Loading MRA Routes Garmin Zumo XT

[Les]

Thanks for the reply, always interested in navigation techniques etc.. regarding Streetview, this can be accessed in Mapsource (my chosen routing tool) by right clicking on any point in the mapping and selecting 'View in Google Maps'.

I didn't know you could do that! Is it a proper street view, not just a satellite view?

It opens up with a little menu which includes satellite imagery, which can easily be switched to mapping or street view.

[colirv]

When using the HERE maps, the route in my tests did not automatically calculate the route from gpx v1.1. It stripped out the shaping points, kept the Via Points, but the original route is kept intact - until it is forced to recalculate anyway.

Mine kept the shaping points in, but stripped them out of 1.2 - the reverse of what you found!

MRA offers the option to email a route using whatever gpx format you care to specify. If you send an email to your smart phone, Garmin Drive will pick it up and it can be transferred to the XT's Tracks and Trip Planner immediately.

Of course if you're using a tablet, which is what I will normally be doing, you simply save the gpx on the tablet, open it in Drive and send it via bluetooth to the XT. This for me alone justifies the cost of MRA. But from the PC that is a useful tip.

Another benefit - the route that Basecamp calculated differed at one point from the route that MRA calculated, shown as a track in Basecamp. MRA was right, Basecamp used a silly little shortcut, as it sometimes does. The nice thing is that the XT itself got it right, which surprised me!

[jfheath]

When you are going point to point, there are bound to be differences. If that matters, then add a shaping point to force the calculation to include a particular road. I am still trying to work out what the XT actually does.

It recalculated my route the other day after I skipped a misplaced Via Point that I didn't want to visit. 9 miles further on it decided to take a main road route to reach the next Via Point 8 miles further on. My route was shorter, but took half a minute longer than the faster route.

I ignored the satnav and went on my route anyway. It tried to get me to turn round to go its faster way. I didn't. I expected it to give up and realise that the way ahead was now faster. It didn't. It kept trying to get me to go back to take its faster road. With just one mile ahead to the next Via Point, it was still trying to take me back to where I had left its new route which was now 7 miles back, and then take the 'faster route' which was about 12 miles from there. So a journey of 19 miles to reach a point just one mile ahead. So the priority seemed to be to stick to the route that it had calculated, rather than to get to the next Via Point.

With half a mile to go, it recalculated and decided to go straight ahead. There were no shaping points to cause this behaviour.

I have yet to repeat the exercise before reporting it, but I have the screenshots.

I'm stumped. I cannot work out the logic that it is using. But I will !

[colirv]

I'm stumped. I cannot work out the logic that it is using. But I will !

Gan' on, as they say up here!

[Richard_R]

Of course if you're using a tablet, which is what I will normally be doing, you simply save the gpx on the tablet, open it in Drive and send it via bluetooth to the XT. This for me alone justifies the cost of MRA. But from the PC that is a useful tip.

That is what I do. With MRA being cloud based it is easy to access preplanned routes from a phone or tablet and simply save them locally then use Drive to transfer to the XT.

Another benefit - the route that Basecamp calculated differed at one point from the route that MRA calculated, shown as a track in Basecamp. MRA was right, Basecamp used a silly little shortcut, as it sometimes does. The nice thing is that the XT itself got it right, which surprised me!

Two more benefits of MRA.
If you ride with others who use MRA you can share routes and collaborate on creating them.
With my level of MRA at least I can also create a route in Here maps and overlay the same route in TomTom Gold and iron out the differences between the two sorts of software so that both TomTom and Garmin GPS direct users down exactly the same route. I used to use this feature a lot when I had a TomTom GPS. It's amazing how the two sorts of software quite often pick subtly different options for navigating routes and when you are riding with a group of people using both systems unless you sort out the differences it can cause quite a bit of confusion.

[jfheath]

When using the HERE maps, the route in my tests did not automatically calculate the route from gpx v1.1. It stripped out the shaping points, kept the Via Points, but the original route is kept intact - until it is forced to recalculate anyway.

Mine kept the shaping points in, but stripped them out of 1.2 - the reverse of what you found!

2 years later, I've just spotted this error on my part.

in between times I posted detailed info about 1.1 and 1.2 from MRA. Here and following page.

in a nutshell :
v1.1 contains only route points, via and shaping. No ghost points to plot the route. Zumo has to calculate it.
v1.2 contains a ghost point plot of the entire route, but keeps only the Via points. Shaping points are all removed

I'll go back and correct my original post, but keep the error in the section that was quoted. Otherwise the thread will make no sense.

[epv]

Is there a difference between importing gpx 1.1 (transfer route and shaping points, allow XT to calculate the route) and importing gpx 1.2 (no shaping points, but entire route as ghost points, no recalculation) in terms of the XT's behavior when deviating from the expected path?

My fear is that I will come to a detour of some sort and lose navigation because it will constantly be trying to direct me back to the point at which I deviated despite its distance.

On my first ride with the XT, tree cover apparently degraded accuracy enough for it to conclude I had teleported to a forestry trail parallel to the actual road I was on, and from that point forward for the next 20 miles the XT kept repeating "Make a U turn when possible" even after I had reached the ultimate destination of the trip.

Furthermore, in either the gpx 1.1 or gpx 1.2 case, is it necessary to also modify the "IsImported" flag in the trip file prior to trying to use the route, or is that only needed for trips originating in Basecamp?

(i must say, as a new user of the XT, if it were not for the expertise contained in several years of posts here, I'd probably have given up on the device by now, so thank you all very much.)

[jfheath]

Is there a difference between importing gpx 1.1 (transfer route and shaping points, allow XT to calculate the route) and importing gpx 1.2 (no shaping points, but entire route as ghost points, no recalculation) in terms of the XT's behavior when deviating from the expected path?

My fear is that I will come to a detour of some sort and lose navigation because it will constantly be trying to direct me back to the point at which I deviated despite its distance.

Neither of MyRouteApp (MRA) formats are ideal for the Zumo XT, in my opinion.

MRA's GPX Version 1.1 Contains the Via Points and Shaping Points. It does not contain anything that indicates which roads are to be travelled. It leaves the XT1 to calculate a route between each of the points. If you have sufficient carefully chosen route points, then the XT1 will probably come up with a route that is very similar to the one created by MRA.

But - the gpx file also contains a track of the original route - and the XT1 will display the route and the track on the same screen. So if there is a difference then you have a choice. Follow the XT calculated route - the magenta line. Or follow your original route the (black) track. (I like my tracks to be black - they stand out very well against the daytime XT screen).

MRA's GPX Version 1.2 contains a very accurate plot of the route using what I call 'ghost points'. These are points that are placed very close together. When the XT1 receives it - it will plot the route EXACTLY as MRA created it. The problem is that the gpx file contains only the Via Point (hands) that were plotted in the MRA app. It does not contains any of the tear drop shaping points. This means that if the route is recalculated at any time, then the XT1 will have only your Via Points to work with - the result will be very different. This means that you must make sure that the XT cannot recalculate the route. There is an option in Settings->Naviagtion->Off Route Recacluation which can be set to 'Off'. But other things - Noteably Traffic / Road closures - give you no choice. These too can be turned off - but if you forget .......


I think that I would use GPX Version 1.1 is probably the one that I would use. I tend to use very few Via Points - for my coffee breaks. The rest are shaping points. Having those stripped out by using 1.2 would mess my routes up considerably. But although I have MRA Lifetime membership, I do not use it a great deal. @Stu - the site owner - uses it a lot - he probably does the same - but I'll mention him so that he can confirm or correct my assumption.

Furthermore, in either the gpx 1.1 or gpx 1.2 case, is it necessary to also modify the "IsImported" flag in the trip file prior to trying to use the route, or is that only needed for trips originating in Basecamp?

The 'always wanting you to go back' scenario could be a number of things. The most common reason is that when you set off, you did not go through the start point ! You follow the magenta line, but it is always wanting to go back the way that you have come. For this reason, I always put my start point about a mile up the road - give the stanav chance to get a signal. The satnav will navigate you to the start and continue from there.

However - under certain circumstances - the nature of any imported route to the XT1 and XT2 will change. That means any file transferred from MRA or Basecamp. Any GPX file place in internal storage. Any GPX file placed on the SD card. Any gpx file trasnferred to the XT using the Drive App. It seems to happen when the route is recalculated for whatever reason. I can always make the XT route change behaviour by using the Skip button to miss a route point. Other people on here have mentioned other circumstances - which I have not been able to reproduce.

Subsequently, the behaviour of the navigation of the route that you are following is altered :

1. It no longer treats the next route point as its next target, if you deviate from the plotted route. Instead it seems to aim for the place where the active route is closest to your present location. If you have just turned off the route and it has asked you to turn back - that closest point is behind you. And it gets stuck in a never ending loop.
2. It no longer treats shaping points as points that you have to visit. If it can see the route beyond the shaping point is closer than the shaping point - it will remove the shaping point from the route. Video Link here - After Skip. Shaping Point: Imported Route vs Saved Route
3. Oddly - the same applies to Via points. Video Link here - After Skip. Via Point: Imported Route vs Saved Route

But curiously - if you build your route just using the XT screen, it never does this. And the trick to making a route believe that it has been built on the XT screen is to set the mImported byte to 0. ie the route has NOT been imported.

But there is a little trick that I use to save having to plug in the XT and alter a route after sending it.


Load the route on the XT. eg Apps -> Trip Planner -> Saved Trips -> MyGPXRoute
Select Go. Select the start point. Select Start.
Then back out of the screen.
Apps -> Trip Planner -> Saved Trips. Select - My Active Route and then 'Save'. Give it a new name eg #MyGPXRoute

Note that #MyGPXRoute is listed under Saved Trips. Select it.

Check the route list. THere is a new route point above the original start - labelled 'Coordinates'. That is where you were when you created the copy.

Say Go ! You are asked to Select Next Destination. Don't select 'Coordinates'. Don't elect 'Closest Entry Point '
Instead - select the original start point. (3rd one down).

That route will behave perfectly no matter where it has come from. Even if you have to skip a route point.
There is a video of me doing this on an XT screen here

Note that if you are planning a ride some distance away from home, it is best to perform this operation the night before your ride. That is becasue the XT has to calculate a route from your current position to the start - which may take some time, or it may fail.
Alternatively - you can turn of the satellite reception and set your current location near to the start, and then make a copy of the route.
It doesn't matter - you are going to ignore the new point that it puts in, and set the original start as the next destination.

[Mzokk]

I personally use GPX 1.1 and download and show the route and the track to ensure that the number of shaping points I have put into the route makes the route follow the roads that I want to be on. If the track and route are displayed any variations on the recalculation of the GPX1.1 route are easily displayed. GPX 1.2 is fine if you turn off recalculation completely and or are happy enough only end up at your selected Via Points via the roads the XT selects if it recalculates. For me, I do many "Circular Routes" so if a gpx 1.2 route was re-calculated I'd end up back where I started fairly quickly. If you have recalculation turned on ( I use prompted) or for some reason have to do a big detour for me GPX1.1 gives me more flexibility for varying the route on the fly. However, everyone has their own way of using these things and we are in the lucky position that the Tools in MRA, Basecamp and other GPS navigation software and systems are flexible enough to cope with our own preferences. Try navigation with both types of file and see what your personal preferences are.

[Stu]

Yes I do indeed use MRA for all my routes and I save them in GPX 1.1 as rightly said it imports all the waypoints/via points etc

Where as the 1.2 strips all that out and if you go off route it will recalculate and destroy the route and just take you to the next waypoint