Finding a street using PN20

[superduty1]

I really wanted to post this at the Delorme Forums, but everytime I tried I got a screen that said "debug" I tried getting rid of certain words - thinking they have some sort of spam filter, but no success.

 

So everyone says how great the delorme maps are. I am not convinced.

 

The thing about the delorme maps/software is the amount of information that I need to input just to find a street or address. It is silly all the needed info. I think the Garmin interface is MUCH easier to use.

 

For example I have the Garmin software along with one of their street maps installed (I cant remember which map it is, but I use it with my in car GPS). If I want to find a road or street I can do a search in the software. All I have to do is start to enter the street name and the software automatically shows which possibilities it could be. I dont have to enter the city or even the state for that matter. I was looking for Movie Road, in an instant, pretty much as fast as you enter it you get the results. It gives me a list of 3 different Movie Rd, and then it also gives me some Movie Dr. and Movie Ln. It also tells me what city and state each one is in and I can select which one I want. It gives me results for the whole USA in an instant. Or if you like you can enter more data fields if you do know the city, state or other info.

 

On the other hand in Xmap, I have to know the city and state. State is usually not a problem, but there are many times when I have no clue what city the street is in. Xmap also gives the option to enter the county, which did NOT work for movie road. I had to have the city. Then once you do have the city it takes a few seconds to search. I can't understand how the Garmin software or GE can pretty much give you instant results (while searching the whole USA) whereas Delorme takes time and it is just searching a city.

 

Then I moved on to the PN 20, I tried various searches and did not have success in finding movie road. It is located in Lone Pine, CA. If you can find it on the PN 20 please let me know how you did it. Not sure what I am doing wrong?

[+benjamin921]

First make sure that you have Roads (Minor) checked in he Options.

 

 

Hit the Find button (I selected Streets/Trails).

 

 

I typed in the State and Movie and got the results in about a 1/2 a second.

 

 

 

I centered on the map I cut and did te search with no problems and I also did the search from home which is 2200 miles away and found with no problems.

[superduty1]

Am I correct that the first screen shot above is from T7 or Xmap? Then the rest of the screen shots are from the PN20? The first screen shot is to make sure the maps I put into the PN20 included the minor roads?

 

I have/had the minor roads checked in xmap.

 

I still have no luck finding that road. I can't imagine the PN20 doing anything in 1/2 second. I did a search for a street one block away from my current position (not sure location really has anything to do with the search fnction, but since you mentioned you were 2200 miles away, I figured I would see if there is any difference) and it took 6 seconds to come up with the first result.

 

Thanks for the help

[+benjamin921]

What data are you using in XMap?

[geoprincesss]

Superduty1...

I just ordered a PN20 so have no specific experience finding addresses yet. But I have been on Delorme's forum quite a bit the last couple days and have no problem whatsoever navigating, searching, etc. Here's a couuple posts that may help:

 

http://forum.delorme.com/viewtopic.php?t=1...=address+search

http://forum.delorme.com/viewtopic.php?t=1...=address+search

 

From what I have read on the forums, the PN20 has better quality maps and certainly allows more control over what can be done with overlays, routes, tracks, raster imports, etc. However, all that does require a learning curve. If user simplicity is a key factor, maybe the Nuvi line would be more appropriate.

[+embra]

Superduty, I can't remember off the top of my head from your posts in the Delorme forum, but are you running the beta firmware? Search efficiency was much improved in that version.

 

Am I correct that the first screen shot above is from T7 or Xmap? Then the rest of the screen shots are from the PN20? The first screen shot is to make sure the maps I put into the PN20 included the minor roads?

You are right in those assumptions.

 

So everyone says how great the delorme maps are. I am not convinced.

 

The thing about the delorme maps/software is the amount of information that I need to input just to find a street or address. It is silly all the needed info. I think the Garmin interface is MUCH easier to use.

Although I find searches in Topo7 slightly easier than searches in Mapsource, I think this is true regarding the GPS units. My Garmin Quest guesses very quickly what I am searching for, narrowing down possibilities to speed my search time. The PN-20 is clunkier on this...an aspect of how the Garmins tend to be better for street use. But still, the PN-20 should find what you are looking for. The links that Geoprincess posted should help.

[+benjamin921]

Another quick thought is, are the cut detailed maps actually on his PN-20?

[superduty1]

Another quick thought is, are the cut detailed maps actually on his PN-20?

 

Per Benjamin921 I went back and checked my data in the PN20. I have had trouble with the maps in this unit since I got the PN20 with xmap only (no Topo 7). There was a long thread I started over on the Delorme board about this....(basically the regional data with xmap was old and it didnt work right).

 

Since Benjamin was able to find it in 1/2 second on his PN20, I re-uploaded maps to the PN20 and did the search again. This time it found Movie Rd. Doing the same search as Benjamin did it took my PN20, 19 seconds to find Movie Rd. So I guess I didnt have the right maps loaded.

 

Would Movie Road be found on the regional map or on the Topo map?

 

As for maps which are loaded on my PN20, I have:

Topo 7 CA central 2 Fresno

Topo 7 CA south 2 San Diego

Topo 7 CA South 1 Bakersfield

Topo 7 West 4 B Regional

 

I then tried to do a route on the PN20 from North Hollywood, CA to Movie Rd (I received numerous results for Movie Rd. I tried this route with 4 different Movie Rd entries - all in the same Lone Pine area) I chose to do a "road" route and then the PN20 attempted to create the route. The PN20 showed a progress bar which creeped towards the end, but never completed the route. At the 52 minute mark the unit crashed. I tried again (3 additional times) and I stopped it at the 45 minute mark each time (I had to remove the battery each time).

 

Any ideas why this route can't be created on the PN20? Xmap created the route in a few seconds. I think I have all the relevant maps in the PN20?

[+embra]

I'll ask again about the firmware version you are using. That extraordinarily long route calculation sounds much more like the 1.3 firmware and its predecessors than the 1.4 beta.

 

I would expect Movie Rd to be in the detail map file. I'm not certain that search looks at the regionals at all, although I guess it is possible. From what Movie Rd looks like (I'm viewing in T7), it looks like detail map material.

[superduty1]

Sorry forgot to answer about the FW. I am running the FW 1.4 beta 2.

[+embra]

OK, that rules out what I hoped was an easy fix.

 

The info you provided was helpful in duplicating your setup. I loaded those maps on a spare SD card and tried to run your route. Finding Movie Rd worked fast for me if I added the Lone Pine parameter; otherwise it was searching for a lo-o-o-ng time.

 

I was hopeful that things were going well, as a North Hollywood/Movie Rd route went through the first 75% of the progress bar in about a minute. But then things got slower and slower, and it appeared to pull up at that last few percent of the progress bar. I pulled the power at 20 minutes.

 

Wondering if it was some problem with Movie Rd (which does appear to be, um, remote), I tried running a route from the nearby town of Keeler to Movie Rd. This route computed successfully in 57 seconds.

 

So at the moment I'm trying North Hollywood to Keeler just to see what happens. At 25 minutes of calculation it's looking like the first attempt repeated. Something Is Not Right.

 

I'll make a report on the beta forum.

[superduty1]

I was able to map it in Xmap and on numerous other mapping programs - mapsource, google, mapquest, etc. It actually is NOT a very complicated route, imho.

[+Hynr]

I have resisted posting anything about the PN-20 because after owning one for a month about a year ago I have nothing good to say about it. The fact that someone is able to get it to do something in 1/2 second is a major improvement from when I had it, so my observations about performance are outdated. I will restrict my comments to the following two points that might be pertinent here:

1. map quality was one of the main reasons I returned the unit; around my home town the Topo maps were off everywhere by a minimum of 50 ft for every street; some streets were off by much more. And entire section of town was so distorted on the maps as to be totally useless.

2. Movie Rd near Lone Pine is a dirt road. It's a great place to go geocaching especially to go see the Flinstones' place; no need for 4-wheel drive, but a dirt road most of the way. So in many map sets it might not be a routeable item. Given that it is the only road out there, routing is generally not an issue.

[+embra]

I agree the route isn't complex; I got it to go in Topo7 quickly, too. I'm wondering if it's got something to do with the N. Hollywood end. I played around a little and could get Acton to Lone Pine to route, but not N. Hollywood to Little Lake (about halfway there). Even N. Hollywood to Acton is hanging.

[+Team CowboyPapa]

Well, there maybe some anomalies here and there and I'm not sure if they are in the map data, or the road routing algorithms, or both.

 

Last fall, with FW 1.2, I noticed some real strangeness in the Road Routing calculations for the route from my house to my daughter's house. This is a trip of 12 miles, about 9 turns and traverses residential streets, suburban arterials, an interstate highway and another limited access highway. The calculation for this road route consumed 25 minutes. Strangely enough, the calculation of the return trip used 5 minutes, revealing a substantial anomaly regarding the other.

 

Subsequent to FW 1.4B and with the pre-cut maps, I had rechecked these and found substantial improvement, actually astonishingly so. The trip from mine to hers went from 25 minutes to 40 seconds and the reverse went from 5 minutes to 55 seconds. So let me conclude that the road routing went from impossible for one and intractable for the other to quite reasonable for both.

 

As a further check, I just ran a road route from my sister's house in Sacramento, CA to my daughter's house in Costa Mesa, CA which calculation required 2 minutes and 45 seconds. Now this might seem like too much, but several minutes preparing for a trip of over 400 miles and 8 hours seems to scale not that outrageously.

 

Anyway, Dan L. was working with that strangeness last fall with my coordiantes to corroborate my observations and concluded that there was something quite anomalous with the transition from an arterial to the I405 that does not manifest itself on the return where one exits from the interstate to the arterial. It is very possible that there is a similar situation that SD1 is encountering somewhere on the path to movie road.

[superduty1]

I agree the route isn't complex; I got it to go in Topo7 quickly, too. I'm wondering if it's got something to do with the N. Hollywood end. I played around a little and could get Acton to Lone Pine to route, but not N. Hollywood to Little Lake (about halfway there). Even N. Hollywood to Acton is hanging.

 

Embra, fwiw, I also tried from various specific addresses in Noho. I then tried from the city of Noho as I figured that would be an easier example to post here on the forum.

[+embra]

Are you still unable to post in the Delorme forum? There are more and better minds than mine to nail down the problem here.

[blackpine]

I must add my frustration with the PN-20 auto routing. It is mostly non-functional. I've updated my unit to 1.4 and it is still just terrible. It will not calculate a route from my home in San Diego, to a point just up the I15 freeway about 30 miles away. The routing process goes on and on, and then finally I cancel.

 

I'm on the verge of returning this unit, nice maps, but just not happy with routing. Granted, it is more for geocaching, etc, but I hoped it would do some routing. Not so.

[+Klemmer]

Hmmm.... I have no complaints about my PN-20 for off-road use. Glad I don't need or want it for street auto-routing.

[superduty1]

Are you still unable to post in the Delorme forum? There are more and better minds than mine to nail down the problem here.

 

I never had any problem posting in the Delorme forums until I tried to post the above "question." it gave me a "debug" error. I tried changing certain words in the post, thinking maybe there was some filter or something....but no such luck. I went and posted something different, no problem, then came back and tried again with the text above, no luck.....so I gave up after about 15 minutes. I still have no problems posting over there....just can't do the text above????

[+embra]

I must add my frustration with the PN-20 auto routing. It is mostly non-functional. I've updated my unit to 1.4 and it is still just terrible. It will not calculate a route from my home in San Diego, to a point just up the I15 freeway about 30 miles away. The routing process goes on and on, and then finally I cancel.

 

I'm on the verge of returning this unit, nice maps, but just not happy with routing. Granted, it is more for geocaching, etc, but I hoped it would do some routing. Not so.

I don't blame you for that frustration; it should do a route like that even if not as smoothly as other GPSs can. It works well for me on that count in my neck of the woods, but I have seen a couple of complaints of this type beyond the ones raised here, and the commonality seems to be southern California.