Delaware Valley Orienteering Association

Topic created by DaveDarrah on Wed Mar 21, 2012 at 7:28 am

DaveDarrah
Num Posts: 47
Primary Club: DVOA
Fav map: Fatlands
First O: 1976

Thank goodness for progress!

I've been mapping my O routes via GPS since last May, using a wrist GPS unit from Garmin (Forerunner 305).
Until yesterday, it was always a long, drawn-out process, as I referred to handwritten notes, to turn the data
in the Garmin into a route on the RouteGadget screen.

But yesterday, an entirely different story as I mapped my Brown run at Elk Neck. No more 'dragging the blue dots.'
As soon as I imported the file, boom, an almost perfect rendition of my (not so perfect) route popped up on
the map. It was so accurate, I decided not to make any modifications at all.

Many thanks to all of you that implemented this improvement, and to anyone who's worked on RouteGadget.
And lastly, of course, to all of you who set courses and direct our meets.

Reply by edscott on Wed Mar 21, 2012 at 9:43 am

edscott
Num Posts: 703
Primary Club: DVOA
Fav map: Hickory Run 1:15000
First O: 1983

Yes the plot of your course seems more accurate than mine that I entered by hand.  Controls 1,2 & 4 on Brown seem to be off just a bit and the program moved me to the middle of the circle rather than the actual flag location. Your route shows the proper location of the flag.

Reply by DSevon on Thu Mar 22, 2012 at 7:06 am

DSevon
Num Posts: 65
Primary Club: DVOA
Fav map:
First O: 2009

I'm glad to hear that the routes are snapping into place now the way they should. I finally took the time this year to learn how to do the georeferencing step for RouteGadget, which relates the map image to actual coordinates.  RouteGadget itself has been able to georeference the map for some time, but we hadn't been doing this step before.

Also, as Ed properly noted, sometimes the control circles aren't exactly in the correct location and that has to do with how the controls are located onto the map.  When the control locations are first uploaded, they appear on the screen in the correct orientation but at a different scale than the map.  I have to align the control locations by clicking on a control then its location on the map followed by the same sequence for a second control. The program then does a transformation to scale the control coordinates to the map coordinates.  Most times I can get things well aligned, but other times some controls will be slightly off. This alignment step has some quirks that are baffling at times.  Even after a couple of attempts, I'm sometimes forced to accept a less then perfect alignment.

Doug

Reply by bobburg on Thu Mar 22, 2012 at 10:55 pm

bobburg
Num Posts: 200
Primary Club: DVOA
Fav map: Batsto
First O: 1999

Thanks so much, Doug. 

Personally I'm techno-challenged.  But I appreciate and bow to your efforts to make RG more techno-saavy.

Maybe sometime this century, when I purchase and start carrying a GPS on courses, I too will be absolutely delighted to find my meandering route choice clicking right into place on the map.  And I'm sure that will inspire true humility.

Thanks.