The need came from the current limitation of my Garmin GPSr that accepts only 500 points on the saved tracks. As normally I have tracks with a couple thousands points and need to split them into 500 point chunks. So I decided to make this simple program to easily accomplish this task

I choose the GPX (GPS Exchange Format) because it is a XML data format, witch means it can easy be read. My first Google search for the specifics of the GPX format led me to this two links that are the basis of my work:

    http://www.topografix.com/gpx.asp

    http://www.informit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=dotnet&seqNum=511&rl=1

Whit this I had a immediate way to read the info on a GPX file. Nice ;) 
The next step was how to add info to a GPX file (the splitted tracks) and this is achieved whit simple XML manipulation. I had to battle a little to understand the "namespace" details, but then it was strait forward. That's it.

The program is based on the 1.1 version of the GPX and only works with files of this version. I tested with tracks saved from MapSource 6.13.2, GPS TrackMaker 13.0.163 and GPS Babel 1.3.4. In GPS Babel was necessary to specify, in the destiny format options, the 1.1 version.

The program is not intended to be a GPX editor, for this there are already good software, but and only a simple basic track splitter.

Screen Shot:

Download:   see attachments below.

System Requirements:

Any Windows(c) PC with the Microsoft(c) .NET Framework 1.1 Runtime: 
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=262D25E3-F589-4842-8157-034D1E7CF3A3&displaylang=en

It is FREEWARE so feel free to use and share it.

Always backup your GPX files before using this program (mostly to protect from overwriting a existing file when saving). 
It is not a bug free program, please report any problem by Email .

Good splitting ;)

Jorge Lopes - Portugal - 2007/09/05

gpxtracksplitter@gmail.com