Imported routes come in as "Off road preferences"

[Poucher]

Hi Guys,

Can anyone shed any light on a problem I've had recently with imported routes from two of my mates, I have a 660, my son in law has a 550 and one of my other mates has the BMW branded 660.
The problem is when either of them e-mail me routes, I can import them and view them fine on the p.c. but, when I send them to my 660 and do a route preview, somehow its converted it to "off-road" preferences, i.e. its all straight lines point to point from one waypoint to another

I then have to preview and edit every route on the 660 itself, to change the preferences back to either "fastest" or "shortest" route to find the one that matches the current one I'm viewing and exporting from the p.c.

Both the p.c. and my 660 have the preferences set to "fastest" so I don't understand how a route that I send to the 660 somehow converts itself to "off road" preferences?? anyone any ideas??

Thanks in advance,

Poucher

 

[John Armstrong]

Hi

Problem sounds very similar to the one you get if you have different map revisions when transfering routes from the PC to the GPS.

 

[Wapping]

Hi

Problem sounds very similar to the one you get if you have different map revisions when transfering routes from the PC to the GPS.

Probably right, different maps, so the device can only join the dots with straight lines.

Hit recalculate, fastest route on the 660 and all may well be well.

 

[Poucher]

Thanks for the quick replies guys,

I had suspected that it may be the differences in map revisions between the 3 units, so basically the only way it would work correctly is if we were all creating routes from the same map revision is that correct?

Sounds a bit of a pain as your never sure you all have 100% the same route

Poucher

 

[cookie]

Sounds a bit of a pain as your never sure you all have 100% the same route

Poucher

AFAIK those units always recalculate imported routes anyway, even if you have the same mapping, so it's always possible you will end up with slight variations.

 

[Wapping]

You should have all near enough the same route as makes no odds.

All that has happened is that your friend has created a route following roads on his mapset. Very probably, he has used waypoints, or simple viapoints, clicked on each road or on parts of each road.

These are electrical beacons, if you like.

When you download them, the beacons' positions do not move at all, but the roads on your map are not quite in the same place. So, the device does its best to join the beacons up. You should be able to see that the straight lines near enough follow the roads and could probably ride them.

When the device recalculates it makes the (correct) assumption that you want to go on roads, so it pulls the route into shape. That is why you need to recalculate.

---

You can get around the problem though, another way.

Check that the maps on your PC and your GPS device are identical.

When you receive a map from your friend, open it up on your PC and click, 'Save as', giving it a fresh name. Discard your friend's original file, if you like.

Now load your freshly created file and route onto your GPS.

All should now be OK.

 

[Poucher]

When you receive a map from your friend, open it up on your PC and click, 'Save as', giving it a fresh name. Discard your friend's original file, if you like.

Now load your freshly created file and route onto your GPS.

Sounds like a good plan Wapping, I'll give that a go, thanks

 

[Taff]

... Sounds a bit of a pain as your never sure you all have 100% the same route

Even if you all had the same maps, I don't think that even then you're 100% guaranteed to have the same route. The 2610 works out your average speeds over time on certain roads (I don't know about the Zumo) so obviously 2 identical units with 2 identical maps will produce different averages for 2 different riders.

I don't mean to be funny, but do you really need to have the exact same route? You'll probably be riding together anyway, and if you do get split up, as long as you've got the same final destination all should be well. In fact some of the most enjoyable rides I've had have been when we've got split up from the main pack.

Not that I did it on purpose you understand.

 

[Wapping]

Even if you all had the same maps, I don't think that even then you're 100% guaranteed to have the same route. The 2610 works out your average speeds over time on certain roads (I don't know about the Zumo) so obviously 2 identical units with 2 identical maps will produce different averages for 2 different riders.

The 660 (and many GPS devices) has an estimated time to destination option, based on average riding speeds* (or the speed it has loaded into its data for the roads, already, and / or the average speeds on any type of road that the user has told it to use).

Which is how it calculates estimated journey times before you start moving and on your PC, which has never moved, of course,

But that has no effect on the routes copied (and how they are copied) from one device to another.



* but, in truth, I have always doubted that GPS devices are that bright.

I think it uses the much simpler calculation of:

The time is now

We are now here.

We want to go there.

The known (pre-loaded) speeds over the remaining roads is 'X'

The known distance over the remaining (pre-loaded) roads of the route is 'Y'

The estimated time of arrival is therefore 'Z'.

It is why it always gets it exactly right in the end. It cheats, simply updating its own estimates until you arrive.... bingo! At exactly the time it said you would, as it corrected itself every yard or two.

It probably makes the calculation as as often as it takes satellite fixes. I think these correspond to a set time interval, equal to the individual dots seen on a Track record. The slower you go, more dots, closer together. Faster, dots are further apart.

 

[John Armstrong]

I'm fairly sure the 550 learns your speeds over certain roads as in Mapsource "motorways" is at the default 67mph but the GPS uses a faster speed. Which can cause confusion when you expect to see a route take 4.5 hours in Mapsource and it's under 4 on the 550