QGIS GPX – Extracting X and Y Coordinates from .gpx File Using QGIS

coordinatesextractgpxqgisxy

I'm using QGIS 2.18.17 on Linux Mint 19. I have several .gpx files of waypoints recorded using a handheld GPS device. I can load them on to QGIS or Google Earth with no problems. However, I want to be able to access the coordinate data and the values for each GPS point that I have recorded.

When I look at the attribute table of the .gpx files in QGIS, the X and Y coordinates are not displayed, although the elevation, time, name, and comment data are.
When I open the .gpx files in a text editor, the coordinate information is there and I can copy and paste the values for each waypoint.

I assume that there is an automated way to do this, like converting the .gpx to a .csv file.

How do I extract all the X and Y coordinates from a .gpx file using QGIS?

Best Answer

  • You can do Layer... Save As... and choose the CSV output format. Choose Geometry type as POINT and Geometry as AS_XY:

enter image description here

Then you'll get a CSV like:

X,Y,route_fid,route_point_id,ele,time,magvar,geoidheight,name,cmt,desc,src,link1_href,link1_text,link1_type,link2_href,link2_text,link2_type,sym,type,fix,sat,hdop,vdop,pdop,ageofdgpsdata,dgpsid
-2.57063249857404,54.2370357762529,0,0,,,,,0,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
-2.56816794239764,54.2363284379558,0,1,,,,,1,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

That was a for a set of route points rather than waypoints but similar output should result.

  • Alternatively you can open the attribute table for your points layer, then use the field calculator (abacus icon) to add two new attributes (columns) based on the $x and $y expressions. Like this:

enter image description here

  • Also theres a Processing module that does exactly this, called Add Geometry Attributes:

enter image description here

after running that on my test layer I see an extra xcoord and ycoord column.

What you should actually do will depend on why you want the coordinates anyway...

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