1. You could download and install a program "GPX Track Splitter" from this website http://sites.google.com/site/gpxtracksplitter/ (look at attachments section - bottom of page). It is a pretty simple program which does not have any means to simply install it, you have to place it in a folder to be used. It is a very nice program, which does the trick – just not that user friendly. You will also have to insure that the tracks you want to split are stored in a file using “GPX" format. GPX format (GPS Exchange Format) is a data format for the interchange of GPS data (waypoints, routes, and tracks) between applications and Web services on the Internet. When done running this program, you will have a new GPX file which will have your tracks split into segments of 500 or less points, which will now work in any GPS
2. If you have a Garmin unit and have their program called “Mapsource” loaded on you computer, you can what they call “filter” a large number of points into a smaller set. What this actually does is to remove points that it thinks are not necessary. I’m not sure how good this is because it would I suspect remove some of the bends in say a windy trail. But they have it, so hopefully it works! Just start Mapsource, load the tracks you want to “filter”, right click on the tracks and select “Track Properties” and then click on “Filter” – select the option you want (no more than 500 points) and select “OK”. You can now load this to your GPS.
3. Other software will allow you to do basically the same thing as Mapsource about, but they call it “simplify” tracks. This means again that they will take a large number of points and try and reduce them using some kind of algorithm. I don’t have a lot of faith in this method, but they are there and that is what they do. There is one other situation this all comes into play, that is when you want to download other users tracks from websites so you can follow their route. I know that two of the major ones as of this writing handle the problem of a large number of tracks in different ways – WIKILOC – This website allows you to select the option of splitting a large number of track points into small segments. This will take care of everything. Most GPSs can handle multiple segments without any problems. Using this method you will get all the track points as they were uploaded. EVERYTRAIL – This website seems to reduce all uploaded tracks down to 200 track points. This will eliminate the 500 point problem, but it I’m not sure of how well it will reflect a windy trail.
It is up to you to determine what your GPS unit can support. I suggest you look at your manual and also use “Google” to learn more about this subject. See my write-up on using WIKILOC downloaded tracks and waypoints for some more ideas.
Track Line as Seen in Google Earth (click on picture to enlarge)
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