How many softpoints and hardpoints do you use?
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I'm curios how others think of their route design. Specifically when I begin a new route I have a LOT of Shaping points, and just a few Waypoints. After I do my comparisons with Tom tom and Open Street map in both Fastest and shortest modes, I begin talking out shaping points that doing so doesn't alter the route. If it does I either move it or keep it.
You can end up with very few shaping points on segments of the trip.
How do others use their shaping points/waypoints? How many do you typically use for say 200Mile/322k trip?
Do you have a method to your madness? Meaning why do you do it that way.
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@Greenham It depends on how many twists turns and junctions are on the route and if you are using a Garmin Zumo XT waypoints/shaping points to stop it using main roads when you have it set to "Faster Time". For a route of 200 miles I'd tend to have around 30-50 waypoints with most of these being shaping points in Garmin speak and some Via points for places I want to stop. But it depends Ireland has many small roads that I like to navigate on. The North of Scotland does not have many options for roads so the number of waypoints would be less.
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@Greenham Some say a waypoint every 5 km. Others say every 10 km. I use as few as possible and as many as necessary to guide me along the roads I want to take! Keep in mind that you can only place 200wp's per route.
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@Greenham if you export a route, planned in MRA, to Garmin - keep in mind, WPs are very limited in Garmin. It will not be a risc, because Garmin will split then suchen a route in 2 (or more) parts. The only annoying thing ist then: distance and arrival time to target will not be displayed on screen.
So, I'm setting WPs just there, where I intent for a break, sight seeing, coffee, lunch, refuelling, etc.
Shaping Points, I'm using just to force MRA for streets I will strictly use - and to be comparable with TomTom and other devices/tools. Shaping Points are not (so hard) limited in Garmin. -
To save any confusion, I suggest that we all use the names that MRA use: shaping points (teardrop) and via points (hand shape) together they are known as route points.
A waypoint is a generic name for a longitude and latitude set of coordinates marking a position on a map. -
There is no set formula for how many route points to use and how many would be via points. Some people put a shaping point on every road they want to travel on, I don’t believe that this is necessary. I also don’t believe that a route point is always required every 5 km.
A route that travels through a large town or city will require more route points if you want to use certain roads because there are more options that your navigation device could take.
Another argument would be to place a route point at both sides of the city and let your device choose the best route, your device will probably take traffic and the time of day into account when plotting your route and the route could change each time you used it.
The fewer options (roads) there are for your navigation device to use the fewer route points that are required.
As I said, there’s no formula but you do get a feel for it with experience.
