activity profile - unpaved roads

[m185945]

My vacation will consist of several routes. My activity profile has unpaved roads checked, meaning, I want to avoid unpaved roads. However, there is one route that I need to allow unpaved roads. I do not want to fix this one route (by unchecking unpaved roads) if all routes will be effected by unchecking unpaved roads. Do you know if the activity profiles are unique to a single route or more general? Said another way, do you know how to allow unpaved roads on one route without effecting other routes? I'm using BaseCamp version 4.7.5 and a Zumo XT.

I thank you in advance.
Keith

[Peobody]

You can set a profile at the waypoint level What this allows you to do is to create route points along the unpaved road. Once added to the route you can open each one, from within the window that opens when you double-click a route, and assign 'Direct' routing to it. This will force BaseCamp to route with straight lines between these point. If the unpaved section is long and curvy, or has turns, you may desire a lot of points along it.
Note: When you do this, set the 'Direct" option in the starting route point of each leg that you want to have direct routing.

Edit via point.png (45.07 KiB) Viewed 1356 times

[jfheath]

Well, well, well.

That answers a comment I made a while back.
I knew that the gpx file declared the transportation mode at each via point. I hadn't realised that Basecamp had the ability to set it for each section.

And there it was, all of the time, hiding in plain sight.

I wonder how the XT deals with this. It can only be any use for car, motorcycle or direct - since those are the ony profiles that the Zumo recognises.
But you could the car profile to allow motorways, the motorcyle to disallow motorways. THat will save a heck of a lot of shaping points. (But Faster time is always an issue on the XT).

[Peobody]

I wonder how the XT deals with this. It can only be any use for car, motorcycle or direct - since those are the ony profiles that the Zumo recognises.

I know that it works with the XT in motorcycle profile. I never ride on unpaved roads but I have encounter map error that show a road as unpaved when it it actually paved. Using this waypoint Direct trick works without enabling unpaved roads in the profile.

[rbentnail]

In Base Camp- route options, customize route. You can pick unpaved roads for just that one route.

[jfheath]

In Base Camp- route options, customize route. You can pick unpaved roads for just that one route.

This will certainly work for the route that Basecamp creates - but if the route is recalculated at any time by the XT, it will use the settings that are saved in the Zumo, not the settings that were set in Basecamp. Basecamp doesn't send any of those preferences (eg unpaved roads, and other avoidances) to the Zumo - it sends only the Trasnportation profile (eg Motorcycling) and the Routing preference (eg Faster / Shorter). The XT and 595 is do not recognise 'Curvy Roads' if this was set in Basecamp - it defaults to Faster Time.

If you want the Zumo to use the Basecamp route, then you have to prevent Basecamp from recalculating it. So turn off auto-recalc, and don't do anything to make the Zumo recalculate - eg Skip, or change the routing or vehicle preferences on the Zumo itself. Also if you haven't used the same maps on Basecamp as you have installed on your Zumo, it will ALWAYS recalculate on transfer or import.

You could load a track, select 'Go!, and use that for navigation. The track will never alter, but neither will it issue instructions. If you stray away fromt he plotted track, it simply tells you how far off route you are, and draws a dotted straight line to the place on the track which is closest to your current position.

You could convert the Basecamp track to a Trip. This follows the track exactly and it issues instructions. If you stray away from the track, then again it finds the closest point to your current position - but this time, instead of a straight, dotted line to the closest point, it calculates a route to that point, leaving the original magenta line after that point intact.

Both of the above are really quite useful - but beware the RUT issue - if you deviate from the trip line in such a way that the only solution is to turn round and go back, then this becomes the route back to the original, and it will always want you to go back because just behind you is nearly always the closest point.

@Peobody's suggestion of using a different profile - he suggests Direct - for different sections of the route is a good one.

The Direct profile causes the Zumo to plot straight lines. For the XT, this is the only profile that plots straight lines. 'Off Roading' isn't recognised by the XT as a valid profile**, so it resorts to using Motorcycle. So there are only 3 options that you can use for each route section. Car, Motorcycle and Direct. If you set up different options on the Zumo for the motocycle profile and for the car profile, then you would have some limited control of how the route behaves.

**The same sort of thing applies to other Zumos, but the behaviour is slightly different between the 590, 595 and the XT. I'd have to look up the behaviours in the 590 and 595 - but I posted them on here somewhere. Avoiding the Potholes.

[Peobody]

A comment about using the "Direct" option in a waypoint (the "Edit Via Point" window in BaseCamp)...

Many of us avoid setting route points at intersections. This is necessary when the start of the unpaved section reguires a turn onto it. It serves as the starting point of a segment that you need to assign "Direct" routing to.

[rbentnail]

In Base Camp- route options, customize route. You can pick unpaved roads for just that one route.

This will certainly work for the route that Basecamp creates - but if the route is recalculated at any time by the XT, it will use the settings that are saved in the Zumo, not the settings that were set in Basecamp. Basecamp doesn't send any of those preferences (eg unpaved roads, and other avoidances) to the Zumo - it sends only the Trasnportation profile (eg Motorcycling) and the Routing preference (eg Faster / Shorter). The XT and 595 is do not recognise 'Curvy Roads' if this was set in Basecamp - it defaults to Faster Time.
.

And this is where you and I somewhat differ. When the device is examined in Base Camp, explain to me why a "standard" route has one symbol and a customized one has another. I believe it's because the Transportation properties are different.

ON THE DEVICE, if you change the route Transportation properties details, explain why transportation properties details aren't changed.

[Peobody]

And this is where you and I somewhat differ. When the device is examined in Base Camp, explain to me why a "standard" route has one symbol and a customized one has another. I believe it's because the Transportation properties are different.

I posted a short while ago about how I couldn't figure this out either. A route with custom properties is identifiable as such by the symbol. More compelling is my empirical evidence that the XT treats a route with custom properties differently. However, when looking at a raw .gpx file, there is nothing that I could find that identified the route as having custom properties. Like @rbentnail, I believe it must be there somewhere. Regardless, I also believe that if the device (at least the XT) has a chance to recalculate, Transportation property that had been set in BaseCamp will be ignored.

[jfheath]

Are you sitting comfortably ?

The symbols icons are given by Basecamp to different profiles. Thats all. When i first started using BC, i thought i'd have a motorcycle curvy profile. Created it and gave it my own icon. Was then dismayed to discover it didn't do what I wanted when it got to the Zumo.

In Basecamp: The Driving and Motorcycling options in Bascamp are both profiles. A profile in BC is a set of stored preferences which can be assigned to route. The idea is that you choose your setting for a profile (avoidances such as ferries, unpaved road, interstates, ...) and then assign them to a route. It saves having to enter the settings for every single route. Pick a profile, and use that instead, and your BC route then applies all of the settings that are in that profile.

You can see the effect of this if you change just a single setting - say, in the motorcycle profile. Every single route that uses that profile then gets recalculated. All of them. That is because they were created using that profile as it was, and the settings have just changed - so they all need to be recalculated.

You can create a 'Custom Route' - rather than assigning a profile. In this route, the settings such as avoidances are all stored with the BC route information.

This information is used to calculate the Basecamp route. Nothing else. None of the avoidance settings that are used to calculate the route are transmitted to the Zumo. You can look, but you won't find them. They are not there.

There is one piece of information that is transmitted to the Zumo - the name of the profile that was used in Basecamp ie Motorcycling or Driving. This information is used to trigger the transportation mode in the Zumo. Bike or Car. Just accept that for the time being.

Basecamp also transmits the plot of the route that it has calculated. Thousands of invisible route points that are joined together with short straight lines - a few metres - which keeps the route on the tarmac that Basecamp intended. When you transfer a route from Basecamp to the Zumo it should always be a 100% faithful reproduction of the route that Basecamp calculated. But if the maps on BC and on Zumo are different, the Zumo has to recalculate the route and then it won't be the same. Also if any of the settings in Edit / Options / Device Transfer are ticked.

You can observe this for yourself. Create a route with start and end and a few shaping points, no vias. Make the route have a distinctive shape so that you can recognise it. Then right click on the route and select the option to remove shaping points. The route stays the same, but no longer has any shaping points. Transmit that to the Zumo and load it in, It will keep exactly the same shape - if it doesn't, then you have discovered what is causing you to have problems ! It will stay like that until it has to recalculate the route or part of it. Eg if you deviate. Then without shaping points it will head straight for the end. MRA gpx v1.2 export does the same thing ie strips out the shaping points

.

Ok so that's Basecamp.

When the Zumo receives the route it has three things.
1. The plot of the route, including all of the invisible ghost points and the via points, shaping points and saved waypoints that get placed in favourites, and which, if used in a route, will never have their name changed by the XT.
2. The name of the profile used in Basecamp (Driving, Motorcycling)
3. The routing preference (Faster Time, Shorter Distance)

That's all.

The zumos can have two sets of preferences. Car and Motorcycle. There is also an Offroad profile on some devices, but the way that is handled changes for each of the 590, 595 and XT, so I am going to ignore it in this reply.

I don't know if you have noticed but the Zumo will switch its selected mode of transport when it is placed in different cradles. When new, put the Zumo in the car cradle and the Zumo will be switched to the car profile. It switches to motorcycle if it is put in the motorcycle cradle. It is actually determined by where the power comes from on the XT. But that is when it is new. What it actually does is switch to the vehicle profile that was last in use when it was placed in that cradle. So if you put the 590 into the car cradle, and then switch the profile to motorcycle, the next time you place the Zumo into the car cradle, it will select the motorcycle cradle.

The XT gives a warning when you are about to switch mode, although I haven't seen that recently.


When the route is loaded and Go! is selected, then a few things happen

The profile name in the route is used to select the profile that is to be used in the Zumo.
The routing preference that is set in the route is selected in the Zumo.

The route doesn't change as a result of this, but if the route has to be recalculated at any time it will use these two settings, and in using (say) the motorcycle settings, it will use whatever is set in the Zumo avoidances (for motorcycle) - which are different from those available in BC.
So if the route us recalculated, then it will almost certainly change from the route that was created in BC, unless sufficient shaping and via points were put in place to prevent this from happening. Tactical placing of points is better than an excessive number.

If the Zumo XT receives a route profile name that is not either Driving or Motorcycling, it defaults to using motorcycle in the Zumo.
If the Zumo Xt receives anything other than Faster / Shorter, then it defaults to Faster.

So Custom routes all become Motorcycle.

The 590 and 595 do something similar, but there are different considerations on those models.

There is one that I have omitted. Direct. This is because Direct isn't a profile as such. There are no avoidances, there is no faster/shorter.
If you use the Direct 'profile' for a route, it chooses the straight line option in the Zumo routing preferences.

There are two places that you can read more about this

For the Zumo 590/595. Download the pdf in the first post. Section 4. viewtopic.php?t=521

For the XT. Section 5 and subsequent pages . app.php/ZXT-P38