Tracks into routes

[Eddy802]

Is there a simple way in Mapsource to turn a track into a route.

I thought it would be nice to be able to go out for a ride and capture the track, then convert it to a route for others to follow, without having to create WP's and recalcuate...

 

[John Armstrong]

I'm taking an educated guess that the answer will be no. Because each track point will be (I'm assuming here) a via point and the number that Mapsource and definitely the SP3 and 2610 can handle is limited. Does this sound right?

 

[Taff]

Have a look at this previous thread

http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37139

It may be of some help.

 

[nick]

I never solved this to my satisfaction either...

http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36784

 

[Mouse]

Some observations, and ideas:

The number of waypoints most units can handle is far less than the number of track points (eg 500 waypoints for my SP3). Any route made from a track log needs to be "reduced" really.

If the track / route is along roads, you'd be better to recreate it by hand in MapSource I think, to gain the advantage of to auto routing. By this I mean - if you were to simply convert a track log to a route, the route would consist of many tiny sections, which the GPS unit would follow in "off road" mode, the only directions you'd get would be along the lines of "north to next waypoint".

I've just bought a program called Fugawi - it's a map viewer that can handle waypoints, track and routes. It comes with 1:50,000 OS maps, and can talk to all (they claim) Garmin GPS units.

For the case of a track log that doesn't follow roads in MapSource, what I can do is:

Import the track log into Fugawi (directly from the StreetPilot)

Reduce the number of points in the track (Fugawi does this automatically)

Convert track to a route

Send the route to the StreetPilot

Optionally then get the route from the SP to MapSource.

This creates an "off road" route which consists of a series of waypoints with meaningless names (eg R0018), but it's enough to catalogue and follow interesting green lanes and the like.

The only downside is that Fugawi, with OS maps for the whole UK, costs about £200. It is much cheaper than buying paper maps though.

 

[Eddy802]

Linking several tracks

Thanks for the replies Gents.

It would appear that the focus of the previous posts was for green-laning. My understandings won't help there I'm afraid.

However I did discover/realise that you can merge tracks by double clicking a track to see it's plotted points, highlighting and copying them, and then pasting them infront or behind the plotted points of the next track and so on. Although if you can't then use the combination to generate a route for others to follow (or yourself at a later date) then what's wrong with a track that is in several parts? Apart from neater storage and reference perhaps.

The option to mark a track up with several WP's and use mapsource or the unit to recalcualte works well for road tracks. The more WP's the more likely you are to replicate the track. But is it worth the bother? Again, no use for those not following routes that the unit recognizes....