I ride a motorcycle and mainly bought Microsoft Streets and Trips 2009 for planning routes to take that are "back roads" (2 lane paved roads) and not highways. There doesn't appear to be an easy way to identify unpaved roads which I want to avoid or am I missing something?
Thanks
Dan
Thanks
Dan
There is no way to identify unpaved road with Streets and Trips 2009...
But you may add it to the wish list: http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/wish-list
But you may add it to the wish list: http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/wish-list
Quote:
Originally Posted by Danwest
I ride a motorcycle and mainly bought Microsoft Streets and Trips 2009 for planning routes to take that are "back roads" (2 lane paved roads) and not highways. There doesn't appear to be an easy way to identify unpaved roads which I want to avoid or am I missing something?
That problem plagues the 2-wheeled touring community. I'm not aware of any app that provides that info.
Best I have been able to do, if I am looking at a limited area, is use google maps set to satellite - or google earth - and zoom all the way in. Often you can tell whether it is paved. Not always though... sometimes the resolution is too low.
Another thing I do is go to motorcycling web forums that have location-specific sub-forums (e.g. http://www.sport-touring.net/forums/index.php?action=collapse;c=11;sa=expand#11) and ask around, if I am wondering about a particular road.
It sure would be nice if that info were available in S&T.
The Mapsource software that came with my Zumo GPS shows unpaved roads as a dotted line when you zoom in. At $99 to $119.00 for the latest version I was hoping that Streets & Trips 2009 fill the gap.
The problem is the same with all map software is that it is a little out of date and some roads it shows as unpaved are now paved and others that were paved now have sections that aren't.
I have done as you have suggested and visited other sites and forums to get road and route information. I was hoping to find a government site that provided a list if not a map of paved roads but was unsuccessful.
Dan
The problem is the same with all map software is that it is a little out of date and some roads it shows as unpaved are now paved and others that were paved now have sections that aren't.
I have done as you have suggested and visited other sites and forums to get road and route information. I was hoping to find a government site that provided a list if not a map of paved roads but was unsuccessful.
Dan
Quote:
Originally Posted by Danwest
The Mapsource software that came with my Zumo GPS shows unpaved roads as a dotted line when you zoom in. At $99 to $119.00 for the latest version I was hoping that Streets & Trips 2009 fill the gap.
I have City Navigator NT 2008. It does occasionally show the dashed line, and that usually translates to an unpaved road, but most unpaved roads still show up with a solid line - nothing differentiating them from paved roads. The accuracy probably varies by area, but by and large, we are out of luck when we want to identify unpaved roads with any certainty.
I haven't heard anything about 2009 being any better on that score... if it were it would be Big News on the riding boards.
Someday... someday.
City Navigator North America isn't too bad at differentiating unpaved roads, although it could use some improvement like any of the other manufacturers.
Both Mapsource and the Zumo have the ability to set a routing preference to avoid unpaved roads, so wherever the data is correct they will keep you on the pavement.
...ken...
Both Mapsource and the Zumo have the ability to set a routing preference to avoid unpaved roads, so wherever the data is correct they will keep you on the pavement.
...ken...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken in Regina
City Navigator North America isn't too bad at differentiating unpaved roads
My home state of Missouri has tens of thousands of miles of unpaved public roads. Nearly all of them appear in City Navigator as solid lines.
Take a peek around Elk City ID and guess how many of those solid line forest service roads are paved. Just about zero.
I could provide you many other examples. Properly marked unpaved roads are the exception in City Nav (and S&T), not the rule.
There may be exceptions, areas where the identification of unpaved roads is reasonably complete and accurate, but in my experience they are in the minority.
Hi Steve,
You're right. Now that I think about it, my comment should really have been something more like, "I just took a fast look at the grid roads around my local area and what I saw was this: Metroguide Canada v5 (which is usually pretty accurate in many things) shows them all as solid lines, but City Navigator NA 2009 shows many of them as dashed lines."
I think part of my response was based on surprise that City Navigator was actually better in this regard than Metroguide Canada.
In truth, this is a detail that needs a lot of future work on the part of the map data aggregators like Navteq.
It does occur to me that before we condemn Navteq completely we should check the actual data in the map files. The only evidence we have so far is whether the roads display with solid or broken lines. However, we don't know what object types and display characteristics have been assigned to those roads.
Since I don't have the knowledge to parse Garmin's map files in that detail, perhaps a more meaningful test is to make a route in Mapsource that can be travelled entirely on paved roads but with a slightly preferable route that would need to follow known unpaved roads. Set the route preference to "Avoid unpaved roads" and see whether Mapsource sees those roads as paved or unpaved.
Perhaps tonite or tomorrow I'll try that and see what Mapsource's routing routine really sees in the data.
...ken...
You're right. Now that I think about it, my comment should really have been something more like, "I just took a fast look at the grid roads around my local area and what I saw was this: Metroguide Canada v5 (which is usually pretty accurate in many things) shows them all as solid lines, but City Navigator NA 2009 shows many of them as dashed lines."
I think part of my response was based on surprise that City Navigator was actually better in this regard than Metroguide Canada.
In truth, this is a detail that needs a lot of future work on the part of the map data aggregators like Navteq.
It does occur to me that before we condemn Navteq completely we should check the actual data in the map files. The only evidence we have so far is whether the roads display with solid or broken lines. However, we don't know what object types and display characteristics have been assigned to those roads.
Since I don't have the knowledge to parse Garmin's map files in that detail, perhaps a more meaningful test is to make a route in Mapsource that can be travelled entirely on paved roads but with a slightly preferable route that would need to follow known unpaved roads. Set the route preference to "Avoid unpaved roads" and see whether Mapsource sees those roads as paved or unpaved.
Perhaps tonite or tomorrow I'll try that and see what Mapsource's routing routine really sees in the data.
...ken...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken in Regina
In truth, this is a detail that needs a lot of future work on the part of the map data aggregators like Navteq.
I was reminded of some other paved/unpaved issues I have encountered.
Vanocker Canyon Road, in South Dakota, joins Nemo and Sturgis, roughly paralell to and west of I-90. City Nav shows it as dirt, but it has been paved for nearly 20 years now.
Hwy 268 From Lead Hill AR to Hwy 25 near Peel AR is also mis-labeled as unpaved.
I know the Mapsource "avoid unpaved routes" thing really works, because I had to drop LOTS of via points on those 2 roads in order to force it to include them in a route.
Those were just two examples that lept to mind... it is not at all uncommon.
Unpaved roads are marked in Microsoft's online product, Live Maps.
There are a number of areas where Streets & Trips lags the online product.
There are a number of areas where Streets & Trips lags the online product.
Quote:
Originally Posted by taoyue
Unpaved roads are marked in Microsoft's online product, Live Maps.
There are a number of areas where Streets & Trips lags the online product.
There are a number of areas where Streets & Trips lags the online product.
I just now took it through its paces using all the examples I had included above, and in none of them does it seem to do any better than S&T. Visually anyway.
It does seem to sometimes identify an unpaved road in the text of the directions, but even that seems erratic and error prone. I routed it through a local combo of paved and unpaved roads, and it did not properly identify the unpaved portions, but it did incorrectly call a paved road unpaved.
Just glancing around my own area, and the many unpaved public roads, I don't see any of them marked as unpaved with Live Maps.
In fact, I can't seem to find any visual indication of unpaved roads, anywhere.
Am I missing something?
I was referring to the driving directions. There's no visual indication on the map. (There are other things in the directions that do not show up on the map: toll booths, certain types of construction, etc.)
If you're seeing roads that are incorrectly indicated as paved/unpaved in both City Nav and in the Live Maps directions, this certainly suggests that the data is just wrong. Report it to Navteq MapReporter. Probably take them a few years to fix, given that this issue hasn't historically been a high priority to them. But you never know.
If you're seeing roads that are incorrectly indicated as paved/unpaved in both City Nav and in the Live Maps directions, this certainly suggests that the data is just wrong. Report it to Navteq MapReporter. Probably take them a few years to fix, given that this issue hasn't historically been a high priority to them. But you never know.