Adding GPX files into ArcMap?
GPX File Support has 820 points so far on the ArcGIS Ideas page, so I guess there are few people around waiting for this functionality (vote on the Ideas page please! :]).
There are few ways to tackle this problem (in no particular order):
- Use GPSBabel to convert your GPX files to CSV and then import them into Arc.
- Use GPX to Features Tool from script gallery. (Have a look at the Analyzing your GPS Tracking Data with Python presentation for more info.)
- Use An Automatic GPX Ingestion and Cleaning Tool from script gallery.
- Use Convert GPS Files (KML, GPX) to Shapefiles script.
- Use gpx2shp tool.
- Use ogr2ogr tool by calling
ogr2ogr -f "GPX" yourGpxFile.gpx yourShpFile.shp
. (This tool might be helpful here) - Load your data to PostgreSQL and connect to it from ArcGIS.
I think 'smoothest' approach might depend on several factors, including:
- Amount of GPX files you want to convert.
- How often do you plan to do it (and how eager you are to automate it)?
- Do you want to have one output (shape file? feature class in geoDB?) per GPX or merge them all together.
- What is the destination of your data (shape file? DB?)
For those with ArcGIS 10.1 and newer, the GPX to Features tool in the Conversion toolset seems to be what you are looking for because it:
Converts the point information inside a GPX file into features.
You can try the AmigoCloud GDAL/OGR plugin for ArcGIS I am writing. It is free, open source and still in beta. It has an installer that works with ArcGIS 10.1.
Here is a screenshot of a GPX file that I opened natively (no conversion necessary).
.
In addition, you get access to 55 other formats.
1) ESRI Shapefile 15) GPX 29) DXF 43) Geomedia
2) MapInfo File 16) KML 30) Geoconcept 44) EDIGEO
3) UK .NTF 17) GeoJSON 31) GeoRSS 45) GFT
4) SDTS 18) GMT 32) GPSTrackMaker 46) SVG
5) TIGER 19) SQLite 33) VFK 47) CouchDB
6) S57 20) ODBC 34) PGDump 48) Idrisi
7) DGN 21) PGeo 35) OSM 49) ARCGEN
8) VRT 22) MSSQLSpatial 36) GPSBabel 50) SEGUKOOA
9) REC 23) PostgreSQL 37) SUA 51) SEGY
10) Memory 24) MySQL 38) OpenAir 52) ODS
11) BNA 25) PCIDSK 39) PDS 53) XLSX
12) CSV 26) XPlane 40) WFS 54) ElasticSearch
13) NAS 27) AVCBin 41) HTF 55) PD
14) GML 28) AVCE00 42) AeronavFAA
Let me know how it works for you and please submit bugs when you find them.