Edit GPS tracks

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For a variety of reasons, you may want to edit a GPS track log before uploading it to OSM. If you followed the conversion step before now, the track log should be in GPX file format.

Warning:

  • You should only upload raw data you collected yourself in the real world.
  • OSM is interested in the raw data, so you shouldn't edit your tracks to match what you would like to see mapped. In particular, don't edit the locations of trackpoints, just remove bad ones and split the tracks as required.

Reasons

  • To protect your privacy:
    • Your GPS tracks can reveal your exact address and show when you were where. This can give people a lot of information you don't want them to have. You may want to exclude the area around your house (Using filters with GPSBabel shows how to do that with gpsbabel) and possibly modify the timestamps.
  • To improve the remove or correct bad data:
    • You may want to remove points where your GPS receiver had poor reception (say you were inside a building).
    • Also, if you spent a while at some place, the resulting cloud of points is not that useful for mapping.
    • If the receiver produced implausible results:
      • distance between trackpoints more than 500 m,
      • speeds higher than 300 km/h lower than 1 km/h (values can be computed by gpsbabel)
  • Organization:
    • You may want to split your logs into parts depending on some criteria. For instance, separate the flight log and the bus trip from the airport. This allows more accurate tagging of the uploaded logs.
  • To reduce the data volume, you may want to :
    • compress a track to reduce the number of points and speed up uploading.
    • to delete sections of data which have already been uploaded or are not relevant.

Options

  • GpsMaster is a free and open source Java desktop application for creating, viewing, editing and analysing GPX-files.
  • GPSBabel is a free Windows/Linux/MacOS desktop application for converting GPS traces between various data formats. It provides filters (see using filters with GPSBabel). Some of these only work on waypoints, so you may have to convert a track to waypoints and back (gpsbabel allows this).
  • JOSM permits reading and writing GPX files. By converting the GPX layer to a data layer, it can be edited, then saved again as a GPX file, or directly uploaded to OSM using EditGpx plugin. Elevation and metadata is preserved since JOSM version 14163.
  • Viking, , project allows visualizing, editing and uploading tracks to OSM.
  • RouteConverter is a free and open source Java desktop application for displaying, editing and converting routes, tracks and waypoints in CSV, KML, KMZ, GPX and NMEA-files.
  • Check Perl_Scripts#osmtrackfilter and https://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/utils/filter/ for some command line tools.
  • gpsman is very useful if you can see past the unusual tcl/tk user interface.
  • GpsPrune is a free Windows desktop application for visualising (2D, 3D, osm, Google Earth) and editing GPX files. Offers five options to prune trackpoints from the track, like removal of duplicate trackpoints.
  • Florb is a really simple map viewer and GPX editor written in C++.
  • GPX Editor is a free Windows desktop application for splitting, joining and pruning of trackpoints, visualises tracks in Google Maps, simplifies tracks using various methods etc. Displays information about the number of routes, routepoints, waypoints and tracks, tracksegments, trackpoints in a GPX-file.
  • gpxsplitter splits multi-track GPX files, containing waypoints, into individual one-track GPX files with their respective waypoints. It's useful for GPS units (such as those based on MTK chipsets) that munge tracks and waypoints together.
  • gpx_reduce is a small python script that yields high-quality gpx-track reduction/compression.
  • Merge Tool and Anonymize Tool are two small console applications (for Windows) to merge gpx files or randomly shift their timestamps.
  • Trakclean (discontinued) is a simple Windows console application to eliminate spurious trackpoints (typically recorded when stationary) using a minimum speed or distance criterion.
  • TrackProfiler is an online GPS track editor. It allows you to split/merge/move tracks, edit routes, detect and remove GPS errors and add coordinates to images.
  • GPS Track Editor is a free Windows desktop application for analysing and editing tracks and trackpoints (split/merge/filter).
  • GPS TrackMaker (Windows) allows GUI editing of gpx tracks (e.g. deleting parts)
  • GPS Utility to manage, manipulate and map your GPS information
  • How to edit GPX files in a text editor - a rough description.
  • Mercators heaven - GIS.Lab - view, edit or create gpx, kml and kmz on different maps.
  • Track Guru is a Java desktop application for cleaning, merging and splitting of tracks. Can replace elevation values, detect track errors and show overview over large number of tracks.
  • gpx.studio is an online open-source tool for viewing, creating, editing and merging GPX-files.
  • GpxRepairTool is a free Windows/Linux/MacOS desktop application for analysing and repairing GPX-files. GPSBabel has to save the GPX-file first.
GPS related articles
Main
GPS with good internal links, GNSS. Another formats: NMEA, FIT (Garmin),
GPX tracks: create
GPX tracks: convert
GPX tracks: upload
Visualise
Hardware (receivers)
GPS device reviews (with devices table), receive/lend: GPStogo
Accuracy
Other
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