Is there an overview of moving dozens of Mapsource files into Basecamp?

I have literally dozens of Mapsource files and am a happy user of the program. I have no problems using multiple Mapsource files, it seems logical to me to separate, say, Poland routes, from Morocco routes, and from UK routes. I use Dropbox for all my files and if I make a change to a trip plan from one PC it is instantly accessible from another PC (so long as there's a wifi signal).

I've been a Mac user for several years and I purchased multiple copies of Parallels Desktop so I could run a Windows XP VM on every PC in order to run Mapsource. This shows just how impressed I was with Basecamp in the past.

So should I give Basecamp another chance, or is it still a fatally flawed program?

I have managed to set up a shared Basecamp on Dropbox and have been able to point both my travel MacBook Air and my desktop iMac to the same file. But I'm worried about just how big this file might grow to. Every small change will require the whole of the file to be mirrored on to other machines.

My concern is how to stuff all of the Mapsource files into what I understand is a monolithic Basecamp file. Is it really not possible to have multiple Basecamp files?? And my other worry is how to manage the sub sections, how to pass subsets of this monolithic file to friends when sharing routes. And some of my waypoints are given different names in separate Mapsource files as the name incorporates a distance code.

Is there any kind of document available which addresses Basecamp from a high-level view?

Yes I have seen the New England Riders tutorial and it was seeing this bottom-up training that prompted my question...

I'm not sure that I understood all of that, but I'll try to answer the bits I can.

(1) BaseCamp is not as hard or as dreadful as some people claim, it's just different. Spend a day working on it on a Mac, preferably working on routes that you'll actually use (as that concentrates the mind) and it will all become very clear. I haven't touched Mapsource now for about two years and all's been well.

(2) As far as I know it's not possible to have BaseCamp operating twice on on computer. So, yes it does build into one monolithic file of maybe thousands of routes with thousands of waypoints / favourites. In a way this is useful as it's possible to display up to the many thousands of routes and waypoints all at once (or just some of them) which sometimes helps when plotting new routes. I guess it might be possible to cut (remove) some of the routes and store them separately on the cloud or on an external drive but it's not something I have ever tried to do, only as my IT skills do not extend any further than turning a computer on. This last truth is perhaps a clear confirmation that BaseCamp is pretty good: If I, as a complete IT numpty can use it, anyone can.

(3) You can have multiple waypoints at the same location with multiple names. You might need to take a little care as sometimes (depending on what you are doing) BaseCamp will rename the waypoint slightly if you have used it before in another route. For instance I have a favourite cafe in France that I quite often visit, this now appears as Cafe1, Cafe2... Cafe10... etc, the numbers being generated automatically. There is a way of stopping this happening but for the life of me I can't remember what it is. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's not very hard.

(4) Do learn, and learn very quickly, the dangers of deleting routes and waypoints in BaseCamp. Depending on how you do the deletion ALL the other waypoints and routes with the same name might well be deleted, too. It's something you only do once or twice and never do again, trust me.

(5) BaseCamp is much more powerful vis-a-vis the things it can do, particularly using waypoints (as opposed to simple via points or route shaping nodes) when coupled to the latest generation of Garmin devices or their BMW equivalents. I can see how it might be used very successfully navigating over featureless terrain. I used to avoid using waypoints (points you have told a device you MUST pass through) but now that I have got to better understand how BaseCamp and my GPS can work with them, I've taken up using them on some routes.

(6) BaseCamp allows you to add trip notes to routes, which can be quite handy. You can also add pictures and all sort of other stuff, much of which I haven't yet tried. It also has the ability to do all sort of things with tracks, something which again might be handy as you might well be working with all sort of data created off the beaten road.

(7) Sharing of individual routes and waypoints between friends is very easy. One small tip if using DropBox and a Mac to do it. Sometimes DropBox (or the Mac) changes the file extension from .gpx (the extension for a gpx route that is being shared) to .txt (a text file). This is easy to cure as the recipient just deletes the .txt extension and replaces it with .gpx at his end. I am not sure why it happens.

(8) You should be able to cut multiple Mapsource routes into BaseCamp. I have done it but haven't needed to for now more than two years, so I cannot remember too much about it. There was something odd that happened but I can't now remember what it was. I think it might have been that Mapsource files have a different file extension that is not recognised by the latest Garmin devices so, whilst the Mapsource created route will display quite happily on your in BaseCamp on your Mac it will not transfer to your device. Again, easy to fix, I think. Change the file extension; I think that's how I did it.

This has the makings of quite a good thread, not least as more and more bods will (or should be) migrating across from Mapsource to BaseCamp and may well be interested in your Dropbox questions and remote access questions, Tim.

I'll keep an eye on the thread and weedout / edit any obvious mistakes and / or just delete any 'BaseCamp is shite' type observations. That way folks'll be able to see what is going on and benefit.

Wapping said:

I'm not sure that I understood all of that, but I'll try to answer the bits I can.


(2) I guess it might be possible to cut (remove) some of the routes and store them separately on the cloud or on an external drive but it's not something I have ever tried to do

Click to expand...

maybe i've misunderstood, but you can export routes etc. individually from basecamp and store them as you please.

That's true.

I've just realised I do it a lot, sharing routes via Dropbox. The leap of logic I had not made was that I could upload a route to Dropbox and remove it from my computer, downloading it if I ever needed it again.

I guess I've never had the need to do it.

There you go, Tim... One of your questions resolved.

cookie said:

maybe i've misunderstood, but you can export routes etc. individually from basecamp and store them as you please.

Click to expand...

Yes you can !

Highlight the route you wish to export and click file export ether the whole file or the specific rouute ( if you want to export just the route, highlight it in the bottom left navigation panel) then just chose where you want to export it to.

As far as I know importing is just the reverse so in theory if you have loads of map source routes in a folder away from map source it should just be a case of importing the file

Yup, it's a straight reverse to import as redrick says. I save the import to my desktop as sometimes I have to change the file extension to one that BaseCamp recognises. I just find it easier that way.

I don't think it's fatally flawed, but it is still a bit rough round the edges.

You can bulk import mapsource routes into Basecamp. File menu, import and then select the route(s) you want and click on OK.

If you just want to import a single route or waypoint you can run Basecamp and MapSource side by side and cut and paste from one to the other - it's a workaround for the poor address search in Basecamp.

Whether you should import all your routes is a different question.

Basecamp uses a single database for all your routes, the main advantage of this is that each place that you plan to visit (or pass through) is recorded once in the database and then used in many different routes. You can even pick a waypoint in Basecamp and see a list of all the routes it appears in.

Imagine you have created 3 different routes in Mapsource - Route 1, Route 2 and Route 3. All three routes stop at the Ace Cafe at some point; in Route 1 it is named as R1WP2, in Route 2 it is called R2WP6 and in Route 3 it is called R3WP15. If you import these 3 routes into Basecamp all the waypoints in the routes will be imported to the database, you will have three different waypoints in your database that are all actually the same place. If you import dozens of routes, you are likely to create dozens of versions of your home address, your favourite cafe etc. Ideally you would be able to merge all these duplicates into a single item, but that's beyond the capabilities of Basecamp at the moment.

It's like the difference between a cassette with a compilation of music on it (Mapsource) where you have an actual copy of each song on each tape and an Ipod playlist (Basecamp) where you have a pointer to where each song is stored. The learning curve for Basecamp is much steeper than that for Mapsource (especially if you try to use it as if it was Mapsource), but it is a much more versatile piece of software once you get to grips with it.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll have a play and see what problems I manage to create!

Tim just a thought, save all your original routes from Mapsource to a caddy drive,stick or whatever. Then play. I usually have 2 copies ,separate drives of most important files just in case I have a moment

Always a good idea to have a backup but importing to basecamp won't have any effect on the original file, it just reads it into the database.

Learn Basecamp here http://www.newenglandriders.org/Learn_BaseCamp.htm

Hi Tim, How did you get get on with this? You can load data from Mapsource either altogether (save everything as a big gdb file and then import) or route by route as GPX. Also, Garmin Basecamp has it's own cloud storage - enable it from within Basecamp, and all your stuff is available everywhere courtesy of Garmin. The only pain is it doesn't recreate the file structuer in Basecamp, but all the tracks, routes and waypoints sync up.

I've just done a forced learning exercise with Basecamp for a trip to Portugal, mostly on unpaved roads and I found working with tracks to be very good, and the ability to structure the data in different ways is very good. I've just started looking at Adventures - at the moment, these seemed to be just for one track, but you can add pics and comments.

Wapping said:

I'm not sure that I understood all of that, but I'll try to answer the bits I can.

(3) You can have multiple waypoints at the same location with multiple names. You might need to take a little care as sometimes (depending on what you are doing) BaseCamp will rename the waypoint slightly if you have used it before in another route. For instance I have a favourite cafe in France that I quite often visit, this now appears as Cafe1, Cafe2... Cafe10... etc, the numbers being generated automatically. There is a way of stopping this happening but for the life of me I can't remember what it is. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's not very hard.
.

Click to expand...

After quite a bit of googling, and searching on here. I think it's impossible, but here goes.

Have you found anyway to merge all those cafe1,2,3 etc back into one waypoints?

Been importing lots of peoples routes and now have for example rykas cafe 1,2,...26 Which would be nice..if I could select 25 of them and merge, but I've yet to see how to do it. I suspect it's a bit hard and difficult so Garmin have dodged it, as it would require each reference to Cafe 2,3, etc to be replaced by a reference to Cafe 1.

But it would be nice if it could be done.

scorp888 said:

............
But it would be nice if it could be done.

Click to expand...

The "renaming" (from cafe, cafe1, cafe2, .... cafe26, etc.,) is essentially due to each [renamed]waypoint becoming a part of unique content of a particular route.
If several routes contain the same unique content and you delete it, you're going to bugger-up every other route using that same, identical waypoint?

Garmin haven't dodged it but actually thought about, and hence why they've arrived at the idea of "renaming" them; it's just tough potatoes that it doesn't look "neat" for those of us with an OCD tendency

Spot on. I'm aware of why we get them. But yeah. It's the OCD that wants to tidy them

scorp888 said:

...that wants to tidy them

Click to expand...

Then use Mapsource, they won't rename there.

Lovely opinion. Wrong though. Map source is old and is not supported any more. Renaming them without the software understanding they are duplicates doesn't help.

Mapsource still works perfectly well. Lots of people use it in preference to BaseCamp or alternative third party software.

In fact, there's a thought, maybe use something like Tyre, perhaps? I have no idea how it treats 'Favourites' and / or 'Waypoints' but you can't break anything if you want to give it a go. It's free, after all.

MapSource software version 6.16.3 as of October 25, 2010.

So they stopped updating it the year after Windows 7 came out for reference. It's not a thirdparty software issue, it's an irritatation that Garmin could do something, but probably never will, because it affects so few of their customers, most of whom will just stick the nav on their bike and say get me there. Using 10% of what it's capable of, and arguably what you could do with a Street pilot 3 10+ years ago. I think perhaps more social mapping, which is starting to come in, or facebook which needs single locations might force them to do it, but I have no illusions that I'm going to be able to persuade them to do it. At the moment as far as Basecamp, or tyre or anything else is concerned they are all seperate waypoints.

marrios said:

I don't think it's fatally flawed, but it is still a bit rough round the edges.

You can bulk import mapsource routes into Basecamp. File menu, import and then select the route(s) you want and click on OK.

If you just want to import a single route or waypoint you can run Basecamp and MapSource side by side and cut and paste from one to the other - it's a workaround for the poor address search in Basecamp.

Whether you should import all your routes is a different question.

Basecamp uses a single database for all your routes, the main advantage of this is that each place that you plan to visit (or pass through) is recorded once in the database and then used in many different routes. You can even pick a waypoint in Basecamp and see a list of all the routes it appears in.

Imagine you have created 3 different routes in Mapsource - Route 1, Route 2 and Route 3. All three routes stop at the Ace Cafe at some point; in Route 1 it is named as R1WP2, in Route 2 it is called R2WP6 and in Route 3 it is called R3WP15. If you import these 3 routes into Basecamp all the waypoints in the routes will be imported to the database, you will have three different waypoints in your database that are all actually the same place. If you import dozens of routes, you are likely to create dozens of versions of your home address, your favourite cafe etc. Ideally you would be able to merge all these duplicates into a single item, but that's beyond the capabilities of Basecamp at the moment.

It's like the difference between a cassette with a compilation of music on it (Mapsource) where you have an actual copy of each song on each tape and an Ipod playlist (Basecamp) where you have a pointer to where each song is stored. The learning curve for Basecamp is much steeper than that for Mapsource (especially if you try to use it as if it was Mapsource), but it is a much more versatile piece of software once you get to grips with it.

Click to expand...

Just a couple of points, and may be of interest to others.
basecamp is not limited to having just one database for all your routes, you can if you so wish create many, and then use them for areas such as France, Germany,UK and so on, you could if you wish, use a database per holiday, or if you so wished (it would be a be a bit pointless) you could use a database per route, this would then give you the option of having the same named waypoint in many places.
i am not sure to how many databases it allows, but i am upto 20