Make me a Route - some suggestionsFORUMS HOME SEARCH FORUMS

Thanks for your feedback Dave.  I'm glad that the new Via Point option has helped a bit.  I think if we were to develop a means of adding more waypoints it would sort of defeat the object of the Make Me a Route feature, which is to let the route planner plot the routes for you.  If you have a number of waypoints that you want to route through, I think it would be better if we were to develop a different tool for this.  I'll put this on the list!

In the meantime, I'd recommend using the "Replot Section" feature under the Plot menu to make changes to routes generated by the Make Me a Route feature.  Using this you can drag and drog sections of the route to make changes, so this may help with rerouting to avoid the national cycling routes that you mentioned.

John

Thanks John,

that makes a big difference when plotting routes for Cork - though I would still like the option of 1 or 2 more via points!

Unfortunately it makes much less difference for routes around home (Comber) - its still picking up national cycling routes as a preference and its painful trying to mark lots of roads to avoid.

Haven't played much with the other mapping functions much yet, so will try with these instead.

Cheers

Dave

I'm pleased to say we've just released the latest version of our Make Me a Route feature, which now includes the option of specifying a Via Point. Hopefully this will give you a little more control over the general direction of the routes, while still retaining an element of surprise!

John

Hi John,

many thanks for your response - looking forward to the update!

Cheers

Dave

Thanks for all your feedback and suggestions Dave - that is much appreciated.  The Make Me a Route feature is something we want to develop and improve over time, so it's useful to get input like this.   We're actually in the middle of an upgrade to this feature right now to introduce an option to specify a Via Point.  This should hopefully address many of the points you mentioned as it effectively allows you to 'steer' the routes being generated in a general direction, thereby giving you the ability to generate routes that head away from a nearby town and also resulting in signifcantly more possibilities for routes by changing where you place the Via Point.  

On point 3 (going back to look at previously generated routes after you've selected one), I'll see if we can find a solution for this as part of the changes we're currently doing. 

Thanks again.

John

Hi, 

just starting to experiment with Plotaroute and I am really impressed with it so far.  So far I think the best feature  is Make me a Route - but it has the potential to be much better (ie truly fantastic) with a few tweaks - some of which I think you are already working on.  Its big advantage is when hitting an unfamiliar area - eg I am off to the inlaws over xmas who live near Cork, and its already given me some suggestions for new routes.  It would also be good to add a bit of diversity to my usual training loops. 

Anyway, my main problem is in avoiding large built up areas - Cork city for instance, or Belfast and surrounding towns when at home.

1.  Via points - would help (it needs to have an option of more than one - three?) as a starter, but this still requires some local knowledge and reduces the "suprise me" element.

2. Avoid specified areas - named towns perhaps?  - or possibly an easier alternative would be to select a preferred direction of travel (at home it would mostly be any direction but east-north east).

3. When I ran a 50 mile circular route for Ballincollig in Cork I got 4-5 interesting routes - but I can only accept 1 route and I have to re-run the whole thing to get the other routes back.  It would be great if clicking on any of the routes opened another window and allowed the other routes to remain accessible.

4. Avoid national cycle routes - when I run a circular Make me a Route for 30+ miles at my home location (Comber, Co. Down), too high proportion of the routes go via Lisburn & Belfast, which I want to avoid - or odd A-B spurs on otherwise circular routes around Strangford Lough & Newtownards.  I suspect this isbecause there are a number of national cycle routes around here, eg the Lagan towpath, Lagan Embankment & Comber Greenway.  I have selected the paved option - but these are of course all paved.  Options 1 & 2 would help avoid this (and its a little bit less of a problem in Google maps than Map Quest).  I have tried selecting roads not to use, but it keeps finding sections of these routes that I have not selected and follows these.  Basically its working well for me everywhere but at home!

Sorry its quite a long list, but I think this has the potential to be an exceptional tool.

Cheers

Dave