Mapsource route advice please...

[Tomcat]

I've just got my hands on one of the bargain-priced Quests from Halfords and have been playing around creating routes in Mapsource, using lots of waypoints so that my routes go down minor roads. When I transfer the routes from PC to Quest, there is the option to load maps / routes / waypoints. Can I load the route only, without checking the waypoint option, to avoid eating into the 500 waypoints held by Quest? Or does it load the route waypoints by default with the selected route? The reason I ask is that I'd like to load up several routes for a tour round France, plus some of Watton's waypoint files ( ), so I'm a bit concerned about running out of waypoints. Or have I misunderstood something ?

Also, has anyone tried creating a route from trackpoints using the method described on the Elsinga site (http://www.elsinga.net/206.html)? If you have, is it necessary to turn off the recalculate function when navigating the route? I often go on social rides with friends who come up with some brilliant routes which I'd like to recreate later, and the trackpoints seem to be a good way to achieve this.

Thanks in advance for any help
TC

 

[Taff]

TC. If your waypoints are also via points (ie waypoints you want to go through) then you will need to download the waypoints as well. If you don't, then if / when the Quest recalculates a route, it will not go via the waypoints you want - if that makes sense. If you're just using the waypoints to "force" the route onto a particular road, its easier just to double click on the route on the map and drag it to the road you want. Bear in mind thats all that if you recalculate when you're on the bike, the GPS will start from scratch.

Personally, I find downloading too many waypoints a nuisance when it comes to a search eg while practicing with the 2610 I downloaded Whattons BMW dealers in the UK etc. Now when I want to find a waypoint, its a bigger job as I have about 150 waypoints to trawl through., when in reality I probably don't need more than say 10 for most trips. If you are worried about losing useful waypoints, one thing I soon found useful was to have 1 Mapsource file called "Master File" to which I save all my waypoints (listed in categories eg BMW Dealers UK etc) favourite routes etc. My Master File currently has about 550 waypoints. When I create a new file eg your trip to France you can then just copy and paste selected waypoints from the Master File to the new file. It works for me.

 

[Kritou]

Let Mapsource create it's own route using just the start and finish waypoints. Then, making sure the route is highlighted in yellow, click once with the arrow tool on any point on the route. You will see two black lines emanating from this point running to the start and finish. Just move the arrow onto the road or point you wish to go to, click again and you will be rerouted - you can do this ad infinitum to build the perfect route

Don't forget, if you do something you don't like Ctrl+z will undo the last action and Ctrl+y will undo that

If at any point you want to shake those two black lines off the arrow pointer just press Esc

 

[mitch]

Waypoints

How do you end up with a lot of Waypoints doing a Route. If you use the Route Tool you can create a route to go where you want and NO Waypoints. Or am l missing something here.

Mitch

 

[Tomcat]

Thanks for the swift replies!

Kritou, I've tried your method but if I tweak the route between far-separated start and end points it seemed to affect the whole route. I was using waypoints to 'anchor' shorter sections which I could then adjust. So can the selection tool can be used to adjust short sections at a time without 'anchor' points? Maybe I should experiment a bit more or RTFM more carefully

TC

 

[HMR]

Thanks for the swift replies!

Kritou, I've tried your method but if I tweak the route between far-separated start and end points it seemed to affect the whole route. I was using waypoints to 'anchor' shorter sections which I could then adjust. So can the selection tool can be used to adjust short sections at a time without 'anchor' points? Maybe I should experiment a bit more or RTFM more carefully
TC

Do as Kritou suggests "Let Mapsource create it's own route using just the start and finish waypoints". You never need more than two waypoints in a route that goes on-road. The points created using the method Kritou describes to glue the route on preferred roads are no wayponts and will not consume space in your waypoint list.

Another thing - the automatic recalculate function should always be turned off. It's much more efficient if you control recalculation manually. Just press nav-nav-enter and it recalculates.

 

[Tomcat]

I spent a couple of hours last night plotting routes, and I understand now what Kritou meant. With a bit of adjustment of the route preferences I can get it to autoroute over quite long distances, with just the occasional tweak needed.

My RAM mount has just arrived in the post, so I will be able to try it out for real this weekend

TC

 

[Deleted account W]

Can someone clarify a point made here:

Using Mapsource you make a route between two waypoints A & D then drag it to the roads you want creating via points say B & C.

If you went off route between A and B would the unit (if set to auto-recalculate) work out a new route directly to waypoint D and miss out the via points B and C?

 

[Lord Snooty]

Don't forget when in Mapsource to set your routing preferences.

Go to Edit/Preferences/Routing and slide the road selection indicator to your preferred type of roads. I keep my preference towards Minor Roads for most routes.

 

[PanEuropean]

Can someone clarify a point made here:

Using Mapsource you make a route between two waypoints A & D then drag it to the roads you want creating via points say B & C.

If you went off route between A and B would the unit (if set to auto-recalculate) work out a new route directly to waypoint D and miss out the via points B and C?

The answer to your question is "No, the recalculation would still consider that your route consists of A, B, C, and D, in that order."

When you manipulate a route in MapSource by dragging the magenta route line around and dropping it on certain spots (so as to influence the path that the route takes), each and every spot that you drop the route line on is recorded as a waypoint. These waypoints are not discarded when the route is recalculated.

However - if you invoke a route recalculation (either manually or automatically) after you have commenced your route, and it appears that you have already passed abeam one of your intermediate waypoints, then the GPSR will discard that waypoint just based on common sense. This is no different that things would have been if A, B, C, and D were all waypoints that had been created in a conventional manner. In other words, if your route is London to Glasgow via Birmingham, once you pass abeam Birmingham going north, presuming you have not 'hit' Birmingham (i.e. you skipped it because you just rode straight up the M1) the GPSR is going to assume you are not interested in Birmingham anymore, and just calculate the route from your present position direct to Glasgow.

Michael

 

[HMR]

The answer to your question is "No, the recalculation would still consider that your route consists of A, B, C, and D, in that order."

True for newer Garmins. Older models, as the SP3, will go directly to D.

 

[Deleted account W]

In other words, if your route is London to Glasgow via Birmingham, once you pass abeam Birmingham going north, presuming you have not 'hit' Birmingham (i.e. you skipped it because you just rode straight up the M1) the GPSR is going to assume you are not interested in Birmingham anymore, and just calculate the route from your present position direct to Glasgow.

Michael

Thanks for the reply Michael

 

[Fanum]

I wouldn't stress about the 500 w/p's.......it's easy enough to manage them.

I use my Quest everyday for work and have planed many rides/ford trips on it as well....I've built up a database of several hundred w/p's for sites I've worked at and still have 80 odd w/p's free.....in short, it'll take you a long time to use 500 of them

One option is to manage them from Mapsource.....I do a weekly backup and upload all my w.p's into mapsource......then I cut'n paste the fords, BWM dealers and green lane w/p's into a 'new' map and save them as 'FUN', and save the work ones in to another map file called 'WORK'.

Then, it's dead easy to clear all the WP's from the unit and simply upload the 'fun' database or 'work' one.

I'm going to do the same thing in Morocco next week....I'll download, split and save all the WP's, clear the unit down then I'll be able to bang away on the WP key (press'n hold 'ok') as much as I like to mark places I want to log, then I'll upload them all and save them into a 'Morocco' database when I get home

 

[Deleted account W]

I'm going to do the same thing in Morocco next week....