National Geographic Topo 3 (.tpo)

A .tpo file is a saved map/route file from National Geographic's TOPO! desktop mapping software (State Series and Trails Illustrated Explorer product lines).

At a glance

Extension .tpo
Encoding binary
By National Geographic Maps

History

TOPO! was published by National Geographic Maps. Its companion topo.com website was shut down around February 2012 in favour of a partnership with AllTrails.com, and the desktop software itself has not seen further public updates since; RouteConverter's support targets the version 3.x/4.x file structure, per GPSBabel's own documentation of the same format.

Where it is used

Read and written by the National Geographic TOPO! desktop application to save maps, waypoints, tracks and routes for a region.

Structure

A binary file specific to the TOPO! application, decoded by GPSBabel rather than from a published public specification; besides waypoints, tracks and routes it can also carry map notes, symbols and text notes, which RouteConverter's GPSBabel-backed reader converts to plain waypoints.

How widespread

Discontinued: National Geographic stopped selling and updating TOPO! and shut down its companion site in 2012. Files in this format come from an old installation of the software rather than a currently-sold product.

RouteConverter support

Reads National Geographic Topo 3

RouteConverter reads this format but cannot write it.

RouteConverter reads National Geographic Topo 3 files through the bundled GPSBabel; writing is not supported.

Specifications and documentation