GPS devices are important H&S items on a lot of projects. They are also way more accurate that smartphones in difficult terrain. It would be great if trap.nz could export GPX files directly for users to exchange and to upload to their GPSs.
The GPX export facility would let the user choose whether to include traps, baitstations, and/or monitoring points. If elevation and symbol data were available, it would be included.
Tracks would be selectable for export as well.
The export would be a single GPX file named with the project’s name and current date.
Hi, I’ve a workaround if you are interested.
It’s not a solution for a proper GPX export, however this is what I did to achieve the same thing.
I took the Trap Report export, then in Excel concatenated the Lat and Lon into GPX format. This I then pasted into a GPX text file as a new set of waypoints.
So the GPX line:
<wpt lat="-41.236985196359" lon="174.98226553202"><name>Rat 1-12</name></wpt>
Was produced in Excel using this in a new column the end of the trap report line:
=CONCATENATE("<wpt lat=",CHAR(34),F16,CHAR(34)," lon=",CHAR(34),G16,CHAR(34),"><name>",C16,"</name></wpt>")
The CHAR(34) is code for the double quotes, which is needed otherwise Excel thinks the quotes are part of its formula and will error. If you wanted to you could also add into the formula the GPX code for a waypoint symbol depending on what you want to show up on the GPS you are using.
Cheers
Grant
Hi Grant - that’s a good solution using software that a lot of people already have! Thanks for that.
Personally, I use two programs - dnrgps and GPX_Editor - for manipulating GPX files and for converting among KML, spreadsheets, and GPX. I have been using both programs for many years and so feel that I can trust them.
My typical workflow is to get trap.nz up to date with traps, monitoring points, and bait stations. Then download each of those device categories as KML. I then load each KML one-by-one into dnrgps and save each as a GPX. Finally, I add all three GPX files into GPX_Editor and save the resultant GPX as a single file for my project. It’s reliable and fairly straightforward. (I must admit that I’m a Windows user and don’t have a good solution for Apple users.)
If trap.nz had a native GPX export, I would expect that they would include symbol selection for each category as well. My workflow ends up with all devices having the same symbol on your GPS device - not ideal.
It’s a little diapointing eh. I have got gpx files for some new trap lines in our project from DoC but not all the ones here. Since people often like ( in our area) going for wanders in different places plus our H and S requirements require us to take a GPS out haveing all traplines on a project is useful. I just assumed we would be able to export them.