working out distance from a track

[Martin]

what it is;

I've changed the route of my Audax ride slightly and always provide intermediate cumulative distances. I used to do them on Bikely but it doesn't like me anymore. Is there anything easy and free where I can upload my track and follow it round to find the cumulative distance at each turn?

[PloddinPedro]

what it is;

I've changed the route of my Audax ride slightly and always provide intermediate cumulative distances. I used to do them on Bikely but it doesn't like me anymore. Is there anything easy and free where I can upload my track and follow it round to find the cumulative distance at each turn?

If I understand you correctly, we're talking about a DIY by GPS and you say you always provide (to whoever validates your rides) cumulative distances (presumably at each successive "control"). Why?

[Martin]

no it's a calendar event and I've changed the middle section; rather than try to convert all the distances I'd rather start from scratch all the way round

[PloddinPedro]

Ah. Crossed wires - nothing unusual there!

[Manotea]

Bits of routes changing is not unusual; what I do is load the routesheet into excel and adjust the distances from there.

However to answer the question, try loading the track into ridewithgps. You can then follow the track round the map reading the accumulated distance off the distance/profile panel displayed under the map.

[PloddinPedro]

Good tip M'tea. Just tried that; seems to work well. Free version sign up quick and straightforward; quite a slick interface. Uploaded a .gpx file quickly and easily. Looks like you can upload .tcx and .kml files as well.

Out of curiosity, I uploaded a couple of files of two very similar recent rides, hoping to see them both on screen simultaneously, but no luck. I could display only one or the other, not both together. Perhaps that's a facility that comes with the subscription versions?

[frankly frankie]

Bits of routes changing is not unusual; what I do is load the routesheet into excel and adjust the distances from there.

+1  For LEL in the route planning and final checking stages the intermediate distances were changing all the time.  Solution was to keep the 'master' route as a spreadsheet (collaborative, Google Docs) and that took all the pain away.

Out of curiosity, I uploaded a couple of files of two very similar recent rides, hoping to see them both on screen simultaneously, but no luck. I could display only one or the other, not both together. Perhaps that's a facility that comes with the subscription versions?

Memory Map can do both these things of course (display distance from start of track, and display more than one track at once).  The cheapest available UK version appears to be £25.  For this you get the Mem Map engine itself, plus a limited amount of OS 1:50,000 map, your choice of area.  But I would guess (don't know for sure) that it also includes 1:250,000 of the whole country - decent for viewing tracks on.

[PloddinPedro]

Out of curiosity, I uploaded a couple of files of two very similar recent rides, hoping to see them both on screen simultaneously, but no luck. I could display only one or the other, not both together. Perhaps that's a facility that comes with the subscription versions?

Memory Map can do both these things of course (display distance from start of track, and display more than one track at once).  The cheapest available UK version appears to be £25.  For this you get the Mem Map engine itself, plus a limited amount of OS 1:50,000 map, your choice of area.  But I would guess (don't know for sure) that it also includes 1:250,000 of the whole country - decent for viewing tracks on.

Absolutely. I have Memory Map and use it a lot. I like the ability to display as much or as little as I like and I often make records of particular rides complete with annotations and comments as reminders for next time I ride it. It's loaded onto the hard drive and it's not affected by broadband vagaries (a constant PITA where I am.) I hadn't realised a base version was available at that price,or I'd have suggested more strongly that it might provide an easy work-around for DIY-by-GPS validators to check submitted Tracks against pre-nominated controls. Just import a .gpx file with just the control waypoints and later import the recorded  ride Track - bingo, the one overlays the other; any control missed stands out like a sore thumb. A stripped down, large scale base map is all you'd need; in fact you could do it with no map at all, since all you are doing is seeing that the Track line passes through all the dots!

Martin's original question of course was looking for something free.

[mcshroom]

Out of curiosity, I uploaded a couple of files of two very similar recent rides, hoping to see them both on screen simultaneously, but no luck. I could display only one or the other, not both together. Perhaps that's a facility that comes with the subscription versions?

Memory Map can do both these things of course (display distance from start of track, and display more than one track at once).  The cheapest available UK version appears to be £25.  For this you get the Mem Map engine itself, plus a limited amount of OS 1:50,000 map, your choice of area.  But I would guess (don't know for sure) that it also includes 1:250,000 of the whole country - decent for viewing tracks on.

Absolutely. I have Memory Map and use it a lot. I like the ability to display as much or as little as I like and I often make records of particular rides complete with annotations and comments as reminders for next time I ride it. It's loaded onto the hard drive and it's not affected by broadband vagaries (a constant PITA where I am.) I hadn't realised a base version was available at that price,or I'd have suggested more strongly that it might provide an easy work-around for DIY-by-GPS validators to check submitted Tracks against pre-nominated controls. Just import a .gpx file with just the control waypoints and later import the recorded  ride Track - bingo, the one overlays the other; any control missed stands out like a sore thumb. A stripped down, large scale base map is all you'd need; in fact you could do it with no map at all, since all you are doing is seeing that the Track line passes through all the dots!

Martin's original question of course was looking for something free.

They charge for 1:50k and 1:25k tiles but if you are happy using 1:250k roadmap scale or Openstreetmap*, Mapyx Quo is free to use and has pretty much all the same features as memorymap.

*Downloads tiles as you scroll so a decent internet connection is needed for this

[Manotea]

It has to be said the ridewithgps UI is pretty slick but its a fully manually process.

You could do this using Mapsource - which will also display multiple routes and tracks - which generate a routesheet ('directions') for routes. The downside is that the directions are quite basic though - they don't recognise roundabouts for example. The upside is that you can mark up the turns as waypoints which will appear in the directions.

The trick to generate directions from a track is to to use wingdb3 to convert the track into a segmented route with segments of 100km, filter down the route points as appropriate, and then select, copy and paste the directions from each segment into Excel, and take it from there. You need to segment the route because after 100km the directions resolution changes from 0.1km to 1km which is no good for our needs.

An alternate solution would be to reproduce the track in googlemaps, and then use the 'cuesheet' utility to generate a 'cuesheet' for post processing in Excel.

*Gmaps will open and display a kmz as an overlay but that's as far as the UI goes.

[frankly frankie]

This seems to be getting a bit OT to me, but the best Route Sheet generator that I've come across is Bike Route Toaster.  Slightly beats Google Maps into 2nd place.  The Google Maps 'print' version is nice too, with the little pointy symbols, but hard to post-process.

The trick to generate directions from a track is to to use wingdb3 to convert the track into a segmented route with segments of 100km, filter down the route points as appropriate, and then select, copy and paste the directions from each segment into Excel, and take it from there....

You should be able to export, rather than cut/paste??  In Mapsource, Save As ... tab-delimited text.  Open in Excel.

[Manotea]

As always , the problem is there is so much variation in what different users want to acheive. Having worked out how to acheive my goals with Mapsource I've kinda stuck with it. As far as exporting directions is concerned.

Save as *.Txt gives waypoint and routepoints, viz:

Grid   Lat/Lon hddd°mm.mmm'
Datum   WGS 84

Header   Name   Description   Type   Position   Altitude   Depth   Proximity   Temperature   Display Mode   Color   Symbol   Facility   City   State   Country   Date Modified   Link   Categories

Waypoint   058      Map Line   N52 06.202 W2 08.127               Symbol   Unknown   Waypoint               9/26/2012 1:37:29 PM       
Waypoint   059      Map Intersection   N52 06.075 W2 07.863               Symbol   Unknown   Waypoint               9/26/2012 1:37:29 PM       
Waypoint   060      Map Intersection   N52 06.139 W2 07.546               Symbol   Unknown   Waypoint               9/26/2012 1:37:29 PM       
Waypoint   061      Map Intersection   N52 05.817 W2 07.392               Symbol   Unknown   Waypoint               9/26/2012 1:37:29 PM       
point   115      Map Intersection   N51 56.573 W1 55.526               Symbol   Unknown   Waypoint               9/26/2012 1:37:30 PM       
Waypoint   116      Map Intersection   N51 55.136 W1 55.354               Symbol   Unknown   Waypoint               9/26/2012 1:37:30 PM       
Waypoint   117      Map Intersection   N51 55.134 W1 55.364               Symbol   Unknown   Waypoint               9/26/2012 1:37:30 PM       
Waypoint   118      Map Intersection   N51 54.346 W1 55.073               Symbol   Unknown   Waypoint               9/26/2012 1:37:30 PM       
Waypoint   119      Map Intersection   N51 53.362 W1 54.754               Symbol   Unknown   Waypoint               9/26/2012 1:37:30 PM       
Waypoint   120      Map Line   N51 53.478 W1 54.613               Symbol   Unknown   Waypoint               9/26/2012 1:37:30 PM       
Waypoint   C1   Besford   User Waypoint   N52 06.201 W2 08.128               Symbol & Name   Unknown   City (Small)               9/26/2012 1:36:48 PM       
Waypoint   C2    A46   User Waypoint   N52 00.268 W2 03.187               Symbol & Name   Unknown   Waypoint               9/26/2012 1:36:55 PM       
Waypoint   C3    A436   User Waypoint   N51 53.478 W1 54.613               Symbol & Name   Unknown   Waypoint               9/26/2012 1:37:01 PM       
....

Header   Name   Length   Course   Waypoints   Link

Route   C1 to C3   35.7 km   147° true   66 waypoints   

Header   Waypoint Name   Distance   Leg Length   Course

Route Waypoint   C1   0 m
Route Waypoint   058   3 m   3 m   28° true
Route Waypoint   059   425 m   422 m   128° true
Route Waypoint   060   819 m   395 m   72° true
....

Select, copy and paste directions gives:

1.   C1   0 m         0:00:00      N52 06.201 W2 08.128   
2.   Get on Harewell Lane and drive southeast   3 m   3 m   0:00:00   0:00:00   28° true   N52 06.202 W2 08.127   
3.   Turn right onto Ladywood Road   819 m   817 m   0:02:31   0:02:31   72° true   N52 06.139 W2 07.546   
4.   Turn left onto Croome Road   2.2 km   1.4 km   0:04:16   0:06:47   166° true   N52 05.516 W2 07.111   
5.   Turn left onto  A4104   2.6 km   427 m   0:01:24   0:08:11   104° true   N52 05.449 W2 06.776   
6.   Turn right onto  B4080   2.8 km   249 m   0:00:54   0:09:05   55° true   N52 05.524 W2 06.601   
7.   Keep right onto Moreton Lane   9.2 km   6.3 km   0:20:11   0:29:16   173° true   N52 02.341 W2 06.302   
8.   Turn left onto Kemerton Road   10.2 km   988 m   0:03:03   0:32:19   158° true   N52 01.829 W2 06.460   
9.   Turn left onto  A46   14.0 km   3.8 km   0:11:51   0:44:10   172° true   N52 00.129 W2 05.159   
10.   Keep left onto  A46   16.3 km   2.3 km   0:07:19   0:51:29   62° true   N52 00.258 W2 03.233   
11.   C2   16.4 km   56 m   0:00:11   0:51:40   0° true   N52 00.268 W2 03.187   
12.   Bear left onto  B4077   16.4 km   58 m   0:01:13   0:52:53   158° true   N52 00.240 W2 03.197   
13.   Turn right onto Road   20.3 km   3.9 km   0:11:57   1:04:50   125° true   N51 59.537 W2 00.169   
14.   Turn right onto Back Lane   25.8 km   5.5 km   0:17:00   1:21:50   163° true   N51 57.343 W1 57.988   
15.   Turn left onto Cowl Lane   25.9 km   39 m   0:00:18   1:22:08   223° true   N51 57.328 W1 58.011   
16.   Turn left onto High Street   26.2 km   294 m   0:00:58   1:23:06   156° true   N51 57.186 W1 57.908   
17.   Turn right onto Castle Street   26.2 km   28 m   0:00:11   1:23:17   59° true   N51 57.194 W1 57.888   
18.   Keep right onto Road   29.3 km   3.1 km   0:09:44   1:33:01   113° true   N51 56.573 W1 55.526   
19.   Turn right onto Road   32.0 km   2.7 km   0:08:19   1:41:20   176° true   N51 55.136 W1 55.354   
20.   Turn left onto Road   32.0 km   13 m   0:00:09   1:41:29   248° true   N51 55.134 W1 55.364   
21.   Turn right onto Road   33.6 km   1.6 km   0:04:52   1:46:21   167° true   N51 54.346 W1 55.073   
22.   Turn left onto  A436   35.5 km   1.9 km   0:05:57   1:52:18   169° true   N51 53.362 W1 54.754   
23.   C3   35.7 km   269 m   0:01:18   1:53:36   242° true   N51 53.478 W1 54.613   


Where C1-3 are user waypoints.

p.s., ignore the crappy formatting above;it pastes straight into Excel as you'd expect.

[Manotea]

Just loaded a track into BRT. Displays OK but AFAICS there is no option to generate a cue sheet; it only seems to work for routes generated within BRT, so it would  be necessary to recreate the route from scratch. That's easy enough, though much the same applies to say recreating the route in googlemaps from scratch and generating a route sheet using the Cuesheets utility.

ISTM the excel approach is the way to go when you are just looking to adjust a section of a route, as it means you only have to rework the directions for that section rather than redo the whole routesheet.

As always, YPYPATYC.