GPX files explained

GPX is the plain-text file format every GPS speaks. Your route leaves INVIA in a GPX file and your recorded ride comes back in one. Anything that moves between two GPS tools moves this way, so INVIA reads and writes standard GPX with nothing proprietary in the way.

Three things a GPX file can hold#

Which of the three your line arrives as decides whether the device follows the line you drew or draws a line of its own.

• Tracks: an ordered trail of points. A recorded ride is a track, and a planned INVIA route reaches a Garmin as one, so the device draws the exact line you built instead of recalculating it on its own roads.
• Routes: a list of stops for the device to navigate between. A route works on pavement but is unreliable off it, because the device builds its own line between the stops from its own map and may not know the trail exists.
• Waypoints: named points for camps, fuel, gates and water. INVIA sends these alongside the route as saved places so you can find them on the device without changing where the route goes.

What reaches the Garmin#

Your INVIA route reaches the Garmin as a track. The device draws the line you built. A track is a fixed trail of points rather than a list of stops, which is why the Garmin has nothing to recalculate and cannot send you around your own line.

Your named waypoints travel in the same file as saved places rather than as a route of via-points, because a Garmin draws via-points as a stray gray line connecting them. You get your camps and fuel stops as saved places on the device, and no stray gray line across the map. INVIA writes the file this way on every send, so there is nothing for you to set.

Route color, and why it survives the transfer#

Garmin devices do not read a hex color from a GPX file. They read the DisplayColor extension, which takes one of Garmin's named colors, so INVIA writes that extension and matches your route color to the nearest name by hue.

The named set holds sixteen colors, which is why a color sitting between two of them arrives as whichever one is nearer. The sixteen are black, dark red, dark green, dark yellow, dark blue, dark magenta, dark cyan, light gray, dark gray, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan and white.

On a Montana 700-series the line you planned arrives in the closest Garmin color to the one you chose. The color is the nearest Garmin name to your color, not the exact hex you picked. The match changes nothing else, so the shape of the line and your named waypoints reach the device as you planned them. INVIA writes the extension into every GPX file it makes, so there is nothing for you to set.

Direction arrows#

Set Directional arrows to Forward or Reverse in the send dialog, and INVIA draws small chevrons into the track line itself so the direction travels with the line.

What you see on the device:

• Chevrons along the line on the device, pointing the way you chose.
• A complex junction reads correctly on a small screen, because the chevrons show which way the loop runs and which fork is the route.

The chevrons are part of the track line in the file INVIA sends, so the route still reaches the device as a track and the shape of the line is unchanged.

Sending.

Planned course or recorded ride?#

When INVIA imports from a Garmin it tells a planned course from a recorded ride, so each one lands in your library as the thing it is. A planned course with no GPS recording is saved as a route. A recorded ride is saved as a track, timestamps and all, so nothing about when you rode it is lost. Garmin .fit activity files are read too and merged with the GPX tracks, so your rides come across whichever of the two formats the Garmin used.

How files are classified.

Files from other apps#

Load a GPX from another tool through From computer. Rever and Rally Navigator embed geocoded street-address cue points in the file, and INVIA drops them, because they are their own street-address stops rather than places you saved.

A cue point from either app carries a name like 2254 CA-86, Brawley, CA 92227, USA. INVIA drops a point whose name ends in USA or United States, or that carries a two-letter state code followed by a five-digit ZIP. A pin you named Baker Fuel or Camp 12 matches neither pattern, which means your own places are never taken for cue points and never dropped.

The cue points do not become pins or stops. Your real waypoints are kept, so your camps and fuel stops survive the import and the cue points do not. INVIA sends a clean regenerated file rather than the file you picked, and the cleanup runs on every file loaded through From computer, so there is nothing for you to set.

Imports stay whole#

A GPX route you built elsewhere and bring into INVIA is kept as one complete route, because the tool that built it already decided where the line goes. INVIA does not chop imported routes into segments. You get one route with the shape the other tool gave it, and nothing to rejoin afterwards.

Where GPX files live on a Garmin#

Each Garmin family reads GPX from a different folder, which is why INVIA writes by model rather than to one place for every device.

INVIA knows the right folder for each model and puts the file there, so you do not have to find it yourself.

Device table.