shaping points needed?

[Mike wiruth]

Hello, I created this route for a trip we are taking, I have a start point and ending. Do I need to add shaping points in it to make sure it stays on course? Or, will this work just fine?

[Marinus van Deudekom]

@Mike-wiruth in general the answer is add shaping points every 4 to 5 km.
If you're in aan Interstate with no crossings adding shaping points doesn't have to that much.
If you don't add shaping points the trip could turn out quit a surprise
Have fun

[Marinus van Deudekom]

@Peter-Schiefer of you drive from A to B that could be the case. Most people using MRA want to dive a certain route. If they follow your advise it's certain that they won't het the route they wanted.
You don't have to believe me and you're free to do as you like. My advise is dit people who want to enjoy the route they planned

[paul69]

i agree with @Marinus-van-Deudekom here,

this only my opinion and i am not offering advice.

if one only wants to go A to B then you are correct no other shaping/via/way points are required, just drive/ride the route and let your navigation device decide what is good bad or indifferent.

if you want to enjoy a twisty route then one must put a bit work into, by placing points on roads you wish to use, and cross checking with here and tomtom in case those maps find a better route between two points. the little route elves within navigation devices think they know better.

this is easy to replicate within the planning tool on the web, do a route and compare with here and or tomtom, OSM and you may well see the differences.

A planned start at calais with an end at Landeck in Austria no shaping points, would show as around 10hrs and 600 mile or so. If i change that to avoid highways it will change to 16hrs but roughly the same distance, but not all this would be nice driving roads.

if i then start to actually make a route that is interesting, i must add points, this route would probably end up as 20-24hrs. this then becomes 2 or 3 night stop overs, I know this from experience.

this is the point @Marinus-van-Deudekom was trying to make about way/via points,

so my rule is, if I do not care about the route, then there is absolutely no need for via points, however if I want to enjoy a 1000m trip then waypoints would certainly be needed, how many would remain to be seen. in some places it could be every couple of mile, in others it may well be 50.

[richtea999]

@Peter-Schiefer Agreed.
If you trust the router then you need as few waypoint as it takes to correctly plot your desired route.

In Mike's case 2 waypoints will get him to Maple Grove.

If you like watching waypoints whizz by then add some more if it makes you feel comfy. (Obviously you'll need to add more if you don't want to go the shortest route.)

The only things I've noticed that disturb the route are dynamic changes - i.e. something has changed since you plotted the route.

Three examples are:

• traffic, when the router will do its best to get you between the waypoints, but if there's 50 miles between each waypoint then you may leave the original route whilst the traffic algorithm does it's efficient stuff on the fly.
• closed roads, for same reason
• you use a device that has a diffferent routing engine to the one you plotted with (e.g. you used HERE to build the route, but then used a TomTom without checking the two routing engines use the same roads)

[Ralph Janssen]

It really depend on the area where you drive. Sometime you can do it with a couple of point in 100Km but sometimes you need to use as many points as Marius is saying.
I'm making a small tour for tomorrow. (150Km) from my town near Amersfoort toward Nijmegen and back.
In 1 stretch of my route from km 30 to km 60 I use 8 points (so every 3.7Km) just to make sure i ride the route, that I want to ride. Because if I don't do that the route will change.

So for your questions;
I would place a couple of shaping points. Just to make sure the route is to your wishes.
But in a area with not that many roads or alternatives you don't have to place them every 3 or 4 km.

In my last road trip trough South-west US there where days with a couple of shaping points for 250/350Km and most of them where highlights/viewing points and not needed for shaping the route.
So all-in-all with my basics experience, it really depends on your are and your own wishes about your route.

[paul69]

@Ralph-Janssen said in shaping points needed?:

In 1 stretch of my route from km 30 to km 60 I use 8 points (so every 3.7Km) just to make sure i ride the route, that I want to ride. Because if I don't do that the route will change.

yes this was my point, i did not state you need to place points every few km, i agreed with @Marinus-van-Deudekom in the fact that via/way point are needed in certain circumstances, which is what i thought i had wrote in my post, it all depends on the particular part of each route.

i am in the process of planning a route taking in WAW, Ireland, and in an area over the connor pass i had to add half a dozen waypionts to force the route to head the way i wanted. tomtom and here were in disagreement.

there is no written rule of via/way shaping point distances, you have to add until the route goes the way you want.
for example you may plan a route using here with a few waypoints, and do not use the compare tool, but when you send this route to a riding buddy who uses tomtom, then he/she will be heading a different way to you on the supposed same route, again from experience.

so its not about how many, it's about what is needed, to ensure all the group head in the same direction or make like the red arrows at the next fork in the road.

i love a good conversation around the use of way points, always has many points of view.

[Ralph Janssen]

@paul69
I like a good conversation as well. Specially when there are more then one way to achieve your goal. Its nice and good to read how other people use it.
And that is the nice thing of MRA (next) you can use it accordingly your wishes (until a certain point off course)

I use MRA (and Tire) for a some time. For my road trip in the USA and for motor trips with TomTom, Garmin and MRA next.
And I use shaping point differently in different areas. That was the point i wanted to make

btw;
My post was not against or in favor of anyone if it may sounded like that.
It was just how I use shaping point on my planning of routes.

[paul69]

@Ralph-Janssen said in shaping points needed?:

My post was not against or in favor of anyone if it may sounded like that.

i was agreeing with you sir.

[Mike wiruth]

@Peter-Schiefer I'm not per say new to navigating and planning routes, but defiantly new to MRA as I just singed up this week. I have the full plan, so I also have the navigation app on the phone. I also use a Garmin zumo xt. I plan on using them both. I still need to learn on the app how to search for hotels and gas and such like I can do on my zumo. Not sure if the app does that or not. Thanks to everyone for their help.

[paul69]

@Peter-Schiefer said in shaping points needed?:

but the beds inside are from the century of Loui XIV, or the stairs are a hill climbing adventures.

very true

[Axel Härtl]

@Marinus-van-Deudekom If you are travelling only from a starting- to an endpoint, Google maps might be the easiest tool. MRA is also working fine but uses very small roads.

[Marinus van Deudekom]

@Axel-Härtl if you're planning just to get from A to B and don't want to have a great time driving there any app will do the trick.
MRA is mostly an app for people who want to enjoy to the max if they're driving using all kinds of roads and avoid the hiway or bigger roads.
Most people driving bikes or cabrios avoid those roads.
Yes I do use MRA to get from A to B just to get there. Meanwhile as a beta tester check out all the fun gadgets @Corjan-Meijerink and his mates have come up for us
Have fun people