If i was to use a route it would only have waypoints for places where I have a choice of directions. Then i would use luck, general direction, autorouting or a typed reminder to let me make that choice. With a tracklog you have a detailed sketch of where you should be going to be followed more or less exactly. This needs a lot more than twice as many points as the routing.
Strictly speaking, a route doesn't have waypoints. It has routepoints and it follows a series of positions, one per routepoint. But you can include waypoints, a route, and several track segments in a single .gpx file, depending on how it's generated. Or the file can contain just a track. I've tried to illustrate this in the link in one of my comments earlier on.
You're perhaps thinking of a "route" as the path that appears on your GPS when you navigate to a waypoint, but that is only the GPS doing it's business out on the road.
Last edited by patricktaylor on 27 Feb 2010, 10:21pm, edited 1 time in total.
When i make a route I always use waypoints rather than any other type of routepoint, so I can add extras like proximity alerts if i want. So I was saying what I intended to say. However the comment's meaning is unchanged if you say routepoints instead.
I thought that if you added waypoints or routes to a track the .gpx file would change to a .gdb file. The mapsource uses .gpx for tracks only.
No to me a route is a series of routepoints that you navigate between in order to do your route. You can do this either by using autoroute to navigate for you between the routepoints or by having a routepoint at each point of your journey where you have to make a decision and deciding your way to the next routepoint by guessing which of the turns is going in the direction shown on the GPS or clues written on to the waypoint used as a routepoint.
meic wrote:... I thought that if you added waypoints or routes to a track the .gpx file would change to a .gdb file. The mapsource uses .gpx for tracks only.
MapSource can save a route as a .gpx file. I don't use .gdb because they won't open in a text editor (amongst other things). I could be wrong, but I think you may be confusing routepoints with waypoints. Did you look at the link I posted upthread? You can do things with waypoints that you can't do with routepoints, and vice versa.
Last edited by patricktaylor on 27 Feb 2010, 10:38pm, edited 1 time in total.
I may sometimes be careless about calling routepoints, waypoints as normally i use waypoints as routepoints. However I am fairly sure that i understand the difference.
The obvious times where the difference is important is that the number of waypoints is quite restricted but if you have mapping on the GPS you have an almost limitless number of potential routepoints (though not many where you need them.) Also the same waypoint can be used several times as a routepoint in the same route. As I said before waypoints (unlike routepoints) can carry added bits of information too.
I think there may be a difference here due to the fact that I am just using the Garmin package and the terminology given in the handbook, purely as a user and wouldnt dream of peeking inside a .gpx file with a text editor. Wheras you are looking at it from a deeper level and I think that Garmin may have used different definitions or for some other reason we are coming from different fields, who are using the same words for different things.
Routepoint 1 is the waypoint Meic's house Routepoint2 is the Garmin Navigator "Amanda's Cafe" not one of my waypoints Routepoint3 is the waypoint hilltop Routepoint 4 is the waypoint clubhouse Routepoint 5 is the waypoint hilltop (the same waypoint as I used before) Routepoint 6 is the waypoint Meic's house (also used before)
So my .gdb file would only contain 3 waypoints Meic's, hilltop and club house It would contain 6 routepoints in a route and I would also have made a track (probably in bikehike) with about 200 trackpoints in it, that would be in the same .gdb file after being taken from bikehike as a .gpx file.
meic wrote:... I think that Garmin may have used different definitions or for some other reason we are coming from different fields, who are using the same words for different things.
That's true, I think. I've just read through my owner's manual again and it refers to routes of waypoints, but in terms of a .gpx route (that you create online as a route and can open up in a text editor) it is made up of routepoints, not waypoints.
Realistically I think the track and route navigability is a safety feature
"Oh dear, Oh dear... I am stuck in the middle of nowhere and the bridge is out. I have tried navigating along the river and am now way off my route and have no idea what to do next!"
At this point the design of a new route is not a brilliant concept, but because you can navigate by your track - you can simply and accurately reverse where you have been and get back safely to a known point.
This is the reason why you can navigate both tracks and routes.
If I simply want a rough guide to somewhere and an accurate distance is not required than a route with way / route points such as junctions and landmarks with a straight line in between is fine. However if I want to have a more accurate version and actually follow a contour, fotpath etc than I use tracks as this takes up less memory.
It's a bit like the "follow road option" on the online sites.
Tracks, routes, waypoints, route points? I don't care. All I want is to be able to record a ride on a gps and be able to follow it again at a later date. I also want to be able to create one, ether on Memory Map or on the web (such as bikehike) and be able to download that in it's entirety into a gps to follow and finally, I want to be able to download a gpx file etc from an organiser's website into a gps and be able to follow it. All without any faffing around or changing things, as simply as possible. I can't do that at the moment but I am prepared to spend the money so I can, I just don't know which unit to buy.
SCH wrote:Tracks, routes, waypoints, route points? I don't care. All I want is to be able to record a ride on a gps and be able to follow it again at a later date. I also want to be able to create one, ether on Memory Map or on the web (such as bikehike) and be able to download that in it's entirety into a gps to follow and finally, I want to be able to download a gpx file etc from an organiser's website into a gps and be able to follow it. All without any faffing around or changing things, as simply as possible. I can't do that at the moment but I am prepared to spend the money so I can, I just don't know which unit to buy.
Etrex Legend or Vista HCx will do all of that for you and quite a bit more, and has replaceable batteries so you can use it on very long rides if you want. I've just bought a Vista to do exactly what you have described and help me with an SR series attempt. I find my map reading and nav skills go to pot when I'm tired.
I'd recommended supplementing the basemap it comes with with one from opencyclemap.org £15 notes to you sir for the maps loaded on a 2Gb Micro SD Card. Gives you contours, off road cycle routes, sustrans ncn routes.
