GPX Versions 1.1 vs 1.2 for Garmin Visually Explained

[John S Parry]

@Steve-Jarrell @carl-lee @marinus-van-deudekom First, thanks for the conversation. I get passionate about this stuff, so sometimes I hit back harder than I should. In my defense, this is my hobby. I love studying maps and their relative behaviors. With due respect, sometimes things are said/implied by "experts" that have no basis in reality and are simply accepted as the gospel by many. In my experience, the value of using "HERE" as a base map for import to Garmin devices is one of them.

The route below is a very recent example:

The black line shows the HERE map route line. You can clearly see with an OSM overlay that the route section around WP#7 is significantly off from where the physical road actually exists. In other words, it's a HERE cartography error that really screwed up running the HERE version of the route. I'd like to say this is the first time I have encountered this kind of HERE error, but I can't. In any case, if you're interested in the details, you can review the topic:

https://forum.myrouteapp.com/topic/11297/another-erratic-routing-incident?page=1

I won't rehash much of what I've already said. But in short, HERE (to me) has too many deficiencies to trust as a base map for Routeplanner development. There is a laundry list of other serious HERE problems I could list but won't do here.

I'll finish by emphasizing that there is too much fear of non-HERE route development. In addition to using OSM in Routeplanner, I also develop routes using a Mac Desktop planner called inRoute, which is completely Apple Maps based. I can export a GPX from inRoute, import it into a Garmin GPS, and have 100% confidence that everything is OK. Again, proven over years of development using that platform. It comes down to having the right mix of shaping points for an accurate recalculation on the Gamin side.

From a cartography and GPS coordinates point of view, I'll take OSM or Apple based maps every time over HERE. This is all from personal experience and not conjecture. As always, I want to learn and if there is something I'm missing here, I'm all ears.

[Marinus van Deudekom]

This whole topic is about getting routes into Garmin devices. Garmin uses Here as road map. Its a known and multiple proved fact that routes created with OSM or TomTom cause problems on those Garmin devices.
Im certainly not stating that the Here map is perfect. Far from that BUT it's the map Garmin uses.
If you want to use OSM be my guest.
By the way my Garmin devices are all sold
Im a MRA RouteXpert so yes I'm promoting MRA. Is it perfect no but pretty damn near close and as far as I'm concerned the number 1 app to navigate with.

[Carl Lee]

@john-s-parry ok, I can see from your link that you've had a very similar conversation before.

I've just had a little play with the base maps and overlays and it's as you say; a route point placed on the road and on the route line in OSM is not necessarily on the route line when you change the base map to HERE even if it appears that way on the OSM/HERE layer. I hope that makes sense - it does to me.

This is probably something I gleaned some time ago and forgot but it leads me to conclude that I'm probably better off sticking to the HERE base map and utilising the OSM layer as a planning aid. I navigate with an XT2.

Route points not placed directly on the HERE roads have given me grief in the past. Don't worry about hitting back, so long as we can all get something out of it all is good.

I'm still working out what my way of going forward is with GPX files for a tour. At the moment I'm favouring GPX1.1 on the SD card as a backup then a quick check to see if it will calculate through Tread too. If it's taking ages, transfer through Tread as GPX1.2 which seems to be much quicker.

Anyway, Road Closures. Any idea if one will promulgate a full route recalculation? I think that's my only major unknown re GPX1.2 and why you may have to disable Traffic.

[Stevedo 6 0]

@Marinus-van-Deudekom Your assertion that Garmin devices use HERE maps is only true if you choose not to load other maps, which is very easy to do. I exclusively use OSM maps on my Garmin devices and have done so in North, Central and South America, New Zealand, Europe including most of Scandinavia and the Baltics and lastly North Africa. I'm currently planning a trip to Australia and will continue to use MRA planner for planning but use my Garmin for navigation. There are currently just too many issues with the Next app for me.

I do not have issues in creating routes in planners that use OSM maps that I can then easily load and use on my Garmin devices.

I'm also currently evaluating the beta version of DMD2 Next and frankly it knocks the spots off MRA.

I currently recommend MRA planner to anyone that asks but actively dissuade people from using MRA Next.

Before anyone replies, please remember that my experiences, views and recommendations are just as valid as yours. I've seen how dismissive MRA jihadists can be of anyone who doesn't fully share their love for anything MRA.

[Steve Jarrell]

@Carl-Lee "What I will stand by is that GPX1.2 is way more forgiving of MRA planning errors than GPX1.1. A very quickly put together MRA route planned (with or without via points) on HERE and transferred with 1.2 always seems to calculate and run whereas 1.1 needs a lot more attention to detail. And like I said, just my experience but I'm always open to new ideas."

You are 100% correct. It's a fact that a route created in the Garmin using the 1.2 format is FAR more likely to follow the route that's shown in MRA than one created with the 1.1 format unless you use a LOT of shaping points.

But why would you? I gave a couple of very clear examples of this at the beginning of this post.

Using the 1.1 vs. the 1.2 format to create the exact route that you planned in MRA in the Garmin, regardless of the map layer, is very tedious and requires that you send the route to the Garmin, let it create the route, then double check it against the track to ensure that it's what you planned in MRA.

I used 1.1 and did it this way many times until I understood exactly what the 1.2 format was how it works. The 1.2 format was created specifically to address this issue and allow you to create a route with far fewer shaping points while ensuring that the route precisely follows the track that you intended.

Here's another interesting fact that I learned just today. My Garmin XT3 actually uses HERE AND OSM mapping data. I have no idea when it uses either one, but it doesn't really concern me as I just want my route to follow my intended track as closely as possible, that the 1.2 format does that the best for me.

[John S Parry]

@Marinus-van-Deudekom said:

This whole topic is about getting routes into Garmin devices. Garmin uses Here as road map. Its a known and multiple proved fact that routes created with OSM or TomTom cause problems on those Garmin devices.
Im certainly not stating that the Here map is perfect. Far from that BUT it's the map Garmin uses.
If you want to use OSM be my guest.
By the way my Garmin devices are all sold
Im a MRA RouteXpert so yes I'm promoting MRA. Is it perfect no but pretty damn near close and as far as I'm concerned the number 1 app to navigate with.

If "it's a known and multiple proved fact that routes created with OSM or TomTom cause problems on those Garmin devices", where is the documentation? Proven facts are usually outlined somewhere for public consumption. This is the second time you've made this assertion, but again provide no context to what "causes problems" means. We all want to learn, but simply throwing out assertions that fly in the face of what others have actually experienced is not helpful.

But I'll take a stab at what you're trying to communicate. If in Routeplanner you create a route using OSM or TomTom, and in that route you minimize the use of shaping points and instead allow OSM/TomTom to make route calculation decisions for you, problems may in fact occur on a Garmin. You're then allowing Garmin, which has different route calculation algorithms, to possibly choose different paths between Via Points. I'd argue that the problem is more with the route creator than with OSM/TomTom. If you're actually talking about something else, please bring some substance that would be helpful.

[John S Parry]

@steve-jarrell I want to take this opportunity to again thank you for what's essentially been a tutorial on the GPX 1.2 format. I feel like a kid at Christmas. I'll never go back to 1.1 format routes again.

With all the dismissive talk about using OSM as the base map, I created a quick route riding the bad HERE cartography road section I outlined earlier. The route I created was with OSM and saved in the 1.2 format.

I imported the route manually into my XT3 without issue. The link to the route is below:

https://www.myrouteapp.com/route/open/14129162

I proceed to ride the XT3 route for educational purposes. It ran without ever triggering the off-route recalculation dialog box, which it did running under 1.1 HERE. The XT3 clearly showed me riding the track of the real path alongside the HERE mapped road that was in the wrong location. It was fun to watch and spoke to the sophistication of the 1.2 format.

Thanks again!

[Steve Jarrell]

@John-S-Parry You're very welcome. Hopefully I have helped others here just a little just like many others have helped me!

We're all learning constantly (otherwise we wouldn't be here!) and the knowledge that we gain from our collective experience and viewpoints benefits all of us!

[Mzokk]

@John-S-Parry said:

@Marinus-van-Deudekom said:

This whole topic is about getting routes into Garmin devices. Garmin uses Here as road map. Its a known and multiple proved fact that routes created with OSM or TomTom cause problems on those Garmin devices.
Im certainly not stating that the Here map is perfect. Far from that BUT it's the map Garmin uses.
If you want to use OSM be my guest.
By the way my Garmin devices are all sold
Im a MRA RouteXpert so yes I'm promoting MRA. Is it perfect no but pretty damn near close and as far as I'm concerned the number 1 app to navigate with.

If "it's a known and multiple proved fact that routes created with OSM or TomTom cause problems on those Garmin devices", where is the documentation? Proven facts are usually outlined somewhere for public consumption. This is the second time you've made this assertion, but again provide no context to what "causes problems" means. We all want to learn, but simply throwing out assertions that fly in the face of what others have actually experienced is not helpful.

But I'll take a stab at what you're trying to communicate. If in Routeplanner you create a route using OSM or TomTom, and in that route you minimize the use of shaping points and instead allow OSM/TomTom to make route calculation decisions for you, problems may in fact occur on a Garmin. You're then allowing Garmin, which has different route calculation algorithms, to possibly choose different paths between Via Points. I'd argue that the problem is more with the route creator than with OSM/TomTom. If you're actually talking about something else, please bring some substance that would be helpful.

Interesting discussion so far. With regard to the point above I'd have to concur with @marinus-van-deudekom. If you use the OSM or Tom tom mapping on a Garmin Device using Here mapping you may get unexpected results. This is because the road lines are projected in slightly different ways depending on the map set.

.

This is not a good example, but you can see that the map road lines don't quite line up. This is a google maps underlay with Here (black), TomTom red, and OSM blue road lines. The divergence is not bad in this example but I have encountered bits of road where the divergence is 10-15M. This can cause a problem particularly if a waypoint is inadvertently placed on the opposite carriageway because of map differences, or occasionally the route might direct you down a track you don't want to be on as OSM and Here categorise what constitutes a "Road" slightly differently :D. or you might have the occasional turn up a sideroad that is unintended. These issues are not serious but could be irritating. Long story short you will get better results if you use the map set that matches the maps on your device.
When I used my Garmin devices for navigation I often used OSM maps to keep old discontinued units for which Garmin no longer produce mapping up to date, and to make maps for places like Canada and the US, for which I had no mapping.

A write up I did explaining this can be found here.

https://www.ukgser.com/community/threads/using-open-street-maps-on-old-and-new-garmin-devices.439311/

Finally I notices a post on FrankB's excellent trip planner tool. This is indeed good but its use is dependant on having access to a computer to turn the routes on a Zumo XT to saved routes. There is another way to do this on the device itself. I take no credit for this Oop North John on the Zumo website discovered this. Basically if you have an imported route and you want to make it into a saved route to avoid potential RUT issues do this.

1. Send the calculated route to the XT

   2. Open it up in the Trip Planner

   3. Select Go!

   4. Select the next via / way point, then Start

   5. Then go back into Trip Planner

   6. Select Saved trips

   7. Select My Active Route and Save it. Unfortunately the original name is lost, but c'est la vie

   8. Then select the trip you just saved in the Saved Trips area

Again interesting thread which hopefully we will all learn from. That said if MyRoute app POI track handling was more functional I'd have no use for my Garmin devices at all.

[John S Parry]

@mzokk Thanks for your comprehensive response. You clearly have a grasp of "in the weeds internals" that I don't possess. I'm more of a "test and observe" kind of route planner. I look for instances of repeated routing behavior (both success and failures) across different terrain scenarios. I have multiple IBA (Iron Butt Association) awards where routing precision and mapping accuracy couldn't be compromised. I also lead multi-day rides across technical terrain in the US with very experienced riders who will not tolerate following "bad" routing. I bring this up not to beat my chest, but to indicate my required standards for building routes.

With respect, your response is filled with a lot of "ifs, and buts". I'm not challenging what you presented as anything other than real possibilities. What I am saying is that in my years of creating hundreds of routes using OSM for export to Garmin devices (XT, XT3) I have never encountered any of the behaviors you outlined. I wish I had so that I could pick your brain for further understanding.

I'm glad that you brought up the Zumo XT Forum. It's probably the best resource for learning everything XT out there. The main characters in the forum are incredibly knowledgeable. "jfheath" in particular has been very helpful in my XT learning journey. But even there, I sometimes scratch my head with some of the XT behaviors discussed. I have personally never experienced the infamous RUT behavior. That's over a 5-years period of continuous XT/XT3 route planning. Ironically, if you read through the forum, a couple of the regulars have sheepishly admitted they haven't experienced the behavior either. Again, this isn't questioning that it can happen, but it's clearly not a global pervasive problem.

Going back to HERE, I agree that in a perfect world that you would use the same maps for development that are used in execution. So within MRA, why not just use HERE?

If you didn't see my discussion on HERE map inaccuracies, start with the route below:

https://www.myrouteapp.com/route/open/14129162

Open this OSM route up, and compare with HERE. You'll quickly see that the HERE cartography has the road deviating in a completely wrong location. I can't imagine a more serious vendor map sin than not getting a road location right. Beyond this specific HERE snafu, there are several other MRA HERE flaws that I find unacceptable:

1. Too much of a lag time in recognizing closed roads that are now open.
2. Showing roads open that have been closed sometimes for years.
3. Calculating random route off/on deviations where the Freeway/Interstate continues straight, sometimes for hours.
4. I can go on, but I'll spare you.....

Given all this, for me, it's a matter of picking your poison. I can use HERE for development and know I'll get randomly tripped up, probably at the most inopportune time. Or instead use OSM, which has proven through extensive actual use to be reliable.

Just my thoughts on the matter.......