EISPIRATEN

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

Thanx Alan.

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.

Great info - thanx for sharing.