+IdaLabs Posted December 30, 2009 Share Posted December 30, 2009 I'd like to pick the caches that I want to do for the day, then have a program plan my route. The quickest route from cache to cache. Is there a way to do that? Even if I have to print out a map (which I would actually like to be able to do). Quote Link to comment
Motorcycle_Mama Posted December 30, 2009 Share Posted December 30, 2009 You would need a GPS unit or software on your computer that support the "Optimize Route" or "Traveling Salesman" feature. Microsoft Streets and Trips has this function. MapSource does not. Your GPS unit might have this feature, but most do not. Quote Link to comment
+ZeroHecksGiven Posted December 30, 2009 Share Posted December 30, 2009 (edited) There should be a way to do this with google maps, though I'm not exactly sure if there is an easy way to do this, lemme look into this real quick and see what's up. So I messed with it a little and while this is by no means quick and does not auto route, it "works" and I'm sure there is an easy way to do this, so feel free anyone to add to this. So several weeks ago I made a list of caches I wanted to do, a run I could do in several hours that was about 35 caches. I auto routed them myself at the time for the most part and just wrote down the GC numbers. So what I just did was go to google maps, click on get directions. Then I went to geocaching.com and typed in the GC numbers, got the coords and then put those into google maps. You can add as many destinations as you'd like and it will route it to the closest point, road wise, to the coordinates. Now I think you may be able to do this much quick in google earth, but I haven't spent much time with that. Here is a link to the route I made with google maps and my first five caches. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source...178185&z=13 I'm gonna mess with a program I have that may auto route as well and see how that does... EDIT: check this link for some advice using google earth: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...p=3446095 Edited December 30, 2009 by NWCREW Quote Link to comment
knowschad Posted December 30, 2009 Share Posted December 30, 2009 I have attempted to use Microsoft Streets and Trips for this. It does have the ability, but it is far from perfect. It also doesn't have the ability to let you print off a list of the caches, which I find to be a major pain. But basically, you load in your caches (I use a GSAK export, but its just a CSV file), select them, and select a start and an end. Then you tell it to generate the route, and lastly, to optimize that route. Works fairly well when all caches are near streets, but it gets trickier when there are several caches in a park, or when a cache is near a freeway but not accessable from there, and so-on. Many of these are issues that also exist with any sort of auto-routing, though. Quote Link to comment
+ngrrfan Posted December 31, 2009 Share Posted December 31, 2009 I have attempted to use Microsoft Streets and Trips for this. It does have the ability, but it is far from perfect. It also doesn't have the ability to let you print off a list of the caches, which I find to be a major pain. But basically, you load in your caches (I use a GSAK export, but its just a CSV file), select them, and select a start and an end. Then you tell it to generate the route, and lastly, to optimize that route. Works fairly well when all caches are near streets, but it gets trickier when there are several caches in a park, or when a cache is near a freeway but not accessable from there, and so-on. Many of these are issues that also exist with any sort of auto-routing, though. I do basically the same thing but I use DeLorme Street Atlas. I load all the caches as waypoints and then I have the ability to get an overview of all of them and plan a route from their locations. Quote Link to comment
+ZeroHecksGiven Posted December 31, 2009 Share Posted December 31, 2009 I just wanted to say that if you are a mac user, which I am, route buddy does do this and it does it well. Insert a GPX file from your PQ, which will list them as geocaches, create a route from that and then you can change the place they are in the auto route and add or delete waypoints"caches" as you please. I'm gonna try this out with a cache machine we have coming up in washington state and see how it goes Quote Link to comment
Motorcycle_Mama Posted December 31, 2009 Share Posted December 31, 2009 I'm not a Mac user, but for reference, does Route Buddy optimize the locations in the route or does it add them in the order that they are listed when you add them? Quote Link to comment
knowschad Posted January 1, 2010 Share Posted January 1, 2010 I have attempted to use Microsoft Streets and Trips for this. It does have the ability, but it is far from perfect. It also doesn't have the ability to let you print off a list of the caches, which I find to be a major pain. But basically, you load in your caches (I use a GSAK export, but its just a CSV file), select them, and select a start and an end. Then you tell it to generate the route, and lastly, to optimize that route. Works fairly well when all caches are near streets, but it gets trickier when there are several caches in a park, or when a cache is near a freeway but not accessable from there, and so-on. Many of these are issues that also exist with any sort of auto-routing, though. I do basically the same thing but I use DeLorme Street Atlas. I load all the caches as waypoints and then I have the ability to get an overview of all of them and plan a route from their locations. It sounds to me, from the way you worded that, that you may be comparing apples to grapes. Does the DeLorme Street Atlas calculate your route for you? Or does it simply let you create the drive from cache to cache? Quote Link to comment
+macatac1961 Posted January 1, 2010 Share Posted January 1, 2010 I have attempted to use Microsoft Streets and Trips for this. It does have the ability, but it is far from perfect. It also doesn't have the ability to let you print off a list of the caches, which I find to be a major pain. But basically, you load in your caches (I use a GSAK export, but its just a CSV file), select them, and select a start and an end. Then you tell it to generate the route, and lastly, to optimize that route. Works fairly well when all caches are near streets, but it gets trickier when there are several caches in a park, or when a cache is near a freeway but not accessable from there, and so-on. Many of these are issues that also exist with any sort of auto-routing, though. You need to go through the caches one by one and make parking waypoints to route to. Using the caches themselves rarely works. Puts you on the wrong side of train tracks, rivers or other obstacles. But Microsoft Streets and Trips with the right parking spots works great. Quote Link to comment
+snake428 Posted January 2, 2010 Share Posted January 2, 2010 I use my Garmin 765t add all the ones I would like to get then hit optimize route. Quote Link to comment
+deb3day Posted January 2, 2010 Share Posted January 2, 2010 Wow I'm glad I read this thread. I've been using Streets ans Trips but doing it manually because I didn't know about optimize. Thanks!!! Quote Link to comment
robertlipe Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 There's a reasonable tutorial for doing this in S&T at http://www.gpsbabel.org/formats/s_and_t/TripPlanning.html When I moved the site to fixed width, it looks like I blew out the images on this page... Quote Link to comment
+IdaLabs Posted January 7, 2010 Author Share Posted January 7, 2010 There's a reasonable tutorial for doing this in S&T at http://www.gpsbabel.org/formats/s_and_t/TripPlanning.html When I moved the site to fixed width, it looks like I blew out the images on this page... Ok. That sounds more like what I want to do. So, bear with me. What do you do with the info after that? Do you print out a map, or print out the directions? Or print out the list of waypoints and navigate to them in that order? Or send it to your GPSr and it navigates you from waypoint to waypoint? Quote Link to comment
knowschad Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 There's a reasonable tutorial for doing this in S&T at http://www.gpsbabel.org/formats/s_and_t/TripPlanning.html When I moved the site to fixed width, it looks like I blew out the images on this page... Ok. That sounds more like what I want to do. So, bear with me. What do you do with the info after that? Do you print out a map, or print out the directions? Or print out the list of waypoints and navigate to them in that order? Or send it to your GPSr and it navigates you from waypoint to waypoint? Unfortunately, printing out the list of waypoints is one of the shortcomings that I have found for S&T. Yes, you can type them manually into something like Notepad, or you can do (possibly multiple) screen captures and print those out (which is what I have done), but it seems obvious to me that you *should* simply be able to print the list out from within the program. Quote Link to comment
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