Shaping point always alert

[archer1954]

Hi,

I'm having a problem creating routes using Basecamp 4.6.2 ( I use this version as it works with Google earth 7.1.7.2606) and transferring them to a Zumo 550. It have never happened in any of the routes I have created before and it is driving me mad. I create a route with plenty of shaping points and make sure that are all set to "wont alert". I then send them to my 550 and it imports OK and the route is OK but it alerts on all the shaping points. The same route sent to my 395 works fine.

Anyone have any idea whats going on?

Many thanks.

[sussamb]

Your 550 won't accept shaping points from BaseCamp, so it turns them all into viapoints, which alert. Your 395 is a more modern device and will accept shaping points. That's what's going on

[archer1954]

Its about 4 years since I used it last and had no problem creating routes with shaping points then and went down through Portugal and back through Spain with none of them giving alerts. Is this something that have come about after a firmware upgrade/basecamp upgrade or is my memory getting really bad.

[sussamb]

I think your memory is bad, I don't think the 550 ever accepted shaping points.

[MSTOCK27370]

Not sure what is going on, but I have a 550 and my routes definitely don’t announce every point.

[Breezly]

If you place your points directly in an intersection, or on a section of road that does not have street addresses, the points will not announce. These are different from shaping points created in Basecamp though.

[MSTOCK27370]

If you place your points directly in an intersection, or on a section of road that does not have street addresses, the points will not announce. These are different from shaping points created in Basecamp though.

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT!

This really makes you wonder if the Garmin engineers actually use their products. When I purchased a Zumo 590 recently I had an anomaly with one of my routes. Turns out there are a lot of helpful documents and posts that strongly recommend that you DO NOT place shaping points at an intersection. Before the 590, I had a couple of StreetPilot 2600 units and I also (still) have a 550. I knew that I had previously created my routes for the 550 and SP2600s with all of the points directly on intersections. They all worked great. I couldn't remember why I was told that you had to do this. And here it is.

I brought my 450 and 550 inside and altered one of my routes, adding a shaping point into a section of one of the roads. I turned the GPS mode to OFF and ran a simulation of driving the route. It didn't take very long and suddenly the shaping point that I had added was being announced and there was a FLAG for it on the screen.

So, routes for the 450 and 550 (possibly others too) should be created with the Via Points AT intersections. And routes for the 590, 595 (and others?) should have their shaping points placed AWAY from intersections. And if you have both of these devices good luck to you trying to manage THAT.
Good grief!!!

[sussamb]

Not quite, newer devices will accept shaping points from BaseCamp wherever you place them. Older devices don't. Doesn't matter whether it's a Zumo, nuvi, whatever. Garmin listened to customer requests so that shaping points could be sent from BaseCamp and remain as shaping points on the device

[Breezly]

Shaping points I described as being created by placing them directly on intersections do have some issues. The issues come about because the point characteristics that cause them to not be announced is tied to the underlying map data. The info comes from the map not the gpx file. This often caused issues when sharing routes to another device using a different map version and often one would need to update route files when you updated to a newer map version. I'm involved with a group that creates and shares tons of routes and using routes with points placed in intersections did not work well for sharing.

Shaping points created in Basecamp are an enormous improvement for those devises that can utilize the additional data contained in the gpx file. Although I will say that we do get occasional reports of devices dropping some shaping points from routes entirely on older devices using Routeplanner. For that reason we now create two versions of our routes; one using shaping points (and fewer than 30 via points) for newer devices and one without shaping points for older devices.

[MSTOCK27370]

Not quite, newer devices will accept shaping points from BaseCamp wherever you place them. Older devices don't. Doesn't matter whether it's a Zumo, nuvi, whatever. Garmin listened to customer requests so that shaping points could be sent from BaseCamp and remain as shaping points on the device

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=786
This thread, that I started for my 590 showed how shaping points on an intersection could cause the 590 to report incorrect "Distance to Turn" figures. So, for me, in BaseCamp my routes have shaping points after the intersections - for my 590. And in MapSource, my routes have the points at the intersections for my 450 and 550. Whew - exhausting.