GpsPrune

GpsPrune is an application for viewing, editing and converting coordinate data from GPS systems. Basically it's a tool to let you play with your GPS data after you get home from your trip.

It can load data from arbitrary text-based formats (for example, any tab-separated or comma-separated file) or Xml, or directly from a GPS receiver. It can display the data (as map view using openstreetmap images and as altitude profile), edit this data (for example delete points and ranges, sort waypoints, compress tracks), and save the data (in various text-based formats). It can also export data as a Gpx file, or as Kml/Kmz for import into Google Earth, or send it to a GPS receiver.

Some example uses of GpsPrune include cleaning up tracks by deleting wayward points - either recorded by error or by unintended detours. It can also be used to compare and combine tracks, convert to and from various formats, compress tracks, export data to Google Earth, or to analyse data to calculate distances, altitudes and so on.

Furthermore, GpsPrune is able to display the tracks in 3d format (like the hike plots on this site) and lets you spin the model round to look at it from various directions. You can also export the model in POV format so that you can render a nice picture using Povray. You can also create charts of altitudes or speeds. It can also load Jpegs and read their coordinates from the exif tags, and export thumbnails of these photos to Kmz format so that they appear as popups in Google Earth. If your photos don't have coordinates yet, GpsPrune can be used to connect them (either manually or automatically using the photo timestamps) to data points, and write these coordinates into the exif tags.

GpsPrune is written in Java, so as long as your platform has a Java runtime (at least version 1.5) including GUI libraries then it should work. It was developed using eclipse and subversion on Debian Linux, and has been tested on Linux (using Sun JRE 1.6) and Windows (XP and 7, with Sun JRE 1.5 and 1.6). It has also been shown to work on Mac OSX (Snow Leopard, using the standard 1.5 JRE), Mandriva 2010.1 using the free OpenJDK JRE, Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat, Elive 2.0, Sun Solaris, and Microsoft Vista. (Note that if Apple stop java support with OSX 10.6 as they have announced, then GpsPrune will no longer run on upgraded Macs). Any bug reports, feature requests, suggestions and improvements are welcome.

Currently GpsPrune is at version 13 (since August 2011), and is available from the download page. Meanwhile, development of further features is ongoing and progress is given in the development page. Again, any help to improve it would be gratefully received. In particular any examples of data which is incorrectly parsed, and any updates to the translations offered would be very welcome (see the translation wiki). GpsPrune is released under the Gnu GPL which specifies what you can do with the program and its source code.

IN PRINT : GpsPrune was featured in a four-page review of the December 2009 issue of Linux Magazine!

Available languages

Thanks to volunteer translators, GpsPrune supports the following languages:

English Deutsch Schwiizerdüütsch Español Français Italiano Polski 中文 (Chinese) 日本語 (Japanese) Português (do Brasil) Nederlands Čeština Magyar (Hungarian) 한국어/조선말 (Korean)

The following are partially supported:   Türkçe Româneşte Afrikaans Indonesian Farsi

The map on the right shows where GpsPrune is being used in the world. Blue areas show where users of GpsPrune have reported its use. Green areas show countries where the official language is supported by GpsPrune, so it could be used there. And finally, yellow areas show partial support (for the Turkish, Romanian and Indonesian languages). Feel free to help update this map by reporting your country either by email or on the forum thread.

Latest additions: India (January 2011 from the forum), Czech Republic (November 2010 by email), Finland (July 2010 by email), Russia (July 2010 by email), UAE (June 2010 by email), Alaska (June 2010 by email), Canada (April 2010 by email).

Amazingly we're still waiting to hear from anyone using GpsPrune in a Spanish-speaking country, so please get in touch if you're using GpsPrune in Spain or in central or southern America. Similarly is there anyone from Ireland, or anywhere in Africa?

Thanks to all the translators and contributors so far!

Key features

Some of the major features of GpsPrune include:

• Loading of coordinate data from file in any text-based format, with any combination of fields and any separator, or in GPX or KML or KMZ or NMEA format. Xml files can be zipped or gzipped.
• Loading of coordinate data from GPS receivers using gpsbabel.
• Top-down, zoomable, draggable view of data points including map images from Openstreetmap or any similar map tile server (eg opencyclemap, openpistemap).
• Caching of map tiles to disk for faster access and offline use.
• Altitude profile view or speed profile view.
• Selection of individual points and ranges to show details.
• Deletion of duplicates and variable compression of track.
• Deletion of selected points and ranges, and reversal of ranges.
• Editing of point data, and creation of tracks and waypoints.
• Re-ordering of waypoints within data set.
• Saving of data in specified text format, XML format (GPX, KML, KMZ) or sending to GPS receiver.
• Interactive 3d display of data.
• Export to POV format for rendering of 3d model by Povray, or to SVG format.
• Loading of photos in jpeg format with or without coordinate data in exif tags.
• Connection of photos to points, and saving of coordinates in exif tags. (requires exiftool)
• Automatic correlation of photos with track points using each photo's timestamp.
• Inclusion of photo thumbnails in KMZ export.
• Loading, playing and correlation of audio files (such as wav, mp3, ogg) in the same way as photos
• Generation of charts (eg altitudes, speeds) either on screen or exported to SVG file.
• Launch of browser showing area in various map websites such as Google Maps or Openstreetmap.
• Download of tracks directly from gpsies.com, and upload back to gpsies.com (upload requires free registration)
• Multiple Undo.
• Multiple language support - currently EN (English), DE (German), DE_ch (Swiss German), ES (Spanish), FR (French), IT (Italian), PL (Polish), ZH (simplified Chinese), JA (Japanese), Portuguese (PT), Dutch (NL), Czech (CZ), Hungarian (HU) and Korean (KO) are supported. Turkish (TR), Romanian (RO), Afrikaans (AF), Indonesian (ID) and Farsi (FA) are partially supported.

Some of the things which GpsPrune does not do include:

• GpsPrune cannot understand proprietary binary data formats.
• GpsPrune cannot deal with other coordinate systems (eg Gauß-Krüger, SwissGrid etc).
• GpsPrune cannot load any map graphics apart from tiles in the openstreetmap format. That means GpsPrune cannot use Google maps or your own scanned maps.

Some other things which GpsPrune does not do include:

• GpsPrune doesn't require registration, or license keys, or payment, and doesn't have any trial periods to expire.
• GpsPrune doesn't ask for your name or email address.
• GpsPrune doesn't contain advertisements, spyware, nagware or malware.
• GpsPrune doesn't have a professional edition or premium features which are only available after payment.
• GpsPrune doesn't "phone home" or use other sneaky tricks to track and monitor usage or analyse your data.

Requirements

• Operating system can be any of the Windows platforms, Linux, Mac OSX, Solaris, almost anything that supports Java.
• Java runtime of at least version 1.5 including Swing libraries.
• Optional: Java3d libraries for real-time 3d display. (available for Windows, Linux and Mac)
• Optional: Povray for rendering of 3d images. (available for Windows, Linux and Mac)
• Optional: 3d mapping tools such as Google Earth (Windows, Linux and Mac) or NASA World Wind (Windows only).
• Optional: exiftool for saving coordinates to exif information of jpegs. (available for Windows, Linux and Mac)
• Optional: gpsbabel for loading and saving data directly from GPS receivers. (available for Windows, Linux and Mac)
• Optional: gnuplot for drawing charts. (available for Windows, Linux and Mac)

See the dependencies page for how to get these additional programs, or see the GPS links for other GPS-related software.

Why GpsPrune?

Because you can use it to prune your GPS tracks to remove the unwanted bits.

Please help!

GpsPrune is free software and everyone can help. The easiest way to contribute is to add or fix some of the international translations. Just head over to the translation wiki and edit the page (like editing Wikipedia, but easier). These changes will then get incorporated into the next build of GpsPrune. You can also suggest a new language there if yours isn't currently provided.

Another way to help out is to give feedback on what you like, what you don't like, what doesn't work for you or what additional features you'd like to see. Even just feedback that you like it is always welcome! You can send this feedback via email (use the address at the bottom of the page), or via GpsPrune's sourceforge forums.

More information

You can see a selection of screenshots of GpsPrune in action or read some How-tos for GpsPrune functions (this page is now also available in French, German and Spanish). If you're having problems with running GpsPrune, see problem-solving for tips. To see how GpsPrune has been reported in the internet, see internet fame. You can also see a few demo videos, or to get going straight away, head for the GpsPrune downloads page. Previous versions and change history are given in the history, and suggested features in the wishlist. For more general GPS information including related software, see the GPS section.

GpsPrune is hosted by and has its own project page there with forums for bug reports and feedback. However, note that Sourceforge censors its content for users from certain countries - these policies are not shared by activityworkshop.net or GpsPrune's authors, and contributions are welcome from anyone regardless of their IP address. If you want to help with GpsPrune but are blocked by sourceforge.net's policies, please contact activityworkshop directly by email.