Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
From the plugin, we just click the Load GPX File tab if it's not already
active and then enter or browse to the location of our . gpx file. Using
the three checkboxes below the filename, we can choose to load all the
feature types from a GPX file or just some. For each box checked, you
will get a separate layer in QGIS.
You may have noticed that the GPX files we created by downloading
from our GPS contain only one feature type each. You likely also noticed
the three checkboxes when loading a GPX file. QGIS allows you to load
multiple feature types because the plugin assumes you may have GPX
files from other sources that contain multiple types.
The GPS plugin also allows you to load other formats supported by
gpsbabel . Say you have a batch of files from a GPS that you want to
view. If you click the Import Other File tab, you can convert them to
GPX format so they can be used with QGIS. The real work here is done
by gpsbabel , so you must have it installed on your system in order for
this to work. This is just a handy way to convert files and get them into
QGIS. Of course, you could also just use gpsbabel from the command
line to accomplish the same task.
Uploading Data to the GPS
The last thing we'll look at is uploading data from QGIS to your GPS
unit. Here are a couple of reasons why you might want to do that:
• You download some routes for trails in your area from your local
parks department, and you want to load them on your GPS.
• You have edited your waypoints and tracks from your GPS and
want to load them up.
In the second scenario, you'll notice that yes—you can edit your GPX
layers in QGIS and change not only the location (more on that in a
second) but also the attributes. So if you're like me and have trouble
entering text for waypoints on the little spongy rubber buttons, you
can now edit the things after the fact to correct and enhance them. You
may be thinking that editing the locations kind of violates the intent of
a GPS. Well, there may be some circumstances where you might want
to move a waypoint, for example, if you have better information gleaned
from a data source with better accuracy than your GPS.
The other thing you can do is add new features. So, for example, you
could digitize trails from a DRG and upload them to the GPS. Of course,
you need to start with an existing GPX file since the plugin doesn't
 
 
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