Why won't my VistaHCx follow the route I tell it to?

[gallet]

I don't have any maps installed yet. Sometimes I make my own route by marking turns as waypoints using google maps and then I join them all up as a route. However when I follow tell the gps to follow this route it does not follow it as I tell it but follows it as it sees fit. So if my end point is closer to my starting position than the first point on the route, it decides to take me straight to the end. Is there some sort of option that I have missed that is causing this.

Edited September 14, 2007 by gallet

[Motorcycle_Mama]

Do you have "Follow Roads" or "Off Road" selected?

[gallet]

As far as I can tell that is only an option with auto routing maps. The problem is not that it's moving away from the route that I make but that it is deciding to travel to the destination via the closest point, but I want it to follow the route I manually construct.

 

For example if the start and end point are near each other because the route is circular then it will want to go straight to the end.

 

I found some new options in the Route menu that says Off Road Transitions...

 

When I click that it was on Auto, the two other options are Manual and Distance. I thought this was the problem. Manual is not good as it wont' follow the route at all, without more input. I thought that Distance might be the answer although I'm not sure what it means, by default it is set to 0 kilometres. But when I set it to Distance it behaves the same as if it was on Auto.

 

What I want it to do is to follow the route in the order that I programmed it and when I reach a point to automatically go to the next point, rather than the quickest way to the end.

[+GOT GPS?]

The old non-Autorouting GPS units allowed multi-point manual routes, but the newer GPS units seem to allow only single-point manual routes or multi-point autoroutes based on map data, and this includes the crappy autorouting basemaps.

 

You may have to trace out a route as a tracklog, then load the homemade track into your GPS, then do a trackback function with that track. You can create up to 20 saved tracks and then do backtracks on these saved tracks. I believe that the tracklogs can be copied and reversed in memory to follow it in the opposite direction.

 

Now the Waypoints of each turn can be setup with a Proximity Alarm for each waypoint you are going to use, and as you are backtracking a saved track, and you arrive at the proximity alarm for the first waypoint, you know to make the turn, and to zoom in to see the direction the track is going.

 

Hope this helps.

Edited September 14, 2007 by GOT GPS?

[SiliconFiend]

The old non-Autorouting GPS units allowed multi-point manual routes, but the newer GPS units seem to allow only single-point manual routes or multi-point autoroutes based on map data, and this includes the crappy autorouting basemaps.

 

You may have to trace out a route as a tracklog, then load the homemade track into your GPS, then do a trackback function with that track. You can create up to 20 saved tracks and then do backtracks on these saved tracks. I believe that the tracklogs can be copied and reversed in memory to follow it in the opposite direction.

 

Now the Waypoints of each turn can be setup with a Proximity Alarm for each waypoint you are going to use, and as you are backtracking a saved track, and you arrive at the proximity alarm for the first waypoint, you know to make the turn, and to zoom in to see the direction the track is going.

 

Hope this helps.

I'm not sure what you mean by "only ... multi-point autoroutes based on map data". Using the "Routes" screen, you can create a new route to follow, which is a series of waypoints (or really anything you can select from the "Find" menu). When you're done, click "Navigate" (I think that's what the button is called), then tell it to Follow Road (assuming you're set up to Prompt), and it should autoroute you to each point in sequence. I hope this helps; maybe I misunderstood what you wrote.

[eaparks]

The autorouting GPSs do create a few quirks when wanting to create a route made up of user defined waypoints. New autorouting GPSs "think" (for lack of a better word) for us when in reality we don't want them to think at all when creating our route using only waypoints we create. The older non-autorouting did not think at all for us and it was easy to create a list of waypoints and tell the GPS to route from one to the other in the order we told it to.

 

There are work arounds that are not perfect but will allow you to create a route of user defined waypoints and route from one waypoint to the other. The process still can give some unwanted results in the route.

 

To create a route thru user defined waypoints you need to create "via waypoints" for the route. The GPS will then route you thru these waypoints. As far as the "Follow roads" or "Off roads" choice for routing, as far as I know one or the other has to be selected. Follow roads will do just that and route you by road according to whatever street software you have loaded and have turned on in your GPSr (such as the Basemap, City Navigator, City Select, Topo for Canada, etc). Off road will route you in straight lines from waypoint to waypoint, generally used when hicking, hunting, in a boat, plane, etc.

 

Now for the issues with "via waypoints".

If you create a via waypoint, lets say on a 4 lane highway and you reverse the route for your return trip then the GPSr will usually tell you to make a "U turn" when you pass that waypoint on the other side of the 4 lane (exit the 4 lane - get back on the 4 lane going in the opposite direction - go thru the via waypoint - again exit the 4 lane and get back on the 4 lane in your original direction). Not good for ETA's, miles to destination, travel time, etc. - really gives some inaccurate data in the route and usually brings about a few choice words aimed at the GPSr.

 

To work around this you can set the via waypoint that causes this problem in the route as a "proximity waypoint" and set the distance to some distance (such as 1 mile) so that when you get within your specified distance of the proximity waypoint your GPSr will think you have arrived at the via waypoint and will continue routing you to the next correct waypoint in your route. Granted this is somewhat troublesome just to follow a user created route like we use to do in older non-autorouting GPSr but does allow a workable solution. The biggest problem I find with "via waypoins" causing routing problems is that you usually don't realize it until you are following the route and see issues with it and at this point it is to late to do much about it. It is eaiser just to tell the GPSr to recalculate your route. These problems usually don't show up in Mapsource and can only be recognized after downloading the route to your GPSr and zooming in a lot, to see the street level details of your route. Very time consuming for a route of any distance.

 

Hopefully this will help to explain some of the issues with user defined waypoints in routes in Gamin autorouting GPSrs and issues that they cause so you can create your route with your specifed waypoints.

[+apersson850]

No matter which generation of GPS you have, they generally serve you well by pointing out that there's no point (!) in going along some larger circle, when you can just skip to the last point in the route, and complete the long trip in one fell swoop.

 

On some units, you can force them to go to the next point by using manual via-point transitions.

On some units, you can have a route active, then overlay that by manually navigating to a point along the route. Then the overlayed order will take precedence until you reach the point, then the route will be completed from there.

On some units, it's better to split a circular route in two.

[gallet]

Thanks I shall digest all this.

[BelchFire]

I'm really getting concerned here. On open coastal water, it's often imperative to go from point to point in order to avoid shallow water. If it's just going to tell me to cut straight to the destination (shallow water be damned), then it's not useful to me.

[+apersson850]

Which then implies that that's one of these applications, where one should consider manual via-point transfer, or at least based on proximity at point.