Survey Points to GPX for a Handheld GPS
Last updated 26 September 2026
Put your control points and boundaries on a handheld GPS as waypoints and routes, with levels, to find them in the field.
When a GPX helps
Finding old control in the bush, walking a boundary before the survey, or sending a site team to trial pit locations: a handheld GPS or a phone app gets you within a few metres, which is enough to find the mark and start searching. GPX is the file almost every one of them reads.
Step by step
- Load your points in the web app or the Windows app and choose the grid.
- Use Filter what is saved to send only what the team needs — just the benchmarks, say, or a range of point numbers.
- Open the Save menu, press More formats, and choose GPX.
- Copy the file to the GPS or open it in the phone app.
What's in the file
- A waypoint for every point, named after the station (or the point number), with its level as the elevation and its code as the description and type.
- A route for every line or area from Lines and areas, with its length — and the area for closed plots — in the description.
- Coordinates in WGS 84 latitude and longitude, which is what GPS units use. No settings needed on the device.
Tips
- Short station names read better on a small screen; some older units cut names at 10–14 characters.
- Older Garmin units hold a limited number of waypoints (often 500–1000). Filter large jobs down first.
- A handheld GPS is good to a few metres. To set out to the centimetre, use the instrument — see Leica GSI and Trimble files.
Try it with your own sheet