BaseCamp 4.2.4

stolzy · Feb 17, 2014

I just downloaded the latest BaseCamp, and to no considerable surprise it seems to be even shitter than the last version.
The search function is infuriating (as it has been on all Garmin software since the year dot). It seems to have particular difficulties foinding towns.

I'm currently searching for Trier in Germany and, although it has managed to find several dozen Sparkasser Trier, uncountable ATMs belonging to the aforementioned bank, many hotels with 'Trier' in the name, and dozens of other businesses with 'Trier' in their name, the town of Trier does not appear in the list. Interestingly Trierweiler does appear (at position 43 in the list) as does Treves. Trier Ski is in last pace (755km away), but still no Trier.

stolzy · Feb 17, 2014

Further investigation reveals that Treves is the French name for German city of Trier.

Even by Garmin standards this is stupid - to find the location of a town, you have to guess the language that Garmin have rendered it in.

itspilsbury · Feb 17, 2014

stolzy said:
I just downloaded the latest BaseCamp, and to no considerable surprise it seems to be even shitter than the last version.
The search function is infuriating (as it has been on all Garmin software since the year dot). It seems to have particular difficulties foinding towns.

I'm currently searching for Trier in Germany and, although it has managed to find several dozen Sparkasser Trier, uncountable ATMs belonging to the aforementioned bank, many hotels with 'Trier' in the name, and dozens of other businesses with 'Trier' in their name, the town of Trier does not appear in the list. Interestingly Trierweiler does appear (at position 43 in the list) as does Treves. Trier Ski is in last pace (755km away), but still no Trier.

I am having the same problem but then again I am not very good with Basecamp yet as I have only recently moved from Mapsource on a PC to Basecamp on a Mac, unless I'm doing something wrong when searching.

stolzy · Feb 17, 2014

And how do you stop the bloody thing searching? I deleted the text in the search box and clicked the 'x' in the results pane, but it still keeps covering my map with the locations of ATM/petrol stations/businesses etc

Yet more interestingly if I zoom out to 20km 'Trier' appears as 'Trier', but if I zoom in to 15km, 'Trier' appears at 'Treves'. So the language used to name a city depends on the scale of the map!

Truly pathetic and well down to Garmin's usual excerable standards

itspilsbury · Feb 17, 2014

stolzy said:
And how do you stop the bloody thing searching? I deleted the text in the search box and clicked the 'x' in the results pane, but it still keeps covering my map with the locations of ATM/petrol stations/businesses etc

Yet more interestingly if I zoom out to 20km 'Trier' appears as 'Trier', but if I zoom in to 15km, 'Trier' appears at 'Treves'. So the language used to name a city depends on the scale of the map!

Truly pathetic and well down to Garmin's usual excerable standards

Exactly!
I'm having the same problems. Sometimes a town is found mostly not. I have to search google maps or the map on my Mac then zoom into the area on Basecamp and visually locate it. I hope someone on here tells us we are doing something wrong and it ain't that bad.

Beemerman59 · Feb 17, 2014

I've just stuck with Mapsource. I did take a quick look at Basecamp but decided there was little point in learning it when Mapsource does all I want anyway.

Bumpkin · Feb 17, 2014

It's true that neither Mapsource or Basecamp have been particularly good when it comes to searching. Google set the bar pretty high on that score and everyone's expectations rise to that level.

The later iterations of Basecamp have improved considerably though, IMHO better that Mapsource ever was, not really that hard... I doubt if it makes much difference but I'm running Basecamp 4.2.5 on PC and 2014.40 mapping and had no problem finding Trier, it even found it as Treves. I must be noted that this was found by searching within POI rather than an address though. It was first hit in the list. Basecamp added the DEU country suffix all on it's own as soon as I tried searching for Trier, presumably this is so that if there are two places with the same name in different countries you can choose which one. This is intelligent design if you ask me.

As to stopping the search, clicking the grey 'x' in a circle (to the right of 'points of interest' in the example above) kills off the search process and stops all found points from displaying. Well it does in mine...

stolzy · Feb 17, 2014

Bumpkin said:
It's true that neither Mapsource or Basecamp have been particularly good when it comes to searching. Google set the bar pretty high on that score and everyone's expectations rise to that level.

True, MS was no better, but its piss-poor not to ba able to find major towns that are exactly at the centre of the window.

The later iterations of Basecamp have improved considerably though, IMHO better that Mapsource ever was, not really that hard... I doubt if it makes much difference but I'm running Basecamp 4.2.5 on PC and 2014.40 mapping and had no problem finding Trier, it even found it as Treves. I must be noted that this was found by searching within POI rather than an address though. It was first hit in the list. Basecamp added the DEU country suffix all on it's own as soon as I tried searching for Trier, presumably this is so that if there are two places with the same name in different countries you can choose which one. This is intelligent design if you ask me.

Maybe it would be intelligent design, if that's the way it works (on mine anyway). However, to have the name of the city depend on the scale of the zoom seems cretinous in the extreme.

As to stopping the search, clicking the grey 'x' in a circle (to the right of 'points of interest' in the example above) kills off the search process and stops all found points from displaying. Well it does in mine...[/QUOTE]Nope, just keeps n searching - only way to stop it seems to be to close BC down and open it again. :blast

Sleepy · Feb 17, 2014

Beemerman59 said:
I've just stuck with Mapsource. I did take a quick look at Basecamp but decided there was little point in learning it when Mapsource does all I want anyway.

Same here, I have played around with Basecamp, (I have a fear that future Garmin units may not work with with Mapsource).. but I have to say I cannot see any point in using Basecamp instead of Mapsource, unless of course you use a Mac thingy...

Bumpkin · Feb 17, 2014

stolzy said:
However, to have the name of the city depend on the scale of the zoom seems cretinous in the extreme.

Having looked further into this I believe that this is down to the way that Basecamp (your Zumo and Mapsource as well) works with the mapping data. Above a certain zoom and detail level it uses the basemap which is a lower detailed map, which is a fair bit older and not having been updated for a while. Not sure if it's even Navteq data. Yes, maybe the current mapping and the basemap should be more coordinated but hopefully an explanation as to what is happening. If you switch the detail level up to highest the switch from Treves to Trier doesn't happen as it's using the full detail at higher altitudes. You'll need a pretty powerful PC to render that lot though, mine can't cope.

paul08 · Feb 17, 2014

stolzy said:
Further investigation reveals that Treves is the French name for German city of Trier.

Even by Garmin standards this is stupid - to find the location of a town, you have to guess the language that Garmin have rendered it in.

Was the mapping you were using in basecamp or or your GPS? Certainly, on the GPS you set your "location" preference. Can't remember if you do the same on BC. But could the reason BC is offering you Trier in the French spelling be because in assumes you are French and would want it in the french version of the town name?
- check for Aachen, which is Aix la Chappelle I believe in french

Gargy · Feb 17, 2014

I don't get Garmin's planning software. It's just so unintuitive. Nothing seem to be logical.

I do all the planning in Google maps, which is very easy to use. I then import it to 'Tyre' then send it to my unit.................... Piece of piss.

Sleepy · Feb 17, 2014

Bumpkin said:
Having looked further into this I believe that this is down to the way that Basecamp (your Zumo and Mapsource as well) works with the mapping data. Above a certain zoom and detail level it uses the basemap which is a lower detailed map, which is a fair bit older and not having been updated for a while. Not sure if it's even Navteq data. Yes, maybe the current mapping and the basemap should be more coordinated but hopefully an explanation as to what is happening. If you switch the detail level up to highest the switch from Treves to Trier doesn't happen as it's using the full detail at higher altitudes. You'll need a pretty powerful PC to render that lot though, mine can't cope.

I use Mapsource all the time.. it makes no difference which zoom level I set it on, it has no trouble finding places..

Find > Places > Cities > Treves > Trier is top of the shop, followed by three 'Treves' in France..

Bumpkin · Feb 19, 2014

Sleepy said:
I use Mapsource all the time.. it makes no difference which zoom level I set it on, it has no trouble finding places..

Find > Places > Cities > Treves > Trier is top of the shop, followed by three 'Treves' in France..

Having had a look I must admit that Mapsource does handle this better.

Not sure where the Treves label is coming from in Basecamp. I also get the same Treves/Trier mix dependant on zoom level on my Zumo 660 (2014.40 mapping 4.9 firmware) as well. It must be an additional layer of information that Mapsource isn't using :nenau

Wapping · Feb 19, 2014

Sleepy said:
Same here, I have played around with Basecamp, (I have a fear that future Garmin units may not work with with Mapsource).....

That day is here already. The Nav V will not accept routes transferred from Mapsource.

The search for a town works very well in Mapsource, less intuitively in Basecamp. I watched Garmin's 'How to do it' video and failed to find London or Berlin. The tip in the post above about searching for towns and cities using POI is handy; I will give it a go. I must say that I have often used Googlemaps (or a paper map) when searching for French towns and villages in Mapsource, only because several places share the same name, only differentiated by their department code number. If you don't know whether St Perdue is in 06 or 14 or 21 it slows matters. There again, it's not too onerous to click on each and see where they are.

Plotting routes in Mapsource or BaseCamp is easy. In BaseCamp, simply avoid using the Motorcycle option, stick to the Car one.

There are some very useful additional resources and tools lurking in BaseCamp, which are not present in Mapsource. And, yes, it does seem to work better on a Mac than a PC. I had to be very patient with BaseCamp when I first started but am slowly but surely getting used to it. Practice makes perfect, so it seems.

The Grey One · Feb 19, 2014

Gargy said:
I don't get Garmin's planning software. It's just so unintuitive. Nothing seem to be logical.

I do all the planning in Google maps, which is very easy to use. I then import it to 'Tyre' then send it to my unit.................... Piece of piss.

Trouble with that is, at least here in Carinthia, Google maps are so poor you will have problems. It's not until you zoom in that the problems are noticeable and then you would have to know the roads to see it. Lots of incorrectly named places and junctions that on Google maps bear no relation to the actual layout. For instance there is one route out of our village that you can't get Tyre to take you because the junction to the main road is wrong on Google maps. It took 3 years of us repeated telling Google that there was no road through the centre of our terrace before they finally removed it!

I use both Google maps (with Tyre or ITN converter) and Mapsource on a daily basis in the summer months. I can plot a detailed route quicker in Mapsource than with Google maps. OK, Mapsource took a bit of practice ( Basecamp just irritates because it does almost everything differently for no benefit to me) but it is more flexible and uses better mapping that also matches the maps being used on Garmin devices.

John

Riktus · Feb 19, 2014

I do a lot of my searching for places in Google maps - switching between satellite view and map view then create a waypoint and send it to my device - once the waypoints are on the device then I import them into Basecamp and use them as basis for my route planning - its pretty simple and effective on the places I have visited.

Rik

The Grey One · Feb 19, 2014

Wapping said:
That day is here already. The Nav V will not accept routes transferred from Mapsource.

The search for a town works very well in Mapsource, less intuitively in Basecamp. I watched Garmin's 'How to do it' video and failed to find London or Berlin. The tip in the post above about searching for towns and cities using POI is handy; I will give it a go. I must say that I have often used Googlemaps (or a paper map) when searching for French towns and villages in Mapsource, only because several places share the same name, only differentiated by their department code number. If you don't know whether St Perdue is in 06 or 14 or 21 it slows matters. There again, it's not too onerous to click on each and see where they are.

Plotting routes in Mapsource or BaseCamp is easy. In BaseCamp, simply avoid using the Motorcycle option, stick to the Car one.

There are some very useful additional resources and tools lurking in BaseCamp, which are not present in Mapsource. And, yes, it does seem to work better on a Mac than a PC. I had to be very patient with BaseCamp when I first started but am slowly but surely getting used to it. Practice makes perfect, so it seems.

I'm not a Basecamp fan, maybe if I used a Mac I would try to use it but I would like to disagree about the Motorcycle option. The option to set up different preferences for car and bike is one of the advantages in Basecamp. The default options for motorcycle are just awful, maybe they work in the US, but they can be edited. So edit them until the thing does what you want and then you can have routes for the car (mostly let's get this over with) and routes for the bike ( we will get there in the end but we will have fun doing so)

John

Bumpkin · Feb 19, 2014

Riktus said:
I do a lot of my searching for places in Google maps - switching between satellite view and map view then create a waypoint and send it to my device - once the waypoints are on the device then I import them into Basecamp and use them as basis for my route planning - its pretty simple and effective on the places I have visited.

Google Maps is, IMHO, the best tool for searching for locations. Combined with StreetView for verification it rocks. Using the Drop LatLng Marker feature available through their Maps Labs getting the position into Basecamp or Mapsource is easy.

You can do this as a session one off or if you have a Google account and are logged in it remembers the setting.

Then use a right-click to drop a marker. You can then cut and paste the coordinates into Basecamp or Mapsource (Basecamp converts these to the native NESW version automatically).

The Grey One said:
I would like to disagree about the Motorcycle option. The option to set up different preferences for car and bike is one of the advantages in Basecamp. The default options for motorcycle are just awful, maybe they work in the US, but they can be edited.

John is correct, Garmin trying to be too cleaver for their own good. Have a look a the video I did a few years back on correcting this.

ebbo · Feb 19, 2014

Don't you wish you could go over and sit with the Basecrap design team while they patch it up

I'm still on Mapsource, at least it makes sense!

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