Getting routes to agree

[+larryc43230]

I'm trying to create a route between my home in Central Ohio and a location just east of Pittsburgh, PA. My GPSr is a Garmin 550t loaded with City Navigator 2010.30, and the software on my PC is MapSource 6.15.7. As far as I've been able to determine, the route preferences on both the unit and the software are set the same, though since the options are a bit different, it's impossible to know for sure.

 

For an upcoming trip, I want to take the most direct route distance-wise as opposed to the fastest route (I'm looking for a change of scenery, and hoping to have some different choices of geocaches to look for along the way).

 

When I use the 550t to create the route, then create the same route using MapSource, the results are quite different. The unit shows me a route that's 189 miles long and would take 4 hours and 40 minutes to drive. MapSource shows me a route that's 188 miles long (close enough), but would take just 3 hours and 55 minutes to drive. And the specifics of the two routes are also quite different.

 

My bottom-line question is this: Is there any way for me to create a route in my unit using the "Where To?" function, then grab this route and upload it to GC.com for a caches-along-a-route pocket query?

 

As an alternative, is there any way to create a route in MapSource (which would also give me the GPX file I need for the caches-along-a-route pocket query), then transfer this route to my unit intact?

 

--Larry

[Ken in Regina]

You should be able to do both. Use the TRANSFER menu in Mapsource.

 

"Send to device" will let you transfer a route to the Nuvi. Do NOT recalculate the route after you transfer it to the Nuvi if you want to keep the exact route from Mapsource. (You should probably rename the route before you transfer it to the Nuvi -- right-click > Properties on the route in the Routes tab.) I don't know if the Nuvi has a limit on route name length. Mapsource normally autonames the route and sometimes it can make awfully long names that some devices don't like.)

 

"Receive from device" will let you transfer a route from the Nuvi. Again, do NOT recalculate the route in Mapsource if you want to keep the exact route from the Nuvi. Now you can save that route as a GPX file which you should be able to use on Geocaching.com.

 

I don't have a Nuvi so I can't guarantee that the Nuvi won't automatically recalc a route from Mapsource when you transfer it to the Nuvi or the first time you try to use the route. I also have not tested the procedure going the other way so I can't guarantee that Mapsource won't recalc the route from the Nuvi either when it's transfered up or when it saves to the GPX file. (I've transfered lots of routes in both directions. I've just never checked to see if it stays the same or gets automatically recalculated at either end after the transfer.) But it's easy enough for you to check. You just need the procedure above and it's really quite easy once you do it a time or two.

 

...ken...

[+larryc43230]

You should be able to do both. Use the TRANSFER menu in Mapsource.

 

"Send to device" will let you transfer a route to the Nuvi. Do NOT recalculate the route after you transfer it to the Nuvi if you want to keep the exact route from Mapsource. (You should probably rename the route before you transfer it to the Nuvi -- right-click > Properties on the route in the Routes tab.) I don't know if the Nuvi has a limit on route name length. Mapsource normally autonames the route and sometimes it can make awfully long names that some devices don't like.)

 

"Receive from device" will let you transfer a route from the Nuvi. Again, do NOT recalculate the route in Mapsource if you want to keep the exact route from the Nuvi. Now you can save that route as a GPX file which you should be able to use on Geocaching.com.

 

I don't have a Nuvi so I can't guarantee that the Nuvi won't automatically recalc a route from Mapsource when you transfer it to the Nuvi or the first time you try to use the route. I also have not tested the procedure going the other way so I can't guarantee that Mapsource won't recalc the route from the Nuvi either when it's transfered up or when it saves to the GPX file. (I've transfered lots of routes in both directions. I've just never checked to see if it stays the same or gets automatically recalculated at either end after the transfer.) But it's easy enough for you to check. You just need the procedure above and it's really quite easy once you do it a time or two.

 

...ken...

First, I don't have a Nuvi, I have an Oregon 550t (my fault here, I don't keep track of Nuvi models and wasn't aware there was a 550t version of the Nuvi).

 

I went ahead and tried the transfer approach anyway. When I try transferring the route from the 550t to the PC using the "Receive From Device" command in MapSource, all that transfers are the beginning and ending waypoints, with a straight line for the route. That doesn't get me anywhere.

 

--Larry

Edited December 7, 2009 by larryc43230

[+larryc43230]

I just tried going in the opposite direction: I created the route using MapSource, then used the MapSource "Send To Device" command to send the route to the Oregon 550t. Same result, essentially. Only the two endpoints of the route are transferred. After doing the transfer, when I select "Where To?" from the main menu on the Oregon 550t, I now see a "Routes" choice, and I can see the route I created in MapSource. When I select that route and press "Go," the 550t recalculates the entire route, using the beginning and ending waypoints and using its own logic.

 

I'm left back where I started: Either way I try to go, the only things that transfer are the beginning and ending waypoints, and the unit and the MapSource software insist on doing their own, different, route calculations.

 

Is there no way to get the Oregon 550t and MapSource to agree on the same route, other than to insert a zillion intermediate waypoints (vias) to force them to agree?

 

--Larry

[eaparks]

You will need to create the route in Mapsource using some "via waypoints". It may not take near as many as you think, only requires enough to force it to route along the via waypoints you insert. A lot of times only 2 or 3 may be required. Then transfer this route to you GPS and all should be well. From my experiences, if you reverse this route for the return trip it probably won't work properly. Any time I create a "via waypoint" along a 4-lane road and reverse the route the new reversed route will create a loop in my route going through that via waypoint that may be on the other side of the 4-lane. It is very apparent when this happens because the total mileage shown to travel will be higher than you know it should be.

[Grasscatcher]

I don't know if this will work or not, but here goes..... try working with just the GPX files instead of "transferring"a route from Mapsource

 

If the "desired" route is the one created by the 550, save it,.....it is saved in the unit as a GPX file. Take that GPX file and open it in Mapsource . I believe it will be the same as in the unit.

 

If the "desired" route is the one created in Mapsource, then save it as a GPX file. Take that GPX file and copy it to your unit , either internal memory or on the card. It should go into .......\Garmin/GPX. The unit will "see" it and display from either location.

 

Let me know if that works.....it's got my curiosity up now.

Edited December 7, 2009 by Grasscatcher

[+larryc43230]

I don't know if this will work or not, but here goes..... try working with just the GPX files instead of "transferring"a route from Mapsource

 

If the "desired" route is the one created by the 550, save it,.....it is saved in the unit as a GPX file. Take that GPX file and open it in Mapsource . I believe it will be the same as in the unit.

 

If the "desired" route is the one created in Mapsource, then save it as a GPX file. Take that GPX file and copy it to your unit , either internal memory or on the card. It should go into .......\Garmin/GPX. The unit will "see" it and display from either location.

 

Let me know if that works.....it's got my curiosity up now.

The problem seems to be that, whether the route is created on the 550t or in MapSource, the only information actually preserved when you create a route and save it are the waypoints used for the route (in this case a beginning waypoint and an ending waypoint) and not the details of the route itself.

 

I've tried both approaches (saving a GPX file and moving the file to or from the PC vs. using the MapSource transfer functions), in both directions (creating the route on the 550t and in MapSource), and the result is always the same: The routes wind up different on the 550t and in MapSource.

 

I was hoping there might be some way to avoid having to figure out how to force the route to be the same on the PC and the 550t by inserting intermediate waypoints, but I'm afraid eaparks is probably correct.

 

You would think there would be a more intuitive way to accomplish this; I'm still open to any suggestions!

 

--Larry

[Grasscatcher]

I'll mess with it between mapsource and another program that works with gpx files.

 

I'll get back......

[Grasscatcher]

I think EA P is correct, and I agree that it will probably take very view "via" points to make it go where you want it to.

 

I just created several "out of the box thinking" routes, and in most cases like EA said, it only took 2-3 vias to make it happen.

 

Just play with it, thinking along those lines .

[+larryc43230]

I think EA P is correct, and I agree that it will probably take very view "via" points to make it go where you want it to.

 

I just created several "out of the box thinking" routes, and in most cases like EA said, it only took 2-3 vias to make it happen.

 

Just play with it, thinking along those lines .

Thanks for playing around with this and getting back with me (and thanks to eaparks for the initial insights). Guess this may be the only approach that works in this case, though I still think there ought to be an easier way. I'll experiment and see what it takes to get the two routes to match up through trial and error.

 

--Larry

[Ken in Regina]

Larry, it looks like the problem is automatic recalculation, not that insufficient data gets into the GPX file.

 

I don't know what the Oregon saves in the GPX file (it's easy enough to look .. it's just a text file that can be viewed in any text editor like Notepad) because I have a Legend. But I've saved and examined a number of route files in GPX format from Mapsource and I can tell you that you will be astonished at how detailed the data is in the GPX file that Mapsource saves, even a route between just two waypoints.

 

Save a route from Mapsource and open the GPX file with Notepad. You should see a massive amount of routing detail between the start and end waypoints. If that exact route is not being used when the GPX file is copied to the OR, that must mean the OR is ignoring it and automatically recalcing. That's not good behaviour!!

 

Just out of curiousity can you take a peek at a route GPX file saved from the OR and tell us if it's saving out what looks like a detailed route or if it just saves out the start and end waypoints? It will be pretty obvious when you look at it. Just look in the file for the names of the starting and ending waypoints. If it's only saving them and no route details they will be pretty close together with not too much other junk between them. If the route details are being saved you'll see a file similar to what Mapsource saves, with lots of stuff between the name of the starting waypoint and the name of the ending waypoint.

 

...ken...

Edited December 7, 2009 by Ken in Regina

[+larryc43230]

Larry, it looks like the problem is automatic recalculation, not that insufficient data gets into the GPX file.

 

I don't know what the Oregon saves in the GPX file (it's easy enough to look .. it's just a text file that can be viewed in any text editor like Notepad) because I have a Legend. But I've saved and examined a number of route files in GPX format from Mapsource and I can tell you that you will be astonished at how detailed the data is in the GPX file that Mapsource saves, even a route between just two waypoints.

 

Save a route from Mapsource and open the GPX file with Notepad. You should see a massive amount of routing detail between the start and end waypoints. If that exact route is not being used when the GPX file is copied to the OR, that must mean the OR is ignoring it and automatically recalcing. That's not good behaviour!!

 

Just out of curiousity can you take a peek at a route GPX file saved from the OR and tell us if it's saving out what looks like a detailed route or if it just saves out the start and end waypoints? It will be pretty obvious when you look at it. Just look in the file for the names of the starting and ending waypoints. If it's only saving them and no route details they will be pretty close together with not too much other junk between them. If the route details are being saved you'll see a file similar to what Mapsource saves, with lots of stuff between the name of the starting waypoint and the name of the ending waypoint.

 

...ken...

The GPX file created by MapSource for my 189-mile route is 166 KB in size and does indeed contain a ton of data. All of which, other than the two end waypoints, is completely ignored when I transfer that GPX file to my 550t.

 

I transferred this 166 KB file to the unit, then selected "Where To?" on the unit. I selected "Routes" and the name of the route I'd just transferred was displayed. I selected the route, then pressed "Go". The 550t displayed "Calculating" and eventually showed me a route that is significantly different from the route I see in MapSource.

 

If anyone knows a way to force the 550t to use all the information in that GPX file, I'd love to know about it.

 

At your suggestion, I tried the reverse: I created a route using the same waypoints on the 550t. I had the Guidance Method set to On Road For Distance. The 550t generated a route and showed me turn-by-turn directions, which, as I've reported, are different from the directions I get from MapSource. I then looked at that file in Windows Explorer. It was a grand total of 1 KB in size, and the data included only the beginning and ending waypoints.

 

In summary:

 

A route created in MapSource includes all the data needed to recreate the route on the 550t, but the 550t ignores almost all of it.

 

A route created on the 550t includes only the beginning and ending waypoints. The unit recalculates the route details each time the route is used.

 

Not pretty, but there it is.

 

--Larry

 

Edited for clarity....

Edited December 8, 2009 by larryc43230

[Grasscatcher]

It's definitely the auto calculation that causes the problem. That's why I came to the conclusion that the only way you can make it work is to essentially put "blinders" on the auto calculation by specifying via points.

 

Place a via point past the first "wrong" turn and on down the road around the corner on the "correct" road.

 

Are you doing this on the Topo maps or do you have CN installed? If so, turn off the CN maps and use the GPX file method to see what it does on just the Topos. They are non-routable aren't they? That may force it to use the data between the first and last points in the GPX file (instead of the unit calculating)

 

DUH ! I re-read the OP and saw that you have CN. Try turning it off and see what the route doeson the TOPOs.

Edited December 8, 2009 by Grasscatcher

[+larryc43230]

It's definitely the auto calculation that causes the problem. That's why I came to the conclusion that the only way you can make it work is to essentially put "blinders" on the auto calculation by specifying via points.

 

Place a via point past the first "wrong" turn and on down the road around the corner on the "correct" road.

 

Are you doing this on the Topo maps or do you have CN installed? If so, turn off the CN maps and use the GPX file method to see what it does on just the Topos. They are non-routable aren't they? That may force it to use the data between the first and last points in the GPX file (instead of the unit calculating)

I've been playing around with inserting vias in MapSource to force the routes to match, using pretty much the method you suggested. So far, anyway, after inserting seven new waypoints the routes still don't match, but they're getting closer. It's a pain in the neck to have to do it this way, and I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth the effort just to get the caches-along-a-route pocket query that's the reason for all this effort. I'm getting the feeling it would be quicker simply to recreate the route from scratch, either in MapSource or Google Earth.

 

The Topo maps came pre-installed on the 550t, of course, and I have CN 2010.30 also loaded. For all my prior tests, the CN maps were enabled, both on the unit and in MapSource. At your suggestion, I disabled the CN maps on the 550t so that only the Topo maps were enabled. When I selected "Where To", "Routes", and the route I'd created in MapSource, the unit displayed "Route Calculation Error: Maps do not have routable roads in this area."

 

It was worth a shot, anyway.

 

--Larry

 

P.S. I noticed something else rather strange when I looked at the GPX file created by MapSource in my text editor: The file had 8,192 completely blank lines in it. There was data at the top of the file; a gap of 2,048 lines followed by more data; another gap of 2,048 lines followed by more data; and finally a gap of 4,096 lines followed by more data and the end of the file. Just for fun, I deleted these big chunks of blank lines, and opened the file in MapSource. It opened just fine, and the route looked the same as it had before. Very weird....

[Ken in Regina]

Larry, I use a Notepad replacement called Metapad. It's free, small and fast. It works exactly like Notepad for all the basic stuff. It has some additional nice features, some of them invisible, like it opens files of unlimited size.

 

The reason I mention it here is that one of those neat features is when it encounters a file like Mapsource's GPX files it will notice those huge chunks of blank lines and ask if it should remove them. It really cleans the file up nicely without you having to do anything.

 

If you are interested, there is even a way to make it completely replace Notepad rather than just running it as another text editor.

 

You can download it here: http://liquidninja.com/metapad/download.html

 

By the way, I think you would be best to recreate the route in Mapsource and use its file for checking pocket queries. Using the Route tool from the tool bar to just click on the places you need to get the exact route is quick and painless. I do it all the time when I want to play with various route options. Once you get a route that's close, it's really easy to mess around in the Route Properties to add/remove/reorder via points to make more changes.

 

...ken...

Edited December 8, 2009 by Ken in Regina

[+larryc43230]

Larry, I use a Notepad replacement called Metapad. It's free, small and fast. It works exactly like Notepad for all the basic stuff. It has some additional nice features, some of them invisible, like it opens files of unlimited size.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I've grown rather fond of another Notepad replacement, EditPad. I use the free version, called EditPad Lite, since I don't need the added capabilities of the Pro version. It doesn't find and remove blank lines (AFAIK), but it does do ROT13 transforms. And It's been my default text editor (via Windows' File Associations) for a couple of years now.

 

By the way, I think you would be best to recreate the route in Mapsource and use its file for checking pocket queries. Using the Route tool from the tool bar to just click on the places you need to get the exact route is quick and painless. I do it all the time when I want to play with various route options. Once you get a route that's close, it's really easy to mess around in the Route Properties to add/remove/reorder via points to make more changes.

I've begun the process of recreating that route from scratch. Simply inserting via waypoints into the route MapSource calculated was more trouble than it was worth: Every time I inserted a new waypoint to force the portion of the route before the waypoint to conform, more often than not it made the portion of the route after that via even worse. The two routing algorithms simply will not play nice, at least in this situation.

 

--Larry

[Ken in Regina]

Larry, this discussion really has me curious. I have three Garmin "devices" at the moment: iQue 3600, Legend HCx and Mobile PC, as well as Mapsource. I would like to test to see how their routing algorithms compare. ...hmmmm... Make that four. I also have Mobile XT on my Palm T|X.

 

Would you mind sharing the starting and ending waypoints for your route so I could compare Mapsource and the three devices to see if they differ? I think it would be a really interesting exercise.

 

I also have Microsoft Streets&Trips which uses the Navteq maps that Garmin uses. It might be interesting to see what it does with the route, too.

 

...ken...

Edited December 8, 2009 by Ken in Regina

[+larryc43230]

Larry, this discussion really has me curious. I have three Garmin "devices" at the moment: iQue 3600, Legend HCx and Mobile PC, as well as Mapsource. I would like to test to see how their routing algorithms compare. ...hmmmm... Make that four. I also have Mobile XT on my Palm T|X.

 

Would you mind sharing the starting and ending waypoints for your route so I could compare Mapsource and the three devices to see if they differ? I think it would be a really interesting exercise.

 

I also have Microsoft Streets&Trips which uses the Navteq maps that Garmin uses. It might be interesting to see what it does with the route, too.

 

...ken...

PM sent.

 

--Larry

[+Maingray]

Often wondered about the algorithms and how they clearly differ by unit / software. Like all GPS units, the Oregon auto-routing does need to be watched at times. For example, it is often very concerned about making sure you arrive on the correct SIDE of the road to where the waypoint/cache is, so sometimes will take slightly longer detours for that.

Edited December 8, 2009 by Maingray

[+larryc43230]

Often wondered about the algorithms and how they clearly differ by unit / software. Like all GPS units, the Oregon auto-routing does need to be watched at times. For example, it is often very concerned about making sure you arrive on the correct SIDE of the road to where the waypoint/cache is, so sometimes will take slightly longer detours for that.

Agreed. I've seen it suggest some interesting "looping" maneuvers when I get close to my destination, all apparently in an effort to get me to just the right spot. Fortunately, I've learned not to be that guy in the commercial who blindly follows the voice commands of his GPS unit and drives through the store window.

 

--Larry

[Ken in Regina]

I posted the question of route differences on the Garmin Mapsource forum. Specifically I asked why Mapsource (6.13.7 and 6.15.7) gives me a different route between Columbus, OH and Pittsburgh, PA than:

 

Mobile PC on my netbook

Mobile XT on my Palm T|X

eTrex Legend HCx

 

All three of these produce exactly the same route, a route that is totally different than the two versions of Mapsource (which produce the identical route).

 

Here's the answer from one of the Mapsource developers:

 

Ideally, that would be true. MapSource and the devices use the same routing algorithm, but 1) they might run different versions of the algorithm and 2) the algorithm is configurable (i.e. MapSource uses a more powerful version than the units).

 

So in your example I think it's the unit who doesn't find the correct shortest route(due to its limited processing power). The northern route is 179mi, the southern route is 185mi.

 

If you find out that the unit finds a shorter distance route than MapSource, then something might be wrong. But in the case you were describing everything seems to be working as intended.

 

...ken...