Tracking & Plotting Travels - - Exploring Alternative Implementations

[Davydd]

I never plan in advance and don't always use a GPS when traveling if it is evident where I am going. It would be nice to after the fact plot where we've been. Once we get underway we just randomly decide on the spur of the moment. This winter we did make reservations in South Padre Island, TX for two weeks but we still don't know if we are going to visit my sister in Venice, Florida or go to Palm Springs, California after to visit wintering friends.

En route anywhere, if for lunch or dinner, there is the right timing, I will detour and stop for a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich to "feed" my Facebook group, "Pursuing Pork Tenderloin Sandwiches". That's just a focused hobby to venture off to places one would maybe not go otherwise and sometimes it can be surprising.

[dicktill]

Originally Posted by Winston

Wow - - dictill and booster, you guys have our head spinning - - maybe our system isn’t as complex as we thought! But in any event, some of our confusion may be that each of us is heading in slightly different directions.

Maybe we should start by exploring our objective/purpose? Are we trying to Route Plan for future trips or Document past travels? As we previously commented, for us the objective has been to keep a record, to document past travels and with sufficient flexibility that we can change the scope of any map presentation (from detailed local views to larger, nationwide areas as well as to filter for other meaningful criteria). To the extent that we’ve been exploring the so-called ‘planning’ software, it has been to solve the problem raised by dictill - - how to add, or fill-in, route segments that were missed during earlier travels.

A second issue for us in the selection process remains: “on-line vs off-line”. Our strong preference is for off-line solutions. Despite our efforts to stay 100% connected while traveling - - this objective remains elusive. But beyond the connectivity issue is the reality of ‘on-line offerings’. Over the years we’ve been burned time and again by on-line programs, system, offerings . . . often free . . . that simply disappear or become noticeably ‘not free’. The Cloud has not become our panacea.

Then there’s the question: “How do we plan on viewing our maps?”. We hadn’t realized how many have abandoned “the computer” and now live with only their smartphones or, maybe, with the larger format iPad and Android tablets. Indeed, as our 5 year old Microsoft Surface Pro was showing some age issues, we looked to see, if it needed replacing, whether there were any alternatives other than a new Surface - - the answer is “no” - - virtually every tablet is android or IOS. This, of course, has huge implications on the ‘solution’ to our mapping inquiry as many solutions are not available across all platforms.

Then there’s the slightly technical issue of what ‘form’ the track data “from” and “to” these various programs will, or must, be in. GPX files are common, but over-kill for simple track plotting (GPX includes additional information such as date/time, elevation, speed, direction). Indeed, we must strip much of this superfluous data before importing to DeLorme. It would be helpful to learn what each of these programs ‘can produce’ and/or ‘must have’ in order to function.

Hi Winston,

My goal here is to produce maps of our past travels (like you presented early on in this thread), so that they can be viewed on a computer and printed. The nice thin lines on yours look great; the fat lines on mine, not so much. See below what the fat lines look like on our Vermont trips, where we chased down over 100 covered bridges. And when you then show the entire US, Vermont becomes pretty much a blob, as the lines (shown here on Streets and Maps) do not scale down in width (admittedly, this might still be somewhat true with thinner lines, with us covering so many little back roads, often close together).

I can't speak for Booster, but I think his comments are more about planning and following a route.

As Davydd mentioned, we also "go where the wind blows us" (generally; trying to follow the original Lincoln highway across Pennsylvania being a prime exception), so for us, it's more the plotting after the fact.

Having said that, also being able to plot a route in advance, and being able to see it on a "bigger than GPS device size" screen in real time would also be great, even if we don't follow that route exactly and/or take detours to interesting places, etc. So as you mentioned Winston, this would have to have to be offline to be effective, and somehow the device (laptop or tablet) would need to have, or be hooked up to, a GPS receiver.

Thanks, Dick

[booster]

Yes, exactly as Dick said, we have no concern about documenting past travels, but really, really, enjoy being able to preselect a custom route and having the GPS give us every turn with prewarning as we go. It makes the travel much more enjoyable as never watching for turns or reading maps unless the copilot wants to see where we are in general.

[peteco]

I just started recreating a 10,000 mile trip we just took. I am using Google My Maps, but it looks like the part that displays the road routes, the Driving layer, is limited to 10 points. The overall map can have more points, but it doesn't draw a line on the roads between the points. My needs are pretty basic and maybe I am missing something simple here.

[peteco]

Originally Posted by dicktill

Here's another thing I'd like to be able to do: I'd like to be able to plot all our old trips, as well as we can remember them from notes on routes and towns (tedious I know!). Essentially like plotting with a paper map and a highlighter, but on a computer map. Can this be done on DeLorme Topo 10 (we have it) or Google maps or something else? I'd like them to look as good as Winston's maps that he posted above (astounding bunch of trips)!

I am starting to get the hang of google's My Maps (MM). These screen shots are of the east-to-west leg. They don't look as good as Winston's but they will do for what I would like. MM has some odd imitations with drawing the road lines which means I will have to make a separate map for the west-to-east leg. The coordinates can be output as a file for import into other mapping programs. MM does have some nice features like linking a photo with a point.

[MobileCabin]

Peteco,

I like what you are doing with MM!

[Winston]

Originally Posted by Davydd

I never plan in advance and don't always use a GPS when traveling if it is evident where I am going. It would be nice to after the fact plot where we've been. Once we get underway we just randomly decide on the spur of the moment.

Originally Posted by dicktill

. . . goal here is to produce maps of our past travels . . .
. . .where we chased down over 100 covered bridges . . .

Originally Posted by booster

. . . but really, really, enjoy being able to preselect a custom route and having the GPS give us every turn with prewarning as we go. It makes the travel much more enjoyable as never watching for turns or reading maps . . .

Originally Posted by peteco

I am starting to get the hang of google's My Maps (MM) . . . The coordinates can be output as a file for import into other mapping programs . . .

A potpourri of thoughts inspired by these recent posts:

BIFURCATION - - Navigation & Documentation

Dave, we’re like you, we hardly ever plan . . . and, yes, it feels like we “randomly decide” on a route . . . we just follow the steering wheel.

But, as we read Booster’s comments, it occurred to us that our last post may have left out a third reason for mapping: Real-Time Navigation. We’re not sure if Booster ‘plans’ those “custom routes” or, like us, picks a tentative destination as we get in the campervan and let’s his navigation program ‘on-the-spot’ offer a proposed route, or, uses a route previously generated through Planning. In either event, we should have included Real-Time Navigation as a third objective of mapping. We can hardly drive across town without plugging-in our destination. And when ‘the co-pilot’ chides “Winston, you’ve driven this route a thousand times, don’t you know how to get there?” we smile, reminding our detractor: “Traffic, alternative shorter ‘time’ routes, accidents, obstacles and police” - - ever-changing, valuable information available with just a few preliminary keystrokes. And we particularly like the way Google Nav (our chosen Nav app) handles our whimsies . . . our last-minute deviations from Google’s ‘suggested’ route. “She” yells at us a little . . . until realizing that maybe our deviation was intentional . . . where she quickly calculates and recalculates routes always based on where we then are. We couldn’t agree more Booster, the combination of GPS and navigation programs have made driving “much more enjoyable.”

And while it might be nice to have one “do everything” device/program that handles both navigation and documentation, as our opening post shows, we’ve elected to let the smartphone, with its built-in GPS, Google Nav app, and cellular internet connectivity, handle the navigation function while the Surface tablet and ‘dash-deposited’ Garmin hand-held GPS conspire to perform the documentation function.

DOCUMENTATION - - When?

“It would be nice to after the fact plot where we've been,” Dave notes. Indeed, it seems that most contributors to this thread have a desire to retain a record (map) of their travels.

Dave, yes, you can wait “after the fact” until you get home, or until next winter, to create the map itself. However, it has become clear to us that literally ‘re-creating’ the history of a route already completed is tedious, difficult, and arguably ‘impossible’ - - at least to the detail and accuracy we’ve shown in our opening post.

So, for us, the better solution is to collect the underlying ‘lat/long’ data real-time. And this can be done surprisingly effortlessly while traveling leaving the more tedious manipulation and plotting of that data to the off-season winter fireplace.

Our proposed hand-held Garmin GPS offers one such approach - - turn it on, throw it on the dash, forget it. And if you don’t want to worry about batteries, just connect it to one of those ubiquitous USB power sources that now populate most Class B’s. And while there have been several mentions of smartphone apps that can record data (and probably map it), we still think the stand-alone handheld GPS approach offers a less complicated solution that is far less likely to be ‘interrupted’ by any of the problems we find with smartphones (battery going dead, being an obvious one).

GOOGLE MAPS - Peteco

Peteco, one of the objectives of this thread was to explore ways of mapping/plotting tracks for trips already completed. As just discussed, we think the better approach is to collect the data ‘enroute’ real-time. But there are many that are in your position who ‘didn’t’ collect that data but still wish to create maps of their travels.

We were expecting someone to tackle Googe Maps and are happy to see your results. A few questions. All those ‘waypoints’ on the map - - is this the way Google must be programmed in order to create a complicated route such as you’ve shown? Is there a way of deleting the waypoints for a cleaner map look?

Maybe of more interest, can you tell us more about the file export? If one could get a clean set of lat/longs, Google might be the best solution for ‘after-the-fact’ mapping.

It does seem, however, that creating all those waypoint could be time-consuming - - so we’ll stick with our GPS that “just sits on the dash”.

PS to Dicktill: More than a hundred covered bridges in Vermont??!! Guess we're going to have to return and plot a few more tracks through Vermont!

[booster]

Originally Posted by Winston

A potpourri of thoughts inspired by these recent posts:

But, as we read Booster’s comments, it occurred to us that our last post may have left out a third reason for mapping: Real-Time Navigation. We’re not sure if Booster ‘plans’ those “custom routes” or, like us, picks a tentative destination as we get in the campervan and let’s his navigation program ‘on-the-spot’ offer a proposed route, or, uses a route previously generated through Planning. In either event, we should have included Real-Time Navigation as a third objective of mapping. We can hardly drive across town without plugging-in our destination. And when ‘the co-pilot’ chides “Winston, you’ve driven this route a thousand times, don’t you know how to get there?” we smile, reminding our detractor: “Traffic, alternative shorter ‘time’ routes, accidents, obstacles and police” - - ever-changing, valuable information available with just a few preliminary keystrokes. And we particularly like the way Google Nav (our chosen Nav app) handles our whimsies . . . our last-minute deviations from Google’s ‘suggested’ route. “She” yells at us a little . . . until realizing that maybe our deviation was intentional . . . where she quickly calculates and recalculates routes always based on where we then are. We couldn’t agree more Booster, the combination of GPS and navigation programs have made driving “much more enjoyable.”

We couldn't live without real time navigation.

I do all our routes on Basecamp pc software at home or on the road on the laptop and load them into the GPS. The basecamp allows me to design the route to go exactly where we want it to so we know the exact route before we leave. I can do a run simulation on Basecamp and watch the little icon moving and see every turn for the entire route for confirmation. The GPS and Basecamp use the identical maps and theoretically the same calculation methods do the GPS follows the same route we tested on Basecamp with full turn by turn, miles gone, miles left, time left, etc. Some of our routes are really complex and would require lots of map reading by a copilot that basically hates even trying to read a map, so turn by turn is very necessary for us, and the "look ahead" to find gas stations and waysides is also very useful.

[peteco]

Just finished the MyMaps (MM) of my 10 week trip from Virginia to California. Overall I am pleased with the result, but there are some limitations that may be a dealbreaker for some. You can have 2000 points maximum, which is fine. You can have 10 layers, but you really need more. The route lines are only drawn on a Directions layer.

I named the first layer “Overall Map” and it contains all the points we visited, including campgrounds, trails we hiked, museums, etc. I have about 150 points and may add more. The other 9 layers are “Driving” layers. Each of these layers, when checked on, display the blue lines on the road route. You can manually adjust the route if you went a different way than MM wants to route you. One problem is that if a road is closed, like the Tioga road across Yosemite in winter (like now), it will not let you force the route that way. So there is a gap and a route shown around the park to get from west to east.

I used the remaining 9 layers as Driving layers. Each of these Driving layers can only contain 10 points, so 90 points total. I ran out of points before I finished so I had to go back and eliminate some in-between driving points to complete the entire driving route map set. This adjustment was a bit of a hassle. Next time I will plan better up front as I lay the Driving layers out. Google should allow more points or add more layers. Many complaints on the web about this. It looks like there may be some products that modify My Maps or use google earth or some other map program to get around these limitations. Fortunately, if I leave my “Overall Map” layer checked all 150 of my points are displayed. Look at the closeup I did for Grand Canyon, where I included the places we hiked or buildings visited. On the left is the listing of a section of the points in the Overall map layer.

There may be easy ways around the limitations but nothing obvious “googled” as I searched for solutions.

So I got from zero to this result in 6 hours. I have the flu so I had plenty of time to sit at the computer and do this. I plan to use MM for planning future trips.

[peteco]

Originally Posted by Winston

GOOGLE MAPS - Peteco

Peteco, one of the objectives of this thread was to explore ways of mapping/plotting tracks for trips already completed. As just discussed, we think the better approach is to collect the data ‘enroute’ real-time. But there are many that are in your position who ‘didn’t’ collect that data but still wish to create maps of their travels.

We were expecting someone to tackle Googe Maps and are happy to see your results. A few questions. All those ‘waypoints’ on the map - - is this the way Google must be programmed in order to create a complicated route such as you’ve shown? Is there a way of deleting the waypoints for a cleaner map look?

Maybe of more interest, can you tell us more about the file export? If one could get a clean set of lat/longs, Google might be the best solution for ‘after-the-fact’ mapping.

It does seem, however, that creating all those waypoint could be time-consuming - - so we’ll stick with our GPS that “just sits on the dash”.

PS to Dicktill: More than a hundred covered bridges in Vermont??!! Guess we're going to have to return and plot a few more tracks through Vermont!

The waypoints can be made a "dot" instead of the upside-down raindrop but when the driving layer is activated it also shows the letters, which clutters up the map again.

I did a file export and the file has a bunch of stuff in it. Maybe a programmer (not me) could parse through this to pull the relevant lat/long and titles. I came across some discussion of using an excel file to import information to MM. It is not clear how that makes things easier when planning. It would be nice to have the locations in an excel file though.

So I would say MM gets you to about a 90% solution (that number can be debated ). Any further refinement or fidelity requires other means. You guys that can do this (Winston, Booster, dicktill, etc) amaze me.

[dicktill]

Originally Posted by peteco

<snip>
You guys that can do this (Winston, Booster, dicktill, etc) amaze me.

Hey Pete, don't include me in that group; I'm struggling to do any of this.

Originally Posted by Winston

<snip>
PS to Dicktill: More than a hundred covered bridges in Vermont??!! Guess we're going to have to return and plot a few more tracks through Vermont!

Perhaps we should have a separate thread about covered bridges, so we don't detour this thread? We hope to do a large number of Pennsylvania's too, but so far we only have a handful out of way over 200.

[tgregg]

Originally Posted by Winston

A potpourri of thoughts inspired by these recent posts:

BIFURCATION - - Navigation & Documentation

Dave, we’re like you, we hardly ever plan . . . and, yes, it feels like we “randomly decide” on a route . . . we just follow the steering wheel.

But, as we read Booster’s comments, it occurred to us that our last post may have left out a third reason for mapping: Real-Time Navigation. We’re not sure if Booster ‘plans’ those “custom routes” or, like us, picks a tentative destination as we get in the campervan and let’s his navigation program ‘on-the-spot’ offer a proposed route, or, uses a route previously generated through Planning. In either event, we should have included Real-Time Navigation as a third objective of mapping. We can hardly drive across town without plugging-in our destination. And when ‘the co-pilot’ chides “Winston, you’ve driven this route a thousand times, don’t you know how to get there?” we smile, reminding our detractor: “Traffic, alternative shorter ‘time’ routes, accidents, obstacles and police” - - ever-changing, valuable information available with just a few preliminary keystrokes. And we particularly like the way Google Nav (our chosen Nav app) handles our whimsies . . . our last-minute deviations from Google’s ‘suggested’ route. “She” yells at us a little . . . until realizing that maybe our deviation was intentional . . . where she quickly calculates and recalculates routes always based on where we then are. We couldn’t agree more Booster, the combination of GPS and navigation programs have made driving “much more enjoyable.”

And while it might be nice to have one “do everything” device/program that handles both navigation and documentation, as our opening post shows, we’ve elected to let the smartphone, with its built-in GPS, Google Nav app, and cellular internet connectivity, handle the navigation function while the Surface tablet and ‘dash-deposited’ Garmin hand-held GPS conspire to perform the documentation function.

DOCUMENTATION - - When?

“It would be nice to after the fact plot where we've been,” Dave notes. Indeed, it seems that most contributors to this thread have a desire to retain a record (map) of their travels.

Dave, yes, you can wait “after the fact” until you get home, or until next winter, to create the map itself. However, it has become clear to us that literally ‘re-creating’ the history of a route already completed is tedious, difficult, and arguably ‘impossible’ - - at least to the detail and accuracy we’ve shown in our opening post.

So, for us, the better solution is to collect the underlying ‘lat/long’ data real-time. And this can be done surprisingly effortlessly while traveling leaving the more tedious manipulation and plotting of that data to the off-season winter fireplace.

Our proposed hand-held Garmin GPS offers one such approach - - turn it on, throw it on the dash, forget it. And if you don’t want to worry about batteries, just connect it to one of those ubiquitous USB power sources that now populate most Class B’s. And while there have been several mentions of smartphone apps that can record data (and probably map it), we still think the stand-alone handheld GPS approach offers a less complicated solution that is far less likely to be ‘interrupted’ by any of the problems we find with smartphones (battery going dead, being an obvious one).

Winston,

We agree with both your goals of navigation and documentation. We don't 'plan' a route more than a day or two ahead of time and then often to choose between a couple of different routes to our next random destination.

And like you we often use the navigation feature or our GPS to drive the 12 miles to the grocery store, especially if it involves stops at the post office and dump. The best feature of navigating with a GPS is it's ability to prompt us to make a turn several hours into the days travels. Something we used to forget when we were navigating with a map or written instructions.

And we want the ability to document our travels.

We use a Garmin RV 785 on the dash because it does both - guides us to our destination and logs the lat/lon data of our actual track.

Sometimes when finally choosing a camping spot for the night we use the Allstays app on our smartphone. We let the app provide directions and it uses Google maps on the smartphone to get us there. But the Garmin GPS on the dash still records our track.

When we connect the GPS to our laptop we can import the track log data directly into Garmin's Basecamp program without any manipulation of the recorded data. We can then display them on a map, collect them together in trips, etc.

We can also view the track on the GPS before we uploaded and deleted, if we want to see where we drove on earlier on the trip.

I'm not sure how much data the GPS can store before you have to upload it and it gets over written, but we captured a 6 week 6400 mile trip from Ga to OH to Me and back without over writing the data.

And it logs data whether your following a Route or not.

I think you should be able to import the log data from your hand held Garmin GPS that you throw on the dash without any additional manipulation of the data.

Basecamp is free to download but if you want to see your track on anything but a high level map you need to provide it with a map from either a Garmin GPS that contains maps or from Garmin mapping software like City Navigator.

Basecamp is a little 'quirky' and I haven't learned all its features, but I think it can do the same things you do with Delorme Topo (we have that also) and the maps are constantly updated.

Tom

[dicktill]

Originally Posted by dicktill

Hi,

I'm the "other member" mentioned; so thanks Winston for creating this thread. And thanks to several others who have shared what they have done.

I've been steadily adding to my qpx files by creating them in a bicycling app that I use to log my bike rides: "Ride with GPS" (there may be better ways to do this, and I'm open to suggestions). I had already used it while driving on some of our recent trips, so I already had some files. But to recreate an old trip, you need to tediously plot your journey in the "route planner" section of the app; I usually just plot 1-3 days worth per file. RwGPS has several annoying features though, and I just found a new one: it prevents you from plotting a route if it currently closed, so several seasonal roads we drove have not been plotted, and won't be, until spring or I find a way around this. Another thing is that the route must be continuous, so if you hit a spot like this, you must end the file and start a fresh one "on the other side".

So far I have imported these qpx files into a couple of mapping programs: "Streets and Trips" (2013) and "AllTrails pro". My biggest dislike of both is the very fat lines that show the route, and I haven't found any way to thin these down. Different colors would be nice too, and it seems like AllTrails has this feature, but I haven't learned to use it. Also, AllTrails puts a big fat dot at each end of each segment, and I don't see any way to delete them. I also haven't found any way to delete a segment if I find something wrong with it. I also have trouble manipulating the view in both programs; neither seems to have a "fit all" feature. Here are screen shots of both (sorry, they are down at the bottom, as despite my uploading the files at this point, when I started typing again, it was above the screen shots - so that should tell you something about my meager computer skills):

On to other programs:
1) Basecamp: Booster and I have already found that this program likes to re-route, plus I didn't find a way to import gpx files.
2) DeLorme Topo: loaded version 8; it would open but was not functional on Windows 8.1 - then found my version 10, and I couldn't get it to read the setup disc, so I may have to buy a new one - hence, I don't know how functional this would be for me. But based on Winston's results, this one seems most promising.
3) QGIS: Yikes, this is way above my skill level; it took way over an hour for me to load a US map (and I still don't have the layers the way I'd want), and haven't found any way to import the gpx files.
4) I searched the internet for M&S replacements, and opened several websites; they might work, but they all seemed to be geared toward routing a salesman (or whatever) to many places in the shortest time/route.

I'm open to any critique of anything I said above, any suggestions, etc.

Thanks, Dick

Originally Posted by dicktill

Hi Winston,

My goal here is to produce maps of our past travels (like you presented early on in this thread), so that they can be viewed on a computer and printed. The nice thin lines on yours look great; the fat lines on mine, not so much. See below what the fat lines look like on our Vermont trips, where we chased down over 100 covered bridges. And when you then show the entire US, Vermont becomes pretty much a blob, as the lines (shown here on Streets and Maps) do not scale down in width (admittedly, this might still be somewhat true with thinner lines, with us covering so many little back roads, often close together).

I can't speak for Booster, but I think his comments are more about planning and following a route.

As Davydd mentioned, we also "go where the wind blows us" (generally; trying to follow the original Lincoln highway across Pennsylvania being a prime exception), so for us, it's more the plotting after the fact.

Having said that, also being able to plot a route in advance, and being able to see it on a "bigger than GPS device size" screen in real time would also be great, even if we don't follow that route exactly and/or take detours to interesting places, etc. So as you mentioned Winston, this would have to have to be offline to be effective, and somehow the device (laptop or tablet) would need to have, or be hooked up to, a GPS receiver.

Thanks, Dick

Hi Winston et al,

I invested in a "new" copy of DeLorme Topo 10. I mentioned above that I had the program, but was unable to load it. I'm guessing that the disc remembers that you've used it before, and when you try to load it on another computer, it just ejects it from the drive.

Anyway, I'd like to tell you that all problems are solved with this but they aren't. Even with Topo, I'm getting fat lines and too much background clutter. I've been through the options menu, and turned off everything I could, and I don't see anywhere to make the lines thinner like on Winston's. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks, Dick

[Winston]

Originally Posted by dicktill

Anyway, I'd like to tell you that all problems are solved with this but they aren't. Even with Topo, I'm getting fat lines and too much background clutter.

We can partially solve your problems. Go back to our Post #7 of this thread. There we posted DeLorme 10 screen prints, actually three laid over one-another to explose the lower panel (that has to be enabled/open). Notice the second of the three lower panels . . . shows a line editing button on the far left, depressed. In this screen you can adjust the "Style" and "Width" of lines. You can also adjust color in there someplace.

The problem with 'clutter' we probably can't do anything more than you've already done by 'turning things off'. Things (clutter) come and go according to scaling . . . but, DeLorme's logic is sometimes lost on us. For example, a city label, clearly visible when panned out, often disappears when zooming in - - exactly the opposite of the expected action where labels drop off as the scale increases (to, guess what, declutter the screen). We often adjust the scale 'just enough' to get some of the detailed roads to 'disappear'.

See if you can duplicate the maps/scales we showed in our opening post and see if your clutter is different than ours. If so, send us a screen print and we'll play further.

PS: Click on the 'down arrow' attached to the right side of the "Options" button; then enable the "Show Tab Enable Panel". This will turn-on the lower area, necessary for a host of activities such as importing tracks and changing lines. Further, we just zoomed-out slightly on "Pennsylvania" in our DeLorme and most of the roads disappeared without having to make the map scale much larger.

[dicktill]

Originally Posted by Winston

We can partially solve your problems. Go back to our Post #7 of this thread. There we posted DeLorme 10 screen prints, actually three laid over one-another to explose the lower panel (that has to be enabled/open). Notice the second of the three lower panels . . . shows a line editing button on the far left, depressed. In this screen you can adjust the "Style" and "Width" of lines. You can also adjust color in there someplace.

The problem with 'clutter' we probably can't do anything more than you've already done by 'turning things off'. Things (clutter) come and go according to scaling . . . but, DeLorme's logic is sometimes lost on us. For example, a city label, clearly visible when panned out, often disappears when zooming in - - exactly the opposite of the expected action where labels drop off as the scale increases (to, guess what, declutter the screen). We often adjust the scale 'just enough' to get some of the detailed roads to 'disappear'.

See if you can duplicate the maps/scales we showed in our opening post and see if your clutter is different than ours. If so, send us a screen print and we'll play further.

PS: Click on the 'down arrow' attached to the right side of the "Options" button; then enable the "Show Tab Enable Panel". This will turn-on the lower area, necessary for a host of activities such as importing tracks and changing lines. Further, we just zoomed-out slightly on "Pennsylvania" in our DeLorme and most of the roads disappeared without having to make the map scale much larger.

Hi Winston,

Thanks as always for your detailed response, and apologies for not seeing some of these things that you already explained in post #7; I hate it when that happens. : (

I opened a new file in Topo, set the line width to the thinnest option, and the line style to solid, and re-imported one of my gpx files. Again, it used the same odd triple-line style as I posted before (in post #33), so perhaps that line setting is only used for a new route you draw (within the Topo program), rather than an imported file? And I didn't see a way to modify an existing line to the new choice either, but perhaps it is there. Maybe I need to export my routes (from Ride with GPS) in a different file format than gpx (klm and tcx are other options)?

I also did try zooming out as you proposed, and yes, if I zoom out enough, the roads disappear. I'd sure like an option to at least delete the route numbers (especially the interstates, that we rarely use) though when not zoomed out so much.

Regards, Dick

[Winston]

Originally Posted by dicktill

I opened a new file in Topo, set the line width to the thinnest option, and the line style to solid, and re-imported one of my gpx files. Again, it used the same odd triple-line style . . .

The tracks that we import are .TXT (text) files in the following format:

BEGIN LINE
decimal.lat,-decimal.long
decimal.lat,-decimal.long
.
.
.
decimal.lat,-decimal.long
decimal.lat,-decimal.long
END

You can experiment/verify this works with just two waypoints preceded with the BEGIN LINE and ending with the END. Make it a .TXT file. You should get a straight narrow, black line between those two points.

By the way if you have 'interruptions' in your track files (where the program jumps between two discontinuous track segments and draws a straight line 'across' that 'interruption', the solution is to place the END command where the interruption starts, and a BEGIN LINE at the beginning of the new track segment. This removes the erroneous line segment improperly bridging the two legitimate segments.

If you need help doing the conversion, let us know. Incidentally, we use an old Garmin program MapSource to download files from our GPS. This program allows for both .GPX and .TXT downloading - - a little easier working with the latter.

Winston

[dicktill]

Originally Posted by Winston

The tracks that we import are .TXT (text) files in the following format:

BEGIN LINE
decimal.lat,-decimal.long
decimal.lat,-decimal.long
.
.
.
decimal.lat,-decimal.long
decimal.lat,-decimal.long
END

You can experiment/verify this works with just two waypoints preceded with the BEGIN LINE and ending with the END. Make it a .TXT file. You should get a straight narrow, black line between those two points.

By the way if you have 'interruptions' in your track files (where the program jumps between two discontinuous track segments and draws a straight line 'across' that 'interruption', the solution is to place the END command where the interruption starts, and a BEGIN LINE at the beginning of the new track segment. This removes the erroneous line segment improperly bridging the two legitimate segments.

If you need help doing the conversion, let us know. Incidentally, we use an old Garmin program MapSource to download files from our GPS. This program allows for both .GPX and .TXT downloading - - a little easier working with the latter.

Winston

Oh wow! I have no idea how to begin to make such txt files from my gpx files, certainly not by hand! And I don't really want to start all over again, punching in points on a map: way, way too many of those. Any easy way to do this?

[Winston]

Originally Posted by dicktill

Oh wow! I have no idea how to begin to make such txt files from my gpx files . . .

Send us a copy of the GPX file and we'll see if we can do something with it. We know there are programs/utilities for file conversion, but before searching, let us give it a try. Send to rwinstonslater@gmail.com

Winston

[dicktill]

Originally Posted by Winston

Send us a copy of the GPX file and we'll see if we can do something with it. We know there are programs/utilities for file conversion, but before searching, let us give it a try. Send to rwinstonslater@gmail.com

Winston

File sent.