Converting BNA to GPX

There are some ancient BNA files on my hard disc, dating back to 1996. They were generated using some proprietary mapping software called “GoldenSoft Map View”. I used this programme in university while writing my thesis. At home, I used selfmade utilities I had written for my Atari ST.

The plan to convert those BNA files to GPX has been there for ages – even considering a re-write of my personal map viewer for those files in some object orientated language. But now, I encountered ogr2ogr which can do the job:

ogrinfo -ro -al -summary /mnt/BACKUP/D/map/world.bna
INFO: Open of `/mnt/BACKUP/D/map/world.bna’
using driver `BNA’ successful.

Layer name: world_points
Geometry: Point
Feature Count: 175
Extent: (-99.239204, -51.675117) – (178.408966, 64.260612)
Layer SRS WKT:
(unknown)
Primary ID: String (0.0)
Secondary ID: String (0.0)

Layer name: world_polygons
Geometry: Multi Polygon
Feature Count: 418
Extent: (-178.456192, -81.035141) – (190.044510, 83.616669)
Layer SRS WKT:
(unknown)
Primary ID: String (0.0)
Secondary ID: String (0.0)

Layer name: world_lines
Geometry: Line String
Feature Count: 3
Extent: (-180.010941, -85.472992) – (179.763107, 55.058968)
Layer SRS WKT:
(unknown)
Primary ID: String (0.0)
Secondary ID: String (0.0)

Looks nice, now give it a try:

ogr2ogr -f “GPX” /tmp/world-bna.gpx /mnt/BACKUP/D/map/world.bna
ERROR 6: Field of name ‘Primary ID’ is not supported in GPX schema. Use GPX_USE_EXTENSIONS creation option to allow use of the element.
ERROR 6: Field of name ‘Secondary ID’ is not supported in GPX schema. Use GPX_USE_EXTENSIONS creation option to allow use of the
element.
ERROR 6: Geometry type of `Multi Polygon’ not supported in GPX.

ERROR 1: Terminating translation prematurely after failed
translation of layer world_polygons

Well, there is still some work left. But we are very close…

After all, it is possible to convert BNA to KML or ESRI.

One comment on “Converting BNA to GPX”

  • Gib,I do this by going to the route planner page and getting the directions. Then click edit and select copy directions . I then open a blank excel file or a new worksheet, click your cursor in the upper most top left cell and right click paste. It will give you the turn by turn stops and you can extrapolate the data you need. Hope this helps.

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