[gps-talkusers] Re: Creating Useful Routes

  • From: "Jana Schroeder" <jlschroeder@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 19:20:57 -0500

Thanks.  i apologize as I wrote my last message last night but it apparently
did not get sent until just a few minutes ago.  i had only read dave's
response to me at the time I sent the last message.

I have a bunch more questions but will try to keep it at just a couple for
this message.

While there are lots of places that I want to make points of interest, many
of these may also need to be a waypoint within a route (a place where one
needs to make a turn, for example).  Is there a way to make a POI a waypoint
in a route or do I just create a new waypoint for that location each time I
create a new route in which i want to use that POI as a waypoint?

I also noticed today as I followed the first route I created across campus
to my office that every single waypoint and POI I had created was identified
as being in the opposite direction from me as it actually was.  Is this just
a function of the inaccuracy of the GPS or did I do something wrong as I was
creating this route?  I understand that the GPs can't be accurate down to a
couple of feet and since i'm walking along sidewalks that are just a couple
of feet wide, it's likely that things won't always be right, butI found it
interesting that every single thing I had included in the route was
identified incorrectly.  I had good satellite reception, too.

Thanks,
Jana


-----Original Message-----
From: gps-talkusers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:gps-talkusers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Michael May
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 7:21 PM
To: gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gps-talkusers] Re: Creating Useful Routes


Jana,

You cannot copy and paste routes to each other. You can only copy and
paste points within a route.

If a route has points in close proximity, you should turn on the
Force Sequential mode so the subsequent waypoints do not trigger
prematurealy.

Mike

>Hi Dave,
>
>Thanks.  These comments are helpful, and I, too, hope others will chime in.
>
>Just to clarify, I wasn't expecting the GPS to help identify where
>sidewalks are available.  I was bringing this up in two
>regards.  First, how do people handle creating a route in which they
>need to make several turns in close proximity as in the case of
>needing to cross both streets when one comes to an intersection and
>then perhaps needing to make a turn once on the correct corner in
>order to be heading down the block one wants to travel down
>next.  Second, I was asking about whether one can create an
>alternate route to one that would be provided if one asked the GPS
>to automatically create a route and then if that manually created
>route can be appended to other routes so that one can follow the
>manually created route and at the end travel (depending on the route
>one has open) to a variety of different locations that are possible
>after getting to that point.  Don't know if that makes things any
>clearer or not.
>
>Thanks,
>Jana
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: gps-talkusers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>[mailto:gps-talkusers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Dave
>Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 7:50 PM
>To: gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [gps-talkusers] Re: Creating Useful Routes
>
>Hi Jana,
>
>Your note is a long one.  I will offer some of my opinions and we
>can hope for help from more experienced users too.  Basically you
>asked some routing questions, and some about the accuracy of the GPS.
>
>A point of interest does not need to be part of a rout so if you
>want the dormitory that you may never visit to be a POI so if you
>arrive at it, you will know you are not where you want to be, you
>could designate it as such without it not being part of any
>rout.  If you do that you would always be able to find it and create
>a rout to it if you wanted to in the future.  In the case of
>diagonal sidewalks though, you might try switching your heading to
>clock mode so you can see the angle you are traveling at and you may
>never find that residence hall you don't wish to visit.
>
>I am not totally sold on the absolute accuracy of any GPS at this
>point so I may be corrected on this but I don't think you could
>create a rout accurate enough to tell you when to cross a street
>because of available sidewalk.  I believe that GPS will help you
>find the corner you are looking for and after that, it's up to you
>to make the best decisions that meet your needs.
>
>I believe that the GPS is more than a gadget.  For example, you
>should never get lost again, but if you should find yourself off
>rout, you should be able to find your way back independently, which
>is a heck of a good thing.  I don't think the GPS is accurate in
>distances to the next street, but it will always tell you what the
>next street is going to be before you reach it.  That is why I don't
>believe that WAAS technology is very helpful to us.  I don't think
>it's as much GPS accuracy as it is the maps.  For example, I could
>walk up and down the street in front of my house all day long and it
>will never give the correct street number, it just isn't
>there.  However, once I created a POI called home, it fines home
>with no problem, but if I check the GPS to see what address I am
>near, it will still not be correct unless I name the street number
>as my home, as part of the POI information, then it will give me
>that information unless I ask specifically what address I am near,
>then GPS will default to the maps, and it will not be correct, but I
>will be home, which is where I want to be.
>
>I believe, for example, that if one marks their car as a POI so they
>can find it in a large [parking lot when they are finished shopping
>that it's possible that they could walk around within 30 feet of
>their car, looking for it for a while.  However, if one forgot where
>they parked GPS would get them headed in the right direction and
>within 30 feet or less of the car, so if one has one of those remote
>horn buttons you would certainly be close enough to find the car by sound.
>
>Hope this helps some, and I too look forward to comments from others.
>
>Dave
>
>To read about the next Peace Seekers meeting click on the link below.
>
><http://www.ThePeaceSeekers.org/program/>http://www.ThePeaceSeekers.org/pro
gram/
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <mailto:jlschroeder@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>Jana Schroeder
>To: <mailto:gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 2:05 PM
>Subject: [gps-talkusers] Creating Useful Routes
>
>Hello,
>
>I am new to GPS and am just beginning the process of learning how to
>create and edit routes.  i work at a small college on a residential
>campus with many meandering sidewalks and thrange intersections.  It
>seems that whenever a new building has been constructed, they have
>added sidewalks but never taken any existing sidewalks out.  plus, I
>have seriously been told that decisions about where to place new
>sidewalks have been made by observing the most common paths taken by
>people who cut through the grass.  In any case, there are a number
>of tricky spots, and if one gets onto a different sidewalk than the
>one intended, a person can end up in a completely different location
>on campus than expected.  So you can imagine that I am excited about
>the prospect of creating many routes and points of interest to help
>me more reliably navigate around campus.
>
>I already have several questions that I imagine some of you more
>experienced folks can help with.
>
>First, I am wondering what strategies people have used to create
>routes and points of interest.  By that  I am wondering if people
>generally go around an area and create a bunch of points of interest
>and then go back and record routes taking them from place to place
>that they need to go or do they do it the other way around or do
>they just record the points of interest as they go.  Here's an
>example to illustrate what I mean.  I was creating a route today
>from the building I work in to my home which is a few blocks from
>campus.  There is one place where two sidewalks split apart.  If you
>accidentally stay on the right fork instead of taking the left, you
>will end up at a residence hall.  I don't normally visit this
>residence hall so probably don't need a route to it, but it would be
>helpful to have it designated as a point of interest so if I
>accidentally approach it I will be alerted as to where I am.  I
>thought for a minute about walking over to the dorm today to record
>the POI but then realized that this little detour would then be part
>of the route I was recording and wondered if that meant that if I
>didn't take the same detour every time I was in the route I'd be
>told I was off course.  So it would be helpful to know how others
>have approached this.
>
>I also wonder how people have designated turns where you need to
>cross a street in one direction and then cross the other street in
>order to get to the corner you want to proceed on.  I have read that
>you don't want t oput two waypoints too close together.  So what do
>I do if I come to an intersection and want to turn left, cross the
>street and then turn right and cross again and then turn left to
>proceed down the block.  There are some intersections where i only
>cross in a certain way because it's not a perfect intersection
>and/or there are not sidewalks on all corners or some other feature
>that makes it a better idea to cross in a certain way tha nin
>another.  How do people handle this when creating a route?  Also, if
>the right/left/straight designation is off, is this what will
>trigger the GPS to say that you are off your route or is that based
>on how you walk when you are recording the route regardless of what
>you specified when asked straight, left or right?
>
>Finally, I have noticed that even when the GPS says it is getting
>good satellite reception i am being told that the next intersection
>is 198 feet ahead when, by my estimation, it is more like 50 feet
>ahead.  It's my understanding that by changing if the announcement
>is made sooner or later this is based on the GPS's guess about how
>far you are from an intersection or POI, but if the accuracy of the
>distance from the intersection or POI seems to be considerably off,
>is there anything to be done about that?  Do some cities have
>information that is just 'off" or what?
>
>In terms of creating a route, do I need to specify a destination
>and, if so, should I do that before starting out or once I get there
>or do I only do that if I want to have the program create an
>automatic route for me?
>
>is there any way besides traveling the route over and over to make a
>certain sequence part of multiple routes?  In my situation, I walk
>to work via a different route than that generated if I do an
>automatic route from my house to the campus because there are not
>sidewalks on many parts of streets around here so i have to take
>that into consideration.  Thus, I want to have routes from my house
>to a number of different points on campus.  Can I take the part of
>the route that is common to all and somehow drop it into other
>routes?  If it involves route editing, I'd appreciate some specific
>instructions on how people have done this--if it is typically done
>sitting down in one place or if you do it as you'r ewalking on the
>route or if that depends, then what factors are involved in deciding
>what method to use?
>
>I apologize for so many different questions in one message.  I hope
>that folks can help with each of these areas as I want this to be
>more than an interesting gadget which is what it will be if I can't
>figure out how to create quality routes.
>
>Thanks,
>Jana Schroeder
>


Michael G. May

CEO Sendero Group

Developers and distributors of BrailleNote GPS
Distributing BrailleNote, VoiceNote, Miniguide, The Tissot Silen-T
tactile watch, Talks cell phone software and the ID Mate, bar code reader

MikeMay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.SenderoGroup.com

(1-888-757-6810, Fax (530) 757-6830, Mobile (530) 304-0007
Sendero Group, LLC
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