[GRASS-user] GPS Track Data Import

[Carl Brown]

I'm using a USB-connected GPS receiver which outputs NMEA0183.
Using gpsbabel, I converted the data to GPX format. QGIS handles the import 
and projection conversion easily, but that does not get the data into a GRASS 
3D vector layer. I tried gpx2shp -3 followed by v.in.ogr, but v.in.ogr won't 
create a useable output file.

The whole process seems cumbersome, since the GPX data is already in an easily 
parsed, readable format. But v.in.ogr doesn't handle GPX, and apparently 
needs to create a new location because the target location is in UTM, not 
lat-lon, and v.proj won't work on the data until it is in a GRASS file. So 
the current workflow (which isn't working) is:
gpsbabel -i nmea -o gpx
gpx2shp -3
v.in.ogr -z location=...
v.proj (from LL location to UTM location)

Is there a better way to import this type of data into GRASS?
The optimum importation would preserve all of the metadata fields available in 
the GPX file; this receiver outputs time, course, speed, type of fix, # of 
satellites in view, hdop, vdop and pdop.

-- 
Carl Brown
Whitefield, NH USA