Questions on Creating a Route

[BikinOn]

A quick bit of searching couldn't turn up an answer to this. I'm trying to create a route for use on my Oregon 600 but frankly not having a lot of success. While I appreciate the Oregon is a less popular unit, it is close enough to the Etrex that I'd have thought solutions for one will apply to the other.

I'm using a routable version of OSM; I know this as I checked by selecting a way-point on the Oregon and got the GPSr to create a route to it.

I create a route from way-points (about 25), and set:
SetUp > Routing > Activity = Automobile Driving
SetUp > Routing > Lock On Road = Yes

Select the route and hit the GO button and I get:
This route does not match the available maps!
It will not follow the roads precisely. Do you want to recalculate the route?
Say either Yes or No and you get...
Route Calculation Error:
Maps do not have routable roads in this area.

The version of OSM in BaseCamp is the same as on the Oregon, I've even plugged in the Oregon and selected its OSM map in BaseCamp - What am I doing wrong? 

As a follow up question, this slightly different method seemed to work, but I haven't had an opportunity to test it yet. Again I suspect there is a problem waiting to bite me as soon as I hit the first way-point!

SetUp > Routing > Activity = Direct Routing
SetUp > Routing > Lock On Road = No
Create a Route from Track in BasCamp and let it set the number of Points - I got 277.
Saved the route to the GPSr and when I asked it to route all seemed well.

The cynic in me suspects I'm not going to get any routing directions   Can anyone tell me how I've messed up this time? Is it just going to drive me nuts by beeping every 5 seconds? 

[Ningishzidda]

I got exactly the same as that when I downloaded a freebie map set of California.
When I got to SF, I got the same messages as you've just seen.

Cheapshit maps I reckon.

[BikinOn]

Where'd you get the OSM from? Bay Area was my old stomping ground, try this site, I've used them for years in California: http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/

[Ningishzidda]

Cheers BikinOn.

Unfortunately, I had so much grief with Garmin, I chucked both my units and bought a TomTom, with which I have no problems.

[frankly frankie]

Just because your OSM map claims to be routable, that doesn't mean that it is, everywhere.  And where it is, the routing may not be the best.  OSM is 'only' a wiki when all's said and done, and you wouldn't trust Wikipedia in a court of law to guide you through life would you?

Try turning 'Lock on road' off - it's nothing to do with routing, and not to be confused with 'follow road' which is a routing thing.
[edit - oh, I see you did.  And it helped.
All 'Lock on road' does is snap your current GPS location, wherever it actually is, to the nearest mapped road.
'Follow road' means that your route to the next defined point will be indicated along the line of existing mapped roads, and not 'as the crow flies'.  It works regardless of the setting of 'lock on road'.

The 'route does not match' message probably indicates that you planned your route using Google maps (or a planner using google maps) - or Garmin maps - but your GPS has neither of these on board.
These maps are actually just huge databases of 'map points' - but each map is a different dataset.  Your planned route piggy-backs onto these underlying 'map points' - so that is why a map mismatch can cause problems.  Often there's no error message but I imagine the mismatch just results in a lot of extra processing in the GPS, which may slow things down a bit.

[BikinOn]

frankly frankie - I tried your idea, but got the same result 

Since both you and Ningishzidda questioned the routability of the OSM I also pulled the Garmin Map SD card from my car's Garmin and tried again with that, again I got the same result. 

[frankly frankie]

Yes see my last (added) para above.  What maps were you using to plan your route?  (Oh I see, OSM on Basecamp.  Oh well, I'm out of ideas then sorry!)

[Euan Uzami]

Just because your OSM map claims to be routable, that doesn't mean that it is, everywhere.  And where it is, the routing may not be the best.

^^ this

Garmins are quite poor at routing. It's not the data, it's the fact that that algorithm on the garmin unit can't/doesn't make use of it all, I think. It has a very limited set of attributes for ways and nodes that it can actually take note of. Tolls for example is one of the very few that it does respect but trying to get it to respect road preferences and line that up with road types on OSM is like trying to plait snow.

[BikinOn]

It seems like a lot of people have had problems using Routing with OSM. To be fair, since I've been back in the UK I haven't had that much call to use it, but when I have it has worked OK. When I was living in California I used routing with OSM many times and it helped me find my way home quite a bit - I always did have a rotten sense of direction 

Meanwhile, I tried my 2nd option with Direct Routing & 277 points and not unsurprisingly I got lots Beeps and no routing!

Since I'm now like a dog with a bone on this one    I looked at the map in the light of everyone's comments and noted a small pedestrian way I go through near the end of the ride. I re-did the route, finishing before that point and it did seem to work! Now, don't ask me why the route isn't calculated to go via a side road instead, I haven't put a point in the middle of the pedestrian area. I also note that both OSM and Garmin maps caused the same mistake - if that's the cause of the problem.

[Ningishzidda]

On TomTom maps, users send in map corrections. These corrections could be where the user has blocked off a road to motor traffic.
Most of the pedestrian areas in central Birmingham are designated ‘Blocked’ so when routing ‘Car/Motorcycle’ the routing doesn’t use them. Priorities and road directions in Brum city centre have changed several times in the last few years, and AFAIK, Birmingham Council do the corrections sending to TomTom BV.
When routing ‘Bicycle’, it uses blocked off roads, so when I get directed down a pedestrianized street, I get off and push the bike. Yes, cyclists CAN do that.

Here’s my list of addresses for drops last night.

Oasis Market, Martineau Square.
15 Montague Street.
3 York Terrace
85 Cattell Road
The Old Gate public house, Coventry Road.

TT got me round these no probs.
I didn't pre-plan a route. I punched in the next address while standing on the roadside.

For the first, I know exactly where that is.

[BikinOn]

I think I'm getting somewhere with Routes on the Oregon now, although more questions arise.

I suspect the fact that I was not only working from an old track, but also including it in the Route file was what caused the route through the pedestrian area and subsequent Error. I'll experiment with routing modes other than Automobile later, to see if that fixes it.

The first thing I noted was, as soon as the Oregon started routing a Text section popped up at the top of the map, covering about 15 to 20% of the screen.   Now I expect to see this, but it never goes away, just shows the next up-coming turn. As I recall, on the Edge 705, the text shows then disappears until you approach the next turn. Is the problem that my waypoints aren't more than a few miles apart? I tried just doing a route to an address and the same thing occurred, so I suspect this is a "feature" of this type of GPSr. Is there anyway to get the text to only show at X distance from a turn?

The best solution I've come up with so far is the setting:
Map > Guidance Text > Never
So I'm only getting arrows and beeps.

The old advice to remove other routes and waypoints seems to come into play now I am experimenting with Routes, I note the number of waypoints from other routes that appear on the one I'm using currently is distracting.

When examining the file in a text editor the points marked "(won't alert)" in BaseCamp and that were created by that program when I converted the track, are marked "<trp:ShapingPoint />". They are followed by other points that I presume are telling the GPSr the track to follow to the next Shaping point. I guess I'll have to convert all my Waypoints that I don't want appearing, to ShapingPoints, but I'm not sure. Presumably a lot of studying the GPX schema is required. Anyone know of a good GPX file reference?

[Parklands]

On a similar line I have been trying to plan a route. But keep getting to a point where no matter how close I put points the route will take a massive detour, I have tried with basecamp, map my ride, and others but all do the same thing, or will produce car routes going further but on bigger roads. I assume that it's todo with the file used for routing, does any know if it's possible to edit this file, and what I would be looking for.

[BikinOn]

Almost certainly a similar problem to the one I encountered, it is  a road marked one way or closed, etc in the map. You can force a track, but not a route, if you can't find the logic error then probably the only solution is to break it into two routes at the problem point.

[frankly frankie]

Sounds like a problem with the map.  If the map thinks a route won't go through (for example it thinks there's no road bridge across a river just a footbridge, or what looks like a crossroads is actually an underpass) - well in that situation you will get a big detour developing.

Meanwhile, I tried my 2nd option with Direct Routing & 277 points and not unsurprisingly I got lots Beeps and no routing!

Direct is what I usually use - but 250 points is the limit in this mode.  More than enough for a day's riding. (And 50 is the limit when autorouting - but 50 can take you a very long way.)

When examining the file in a text editor the points marked "(won't alert)" in BaseCamp and that were created by that program when I converted the track, are marked "<trp:ShapingPoint />". They are followed by other points that I presume are telling the GPSr the track to follow to the next Shaping point. I guess I'll have to convert all my Waypoints that I don't want appearing, to ShapingPoints, but I'm not sure. Presumably a lot of studying the GPX schema is required. Anyone know of a good GPX file reference?

http://www.topografix.com/gpx.asp much good may it do you - it won't help much with the above.
The problem is most of the information in modern Garmin files uses proprietary 'add-on' standards provided by Garmin.
I would assume 'shaping poiunts' are those that make the Route follow the shape of the road (using the map used at the planning stage).  You wouldn't want these to alert, as they are only 10s of metres apart.  But (going back to the map mismatch points made above) they would maybe (or maybe not) override the routing built in to the GPS map.

Most times, an autorouted route depends on 'map points' to make its shape.  Map points are junctions obviously, but also the roads between junctions have several map points embedded in them, at intervals - they are used among other things to draw the map on the screen, giving the roads some shape.  If you just autoroute on the Garmin, everything should be hunky-dory, the route is drawn using the map points in the loaded map.
If you plan first on the desktop or using an online planner, and autorouting, then it's likely to be a different map and the map points will be in different places.  Subtly different, but different.  Then in the GPS, you have a conflict.  At every single map point (there would be thousands) the GPS has to resolve the difference between two points. If it's a modern GPS and the route is not too complex, I think it just copes without throwing a wobbly.  An older GPS or a complex route - there's bound to be problems.

Solutions - avoid map conflicts, avoid autorouting.

[fuaran]

BaseCamp does let you create mixed routes, ie parts autorouting, parts direct routing. So you could use this for a route with off-road sections.
Though you do need a Garmin device which supports these mixed routes - I think its only a few of the latest top models, eg Oregon 600 or Montana.

[Ningishzidda]

On a similar line I have been trying to plan a route. But keep getting to a point where no matter how close I put points the route will take a massive detour, I have tried with basecamp, map my ride, and others but all do the same thing, or will produce car routes going further but on bigger roads. I assume that it's todo with the file used for routing, does any know if it's possible to edit this file, and what I would be looking for.

This happens ( with Topo GB ) at junction of Knightcote Rd and Gaydon Rd in Bishops Itchington. ( as one example ). Back Lane in Lower Quinton is another.
Get two points as close as possible so you can see the route on the screen divert back the way you came, a gap and the route where it comes to, turns and goes away again the other side of the gap.
With a blind leap of faith, ride across the gap to pick up the route on the other side.

I have not encountered this problem with TomTom mapping on my Urban Rider. If I position the waypoints on the roads I want to ride along on Tyre toTravel, the Google mapping they use 'might' show the problem, but when Tyre saves the route as an ITN file for TomTom, the TT doesn't show the long detour and happily routes sensibly.
What I am doing on Tyre is positioning some points in a sequence for Tyre to either build a GPX or an ITN file. What is between the points, the handset mapping and routing algorithms sorts out to insert all the 'turn by turn' instructions.
If the handset mapping and algorithms take you on a long detour, change the mapping. If it still does the same, scrap the handset.

[BikinOn]

The big mystery of routes, that was driving me nuts has now largely been solved and as usual it was pretty simple in the end. Routes on an Edge type unit don't need user waypoints, but Oregon type units do need them to create a good route 

I'll have to look into fauran's comment about mixed routing types, that could be useful and obviously including a track in the file is a good idea, although I find Red a better colour than Green, when viewed on OSM map files on the Oregon.