PC Program to Measure Area

I have a GPS unit with a PC interface, but no Windows Mobile or Palm
device. I can record waypoints, but I can't measure the area within
them.

Does anyone know of a program that will run on Windows XP that will
help me?

Try "GPS Utility" from www.gpsu.co.uk. This will do area calculations
of a track or route. See the Help topic in GPSU on 'area calculation'
for details.

Alan Murphy (author GPSU)

Well, there is no definition for an area within a set of points. You will
have to define a polygon first. Example: imagine you have waypoints A, B, C,
D, and E. When drawing a line A-B-C-D-E-A you will get a different enclosed
area than for A-C-E-B-D-A.

For this reason, you will define a route within a PC program. Normally, a
route is used as a guide for a future trip out in the nature, but here, the
route is used only to define the polygon for the area calculation.

Is you GPS unit a Garmin or Magellan one? If it is, I recommend Gartrip -
see www.gartrip.de . Gartrip calculates the area enclosed by a route,
provided that the first route point is the same as the last one. It also
calculates the area enclosed by a track, provided that the first track point
is close to the last one.

--

Heinrich
http://www.gartrip.de