for various file types. I may work out a better system at some point.

I am behind on keeping up master files for various ares, but I do have files of waypoints that I load onto my GPS.

Ranboze · Post by **Ranboze** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:14 pm

Rob or Alan,
(Ive been away from this MB for awhile and just saw this thread) - I download my tracks and WPs into NG Topo. Alan - since you are saving all your downloads as a .gpx file, are you downloading into EasyGPS or some other software? Rob - what software are you using to download into your My Garmin folder? Mapsource? I have the ability to download into EasyGPS, Mapsource or NG Topo.

My .tpo files are starting to get a little unmanageable, and I think there's something I can learn from the systems you guys have set up.

Ranboze · Post by **Ranboze** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:17 pm

Ooopsy, never mind... just read the your comments on the How to Download to PC thread. Looks like you both download using Mapsource.

AlanK · Post by **AlanK** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:27 pm

I use TOPO! software and have for over 10 years. I always download data as tpo files. I do most of my playing around with TOPO! software, although I make increasing use of Google Earth.

I often use other software (e.g., EasyGPS and Mapsource) to download the data as gpx and gdb files. Web sites like GPSVisualizer also allow one to make conversions. I often use it to make kmz files for Google Earth.

For me, the key to managing large collections of any of these is a hierarchy of folders.

Ranboze · Post by **Ranboze** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:31 pm

Thanx Alan.

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 7:19 am

Ranboze wrote:Rob - what software are you using to download into your My Garmin folder? Mapsource?

Yes, I use Mapsource.

Recently I simplified my system for organizing track data: for my home county, I combined small "best of" composite files for individual mountain parks into one large file for the entire county. Now I have fewer master files to manage. Also, to reduce prep time heading out the door for impromptu hikes, I found it's good practice to keep my handheld GPS unit loaded always with the latest "best of" local file.

Ranboze · Post by **Ranboze** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:33 pm

Great info - thanx for sharing.