2.18 Trip Design, Shaping Points
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Where is the best place to put them ?
End Point
Placing the end point is easy, isn’t it ? Surely it goes precisely at the point that you wish to reach ?
Well, yes, but the actual hotel front door isn’t always the best place to stop. The car park at the rear may provide better access. Basecamp’s database of Waypoints might include your destination, but in my experience the positions are not very accurate. Use the instructions on the hotel’s website, or use Street View or Satellite imagery to identify the precise location - and plot that - use the Waypoint Flag tool, and your point will be added to the database and transferred to the list of Favourites or Saved Locations in the Zumo XT.
Of course, you have to add the Waypoints that you create to your trip !
Start Point
So the start point goes at the start, surely ? Well I prefer not.
The Start Point is just a special Via Point, and Via Points insist that you visit them. The chance of parking your motorcycle precisely where you plotted your Start Point is pretty slim, especially if you need fuel first or you intend to start with a group of other bikers. You can’t all fit on the exact start location. You may well be nagged by the satnav to visit the Start Point as soon as you set off.
Suggestion: The Start Point is better placed on a road which you know that you will be taking after setting off. Once the route is selected, the Zumo will take you to the Start Point from wherever you are now, and then continue navigating.
In Pic 1, the start point is the orange flag. The bike is somewhere in the middle of Skipton. The XT has plotted a route to the Start Point and then continues on the planned magenta route.
Shaping Points
These are simply devices to force your Trip along particular routes, rather than places to visit. Never place them on a junction. Place them on the road well after the junction - but beware the opportunity for the satnav to shortcut the corner along some back road. Beware of this possibility when riding. An unexpected turn onto a quiet side road or into a housing estate is not likely to be something that you have planned. It is likely to be the Zumo finding a faster or a shorter route. Ignore it and it will calculate a better one.
Sometimes a couple of shaping points placed along a road - breaking it into thirds - may be required to pin a route to a particular road. This can be quite effective in preventing the satnav from navigating to a shaping point and then doubling back to the main road.
A nice feature is that when riding with the Zumo XT is that Shaping Points can be ignored.
Here are two examples showing the behaviour of Shaping Points when riding along. You can tell that they are Shaping Points - they are plotted on screen as small blue circles. (Via Points are plotted as flags).
Pic 2 The Shaping Point (circled) is slightly misplaced. The satnav will tell me to turn left, but I can see that it is wrong. I can ride past the junction and the XT will not complain. Because I am still on the intended route after the Shaping Point, it will not try to take me back to it.
Pic 3 The Shaping Point is located some way to the right on Main Street. I can ignore this instruction to turn right and ride straight ahead on the short unplotted course. The satnav will attempt to navigate me back to the Shaping Point, but as soon as I rejoin the magenta line after the junction it will stop nagging me to go back, and continue navigating ahead as if nothing had happened.
The ‘Coffee Stop’ diagram on the next page is a good example of using a combination of Shaping Point and Via Point in order to provide a choice of whether to stop or not when riding.
The XT doesn't find the [i]fastest[/i] route between two points. It describes it as finding a 'Faster' route, and in order to do this, it seems to prefer taking faster roads. ie main roads. So much so that it will make a journey much longer in distance and time in order to utilise faster roads.
It is sometimes necessary to identify the roads that you need to travel and ensure that the satnav takes them by placing a couple of Shaping Points at (say) on third intervals - in order to prevent it from visitng a single point and then doubling back. It isn't always necessary - only if there are main roads in the area to which it might be attracted.
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The information on these pages has been acquired from personal experience of using and testing the behaviour of Basecamp and my Zumo XT. I have no links with Garmin, and these pages should not be regarded as instructions. They are presented for interest only. The contents of these pages must not be shared, copied, transmitted, redistributed or re-published in any form without my permission. (C) JHeath 2021.