Ken in Regina
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Posts posted by Ken in Regina
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Actually, there is. From the pull-down menu, select Edit>Preferences… Click on the Routing tab and under Route Style, check Use Direct Routes....Otherwise, there's no way to force Mapsource to do an "off road" straight-line route.(sound of hand slapping forehead) DOH! How dumb am I to miss that!!! Thanks for pointing that out, Roy. That's exactly what I thought should be there.
That will make the Route tool act pretty much like the Track Draw tool.
...ken...
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It seems like it would be a whole lot less work to just use the "Track Draw" tool in Mapsource.
Display the two tracks, click "TOOLS" on the menu bar, click "Track Draw" in the dropdown menu and draw a better representation of the tracks. Then save that track as the good one.
It's worth a look because it's free, has minimal learning curve (5 or 10 seconds) and there's nothing to uninstall if you hate it.
If you like it, you can right-click on the Toolbar and add the "Track Edit" stuff to the toolbar so you don't need to go to the menu for it.
...ken...
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Just to address the issue of the Navteq and DMTI copyrights you see in the City Navigator North America 2009 and 2009 NT products:
- DMTI Spatial of Canada supplied the data for the Postal Code search for Canadian addresses.
- DMTI did not supply any of the map data.
To get maps based on DMTI Spatial's Canadian map data you have to buy Garmin's "Metroguide Canada v5".
...ken...
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Stick with Metroguide Canada V4. Not only is Metroguide V5 LOCKED, they've also disabled autorouting on the GPS (only autoroutes on the PC). Metroguide V4 is readily available from numerous sources at low cost, is unlocked and autoroutes.
I own Metroguide Canada v5 so you can take this to the bank:
Metroguide Canada v5 is NOT locked.
Metroguide Canada v5 autoroutes just fine.
...ken...
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Hi dakboy,
Thanks for the tip but without Canadian map data the rest of the details don't matter to me.
...ken...
Unlike many other device manufacturers, DeLorme does provide software to make it happen.
XMap PRO (fessional), 1/2 price @ $99.00 USA to existing owners of PN-XX devices.
The government of Canada provide the data as a free download, some conversion may be
necessary, but IMO it'd be worth it, YMMV.
Norm
Hi Norm,
Well, not worth it for me. I've got reasonably priced road maps for Canada with loads of POIs and autorouting available for my Garmin GPS receivers and they make updates available regularly ... just the same as DeLorme does for their American users. I've also got excellent topo maps (Ibycus) made from the government data you mentioned, already pre-built for my Garmin stuff.
The PN-40 is a sweet looking device and it's great that the capability exists to make your own custom maps for those occasional situations where nothing else will do quite as well. But, for normal day-to-day use, I'm not prepared to be a third-class customer who has to make my own maps just to use it when I have options that don't require me to do that.
...ken...
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I'm also a be-prepared type of traveller. Google Earth has become one of my favorite planning tools.
But I do it so that I can much more easily fly by the seat of my pants when I'm there.
My wife is always astonished at how much adhoc travel we do on the way to, and at, our destination, given the number of hours I spend preplanning the trip. She's also always quite pleasantly surprised at how rare it is for us to get lost when just roaming around in an apparently aimless fashion.
It's so much easier and more enjoyable to fly by the seat of the pants if you are properly prepared.
...ken...
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Hi dakboy,
Thanks for the tip but without Canadian map data the rest of the details don't matter to me.
...ken...
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As with most things, the real answer is, "It depends."
I can see where you're coming from, but there are lots of uses where the information in a topo map in the GPS is just the right thing. I'm not a serious off-roader but I do a bit of hiking and mountain biking out in the Rocky Mountains. I even like to poke around the logging roads and forestry roads in my Honda CR-V. Typical basemaps that come in a handheld GPS, if they come with one, have no details at all. Roadmap products, like Garmin's City Navigator products, have virtually no useful geographic information, and the little they have is usually very inaccurate (Metroguide Canada is a huge, and welcome, exception).
There are thousands of miles of roads and trails and tracks on a topo map that don't show up on a road map. I use them a lot when I just want to go backroads exploring with my CR-V or my mountain bike. I like to be able to see the lakes and rivers and streams on my GPS, both for pre-planning and for when I'm just wandering about, regardless of my mode of transport (feet, pedals, motor). I also like to see the contours. I'm not interested in the actual elevation. I just want to see when the contours are clustered tightly together so I can get an idea how steep the terrain is.
I have Garmin's Topo Canada and the Ibycus topos. I use both on my eTrex Legend HCx and I find them very useful for my purposes.
...ken...
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I just updated Mapsource and it looks like there is a track tool that I can use. It lets me pencil in a track, I haven't tried uploading it yet but it seems like it will work.
s
Thanks for the tip. I completely missed it. That will be a handy tool for my Legend HCx. For hiking and mountain biking I find tracks much more useful than routes.
...ken...
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Hi Tom,
MapSource doesn't have an "off road" setting in the routing preferences. The closest is "pedestrian" and "bicycle" but if you have maps with routing data in them even those two selections will still route on the roads.
The only map I have with no routing data in it is the Ibycus Topos for Canada and they will do a straight-line route because they have no routing data in them. Otherwise, there's no way to force Mapsource to do an "off road" straight-line route.
...ken...
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It's very difficult to find any really useful information about the PN-40 on DeLorme's site.
I discovered a con that put the nail in the coffin for me for the PN-40. I had to email DeLorme to get the answer. Here's their response:
Dear Ken:Thank you for your email. Aside from a very basic world base map and lat/long coordinates, we do not have any data for outside the USA for our handheld PN-40 at this time. Thank you for your interest in our products.
Allen G | DeLorme Sales & Service | 1-800-561-5105 | Mon – Thu 8:30 – 7:00 & Fri 8:30 – 5:00 EST | sales@delorme.com | www.delorme.com
Too bad. It's an interesting device.
...ken...
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ah, but what happens when its a giant area full of rocks....maybe 100 feet long and 30 feet wide....and you can only get within 15 feet without your GPS flipping out and it's accurate to 45 feet....yeah, I had this happen today, in the rain....haha Hence where this question stemmed from...i want to know if getting a new GPS will actually make something like finding a cache in a situation like that much much easier!
I have not done a lot of caching but my brother-in-law shamed me into learning not to rely on the GPS so much. He does not have a GPS but he wanted to try a particular geocache in his area when we were visiting this summer. So he printed a copy of the cache hints, we took my GPS and hopped in the car and headed out. The GPS got us close. Then, while I was trying to get closer by using the GPS, he read over the hints, looked around him and found the cache in a couple of minutes. I was still screwing around trying to use my GPS to get closer to what is jokingly refered to as Ground Zero (GZ) around here.
This was in the west coast rain forest, surrounded by giant trees. Based on the accuracy I was getting I would never have found that cache with the GPS alone. While my brother-in-law was using the hints to find the cache, I was never closer than thirty feet.
There are a zillion very good reasons why the GPS will hardly ever actually get you to Ground Zero. You really need to use the hints.
However, having said that, I did learn something else besides making good use of the hints and depending less on the GPS for the final find. I was using an older unit that was really having a hard time getting and holding a lock under those giant trees. When I got home I bought a Legend HCx and it's way better in such tough conditions. I still use my older one on the road because it has better features for vehicle navigation use. But the Legend HCx comes out for hiking and mountain biking and a bit of caching. As has already been stated, it gets a lock way quicker and has better accuracy under much worse conditions.
...ken...
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You can convert from .est files using ST2GPX. It o is a companion project to GPSBabel that imports/extracts data to/from Streets & Trips/AutoRoute/Mappoint in GPX format.
Yes, that's what launched when I asked GPSBabel to read a .est file. It failed on my S&T2008 files. It appears to only work for files up to S&T2007.
EDIT: Oops, I just checked the ST2GPX website linked above and it looks like it might only handle up to S&T2004 formats. I'm not sure when the first significant format changes occured after 2004. It definitely won't handle S&T2008 or Mappoint2009 formats.
...ken...
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Hi andritchie,
The Ibycus Topos are great for detail. Lovely maps to view. They don't have POIs or routing data in them and they only have street names in a couple of provinces. You'll need a "road map" product to get that stuff.
When you get around to looking at City Navigator North America, also consider Garmin's Metroguide Canada. Garmin just released a v5 update. (Anyone looking for it, it's definitely available from Prairie Geomatics. I received mine a week ago.)
...ken...
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I have been using City Select and City Navigator since v5 and I can tell you from much frustrated experience that the geographic features in all versions of City Navigator North America, including v2009, are minimal. Not much more than a basemap. And the ones that are there are very inaccurate. You'll need some other product to get geographic features.
Don't waste any more time trying to figure out what you did wrong with City Navigator. You're doing everything right.
You don't see them because they aren't in the map data.
...ken...
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It's not perfect but you can set the Vista to route "off-road" and recalculate the route after loading it into the Vista. I'm not sure that's very useful.
...ken...
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I only have an eTrex Legend HCx. If you would be kind enough to buy me a 60Csx I would be pleased to compare the two for you.
...ken...
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You cannot export anything from Streets&Trips. Once it's in there, it's in there forever.
GPS Babel says it will import *.est files but it appears to only work for S&T2007 and older. It fails on my S&T2008 files.
...ken...
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At the risk of highjacking this thread, I went to the newest Mapsource when it was released and it took me awhile to get used to the new look of the maps, but I have had no problems with it.
What sort of computer are you running it on? And are you on beta blockers?
Quite aside from the fact that 6.14.1 won't communicate with Mobile PC, it's so slow (zooming and panning) on most normal PC configurations that few people have the necessary patience to use it. If you don't zoom and pan very much and don't need to use it with Mobile PC, you'll be in good shape. But don't give up the beta blockers.
...ken...
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Thanks GO$Rs. That makes more sense to me. I couldn't figure any way the Colorado was special because, so far, Garmin has never made any device that can do anything to compile/re-compile/modify its own mapsets. You're still stuck with compiling a gmapsupp.img mapset with Mapsource. In that regard, GmapTool sounds very interesting.
I don't suppose it can also peel a specific map product (say, Metroguide Canada v4) out of an existing combined gmapsupp.img file (say, with MG Canada v4 and Ibycus Topos) so you can use it to add an updated version (say, Metroguide Canada v5) without having to recompile the whole thing?? That would probably be hoping for way too much!!
...ken...
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Not sure about adding several segments to a mapping product already installed like you are doing, but the Colorados already alow you to just add extra maps. Out where I live we have the NW trail mapping project that gets updated every few weeks or so and on a Colorado you can just update the one file and do not need to update your city select or topo maps.
I wish the 60 series did this as well. I am in the same boat as you are.
I think we may be talking about two different things here. Do the Colorados come with preinstalled maps?
On those units, like Nuvis and Mobile PC, that come with preinstalled maps the preinstalled map file is named gmapprom.img. So this allows you to also have a gmapsupp.img and replace it as often as you like with anything you like, without affecting the maps that are in the gmapprom.img file.
That means you can have, say, City Navigator road maps preinstalled on the unit. Those maps are in gmapprom.img. Then you can use Mapsource to add, say, your NW trail maps into the gmapsupp.img file. Both will coexist and you just switch between them on the unit, using "Manage Data", "Mapsets", or the equivalent commands on your unit.
This isn't the same as being able to just add individual .img files to an existing gmapsupp.img file without recompiling the whole thing.
...ken...
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As for no hospitals being listed for Halifax, I must disagree for I get the following with MapSource:
http://24.222.171.87/Hospitals.jpg
But I agree... in this day and age, there is no need for companies to be taking steps backwards in technology and providing incorrect info to their customers. "Vague", not vogue, is IN.
Now that's interesting. I went back and checked and I get the same as in your picture when I use Metroguide Canada v4. But I get nothing when I do exactly the same search in v5. Going backwards again.
Just this week I tried it from a job site back home, shortest distance mode. And it will find the shortest distance, even if it is a gravel one way road! Quite the adventure for a while!Yep, we need to be careful what we ask for, just in case we get it.
All said, I must say that a GPS is still a good tool for anyone who travels. When used as a "guideline" and not trusted as a "be all end all" for correct information.Couldn't agree more.
All the best and happy Geo HuntingAnd the same right back.
...ken...
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Does the Gmap tool include all the location and POI data? Eg. if you combine a bunch of Garmin's .img files into a gmapsupp.img file, will you be able to search city names, addresses, intersections and POIs?
...ken...
Streets and Trips to Garmin MapSource?
in GPS technology and devices
Posted
Thanks for the tip. It works with Streets&Trips 2008 and also with Mappoint 2009.
...ken...