I am having a problem with the export to gpx. I have 40 pushpins (waypoints) in a Microsoft Streets and Trips file all included in a route. When I export to gpx, about 4 waypoints get duplicated (original name = CLE, duplicate name = CLE0). The original waypoints are exported, but not included in the route. The duplicated waypoints are included in the route, and replace the original waypoints. The difference between each original and duplicated waypoint is a minor difference in location (+38.854615/-094.797299 versus +38.854846/-094.797288).
Streets & Trips uses the original waypoints in calculating the route, but for some reason adds and uses the duplicates when exporting to gpx.
Does anyone know why? Is there any way to prevent this?
Dan on Vancouver Island
Streets & Trips uses the original waypoints in calculating the route, but for some reason adds and uses the duplicates when exporting to gpx.
Does anyone know why? Is there any way to prevent this?
Dan on Vancouver Island
Hi Dan,
In your specific case, you are not doing one export operation. You are doing two.
1. You are exporting the pushpins (waypoints).
2. You are exporting a route. This requires that the route points be exported. When Streets&Trips tries to create the route part of the GPX file it sees that the names of those four points have already been used so it appends a number on the original pushpin name to make it unique.
It's also adding a tiny offset to the coordinates so that when the two "duplicate" waypoints are displayed on the map they won't be displayed exactly on top of each other.
Streets&Trips is doing that because it knows the most common handheld GPS units will add the route points as waypoints when they import that GPX file. So it's making sure that those waypoints that are actually route points won't conflict with the waypoints in the other part of the file when the handheld unit imports them.
That's the technical explanation. At the moment I can't think of any way around it if you want to export both the waypoints and the route.
...ken...
In your specific case, you are not doing one export operation. You are doing two.
1. You are exporting the pushpins (waypoints).
2. You are exporting a route. This requires that the route points be exported. When Streets&Trips tries to create the route part of the GPX file it sees that the names of those four points have already been used so it appends a number on the original pushpin name to make it unique.
It's also adding a tiny offset to the coordinates so that when the two "duplicate" waypoints are displayed on the map they won't be displayed exactly on top of each other.
Streets&Trips is doing that because it knows the most common handheld GPS units will add the route points as waypoints when they import that GPX file. So it's making sure that those waypoints that are actually route points won't conflict with the waypoints in the other part of the file when the handheld unit imports them.
That's the technical explanation. At the moment I can't think of any way around it if you want to export both the waypoints and the route.
...ken...
Ken,
Thanks for the information. I'm trying to understand but I'm not quite there yet.
You said: What are route points versus pushpins (waypoints)? Why does Streets&Trips pick these 4 waypoints and consider them as route points? All 40 have been exported as waypoints and all 40 have been used in the route.
Dan
Thanks for the information. I'm trying to understand but I'm not quite there yet.
You said:
Quote:
You are exporting a route. This requires that the route points be exported. When Streets&Trips tries to create the route part of the GPX file it sees that the names of those four points have already been used so it appends a number on the original pushpin name to make it unique.
Dan
Quote:
Ken,
What are route points versus pushpins (waypoints)? Why does Streets&Trips pick these 4 waypoints and consider them as route points? All 40 have been exported as waypoints and all 40 have been used in the route.
What are route points versus pushpins (waypoints)? Why does Streets&Trips pick these 4 waypoints and consider them as route points? All 40 have been exported as waypoints and all 40 have been used in the route.
So, you can ignore my explanation. It was based on the assumption that those four were duplicated only because they were in the route and the other thirty-six were not.
As to your question, if you look at a GPX file with Notepad (right-click the GPX file, "Open With" Notepad), you will see what I'm refering to.
If you have a map that just has some pushpins in it, those exported pushpins appear in the GPX file as waypoints (e.g. <waypt>). That's because in GPS terminology it's more common to refer to these things as waypoints. Pretty much everyone except Microsoft does. Streets&Trips uses the terminology "pushpin" because the default icon it assigns looks like a pushpin.
If you have a map with a route and export the route, the waypoints that are included in the route will be refered to as route points (e.g. <rtept>). That's so the receiving unit will know that they are part of the route.
...ken...
Quote:
...
If you have a map that just has some pushpins in it, those exported pushpins appear in the GPX file as waypoints (e.g. <waypt>). That's because in GPS terminology it's more common to refer to these things as waypoints. Pretty much everyone except Microsoft does. Streets&Trips uses the terminology "pushpin" because the default icon it assigns looks like a pushpin.
If you have a map with a route and export the route, the waypoints that are included in the route will be refered to as route points (e.g. <rtept>). That's so the receiving unit will know that they are part of the route.
...ken...
If you have a map that just has some pushpins in it, those exported pushpins appear in the GPX file as waypoints (e.g. <waypt>). That's because in GPS terminology it's more common to refer to these things as waypoints. Pretty much everyone except Microsoft does. Streets&Trips uses the terminology "pushpin" because the default icon it assigns looks like a pushpin.
If you have a map with a route and export the route, the waypoints that are included in the route will be refered to as route points (e.g. <rtept>). That's so the receiving unit will know that they are part of the route.
...ken...
Pushpins are not what I think of as waypoints until they are part of route sequence. So, for MSFT to designate un-routed Pushpins as waypoints is potentially confusing and to designate routed Pushpins as routepoints is, too, if the rest of the industry is using those terms differently.
Perhaps MSFT should convert its terminology so that "Pushpins" become "Waypoints" even though they are only potentially waypoints. And "Stops" should be "Route Points" unless and until there is some down-time at the Route Point, whereupon it becomes a "Stop." This could resolve a lot of confusion that users seem to have.
So....., getting back to my original question. When exporting to a gpx file why does Streets & Trips ignore some pushpins (waypoints) used in a route in the est file, create duplicates of the ignored waypoints (with a minor variation in name and location) and add them to the route in the gpx file in place of the original waypoints?
Dan
Dan
Maybe a little more information would help. Are you exporting to another device or reading the information from the GPX file? Can you post the est?
Terry
Terry
Quote:
So, for MSFT to designate un-routed Pushpins as waypoints is potentially confusing and to designate routed Pushpins as routepoints is, too, if the rest of the industry is using those terms differently.
A GPX file has a specific "language". It is a proper subset of a language called XML, with arguments specifically designed for GPS-related stuff.
When you just want to transfer a location, you use the waypoint argument <waypt> to define it.
When you document a <route>, the locations to be used in the route are called <rtept>.
That's just the rules of the language. The rules also define all the various attributes you can include about a waypoint or route and how to do it.
So Microsoft is just following the rules.
Quote:
Perhaps MSFT should convert its terminology so that "Pushpins" become "Waypoints" even though they are only potentially waypoints. And "Stops" should be "Route Points" unless and until there is some down-time at the Route Point, whereupon it becomes a "Stop." This could resolve a lot of confusion that users seem to have.
...ken...
I thought maybe due to nearest intersection as the example you gave is almost the corner of E151st and S Ridgeview Rd in Olathe. However, it isn't quite and you don't say which is the original.
Terry
Terry
Quote:
Maybe a little more information would help. Are you exporting to another device or reading the information from the GPX file? Can you post the est?
Terry
Terry
As Ted explained earlier the gpx file contains the waypoints and then the route. Lat & long in the gpx file for each listed waypoint differs from the same waypoint that is listed in the route portion of the gpx file. The differences seem to be minor enough in most cases to be ignored. However, when imported into software like GPSU some differences are large enough to cause the 'route' version of the waypoint to be treated as a separate waypoint. These are what I was describing as duplicate waypoints.
If I open this gpx file with GPSU I get 6 duplicate waypoints. I can deal with this by using a setting in GPSU to increase the tolerance for minor variations in waypoint location. I don't know how much if any tolerance for minor variations are built into my GPS units. I will experiment with this.
I'm not sure what the reason is for the minor variance in location between the waypoint and 'route' point in the exported gpx file. It doesn't appear to be attributable to rounding. However, at least I can see what is happening and that's progress.
Dan
Hi Dan,
I opened the GPX file in notepad and couldn't see any of the "duplicates" you mentioned. That is, the names in the <rtept>s are identical to the names in the <waypt>s.
However, when I look at the coordinates and compare a couple of the <rtept>s to the matching <waypt> names I see the difference you mentioned.
Then I opened the GPX file in Garmin's Mapsource. I still don't see any "duplicates". That is, Mapsource reports just 109 waypoints and 1 route, which matches your count.
However, when I look at the properties for the route, all of the points in the route are named ***1. When I look closely at a couple of points on the route .. zoomed tight enough to see if there are really two points identified on the map, sure enough, there are two points near each other at each of the points in the route.
One of the points has the waypoint name on it. The other is nearby and has no name on it. The route lines go to the points without names, just as you would expect.
When I delete the route in Mapsource, all of those route points simply go away.
Observations:
- Streets&Trips2010 is creating the slight offset in the route points but is not creating a new name for the "new" route point.
- The receiving application chooses how to deal with that situation. Mapsource and GPSU appear to deal with it by giving new names to the route points. This makes sense since the route points with the duplicated names have different coordinates, therefore must be assumed to be different locations than the waypoints with the same names.
Just out of curiousity, in Mapsource I deleted your route, used your waypoints to create a small route between three of them and exported a new GPX file. When I examined the new GPX file with Notepad I could see Mapsource used the waypoint names AND the exact waypoint locations in the <rtept>s used in the <route>.
When I load the file back into Mapsource and zoom, you can see that the route goes exactly between the original waypoints, not between some nearby points as it does with the route from Streets&Trips.
Here's the final piece of the puzzle. Load your sample .EST file in Streets2010 and zoom tight on any stop. Notice the red dots. Those are your actual pushpins. Notice the numbered yellow boxes. Those are the points in the route Streets2010 has created.
There's your explanation. They really are two different locations in Streets2010. So it's no surprise that they appear differently in the GPX file.
Either you created the route by clicking beside those points and didn't hit them precisely or Streets2010 is choosing some arbitrary point nearby to mark the "stop" when you choose any of those pushpins.
Y'er welcome.
...ken...
I opened the GPX file in notepad and couldn't see any of the "duplicates" you mentioned. That is, the names in the <rtept>s are identical to the names in the <waypt>s.
However, when I look at the coordinates and compare a couple of the <rtept>s to the matching <waypt> names I see the difference you mentioned.
Then I opened the GPX file in Garmin's Mapsource. I still don't see any "duplicates". That is, Mapsource reports just 109 waypoints and 1 route, which matches your count.
However, when I look at the properties for the route, all of the points in the route are named ***1. When I look closely at a couple of points on the route .. zoomed tight enough to see if there are really two points identified on the map, sure enough, there are two points near each other at each of the points in the route.
One of the points has the waypoint name on it. The other is nearby and has no name on it. The route lines go to the points without names, just as you would expect.
When I delete the route in Mapsource, all of those route points simply go away.
Observations:
- Streets&Trips2010 is creating the slight offset in the route points but is not creating a new name for the "new" route point.
- The receiving application chooses how to deal with that situation. Mapsource and GPSU appear to deal with it by giving new names to the route points. This makes sense since the route points with the duplicated names have different coordinates, therefore must be assumed to be different locations than the waypoints with the same names.
Just out of curiousity, in Mapsource I deleted your route, used your waypoints to create a small route between three of them and exported a new GPX file. When I examined the new GPX file with Notepad I could see Mapsource used the waypoint names AND the exact waypoint locations in the <rtept>s used in the <route>.
When I load the file back into Mapsource and zoom, you can see that the route goes exactly between the original waypoints, not between some nearby points as it does with the route from Streets&Trips.
Here's the final piece of the puzzle. Load your sample .EST file in Streets2010 and zoom tight on any stop. Notice the red dots. Those are your actual pushpins. Notice the numbered yellow boxes. Those are the points in the route Streets2010 has created.
There's your explanation. They really are two different locations in Streets2010. So it's no surprise that they appear differently in the GPX file.
Either you created the route by clicking beside those points and didn't hit them precisely or Streets2010 is choosing some arbitrary point nearby to mark the "stop" when you choose any of those pushpins.
Y'er welcome.
...ken...
Quote:
Hi Dan,
Snip
There's your explanation. They really are two different locations in Streets2010. So it's no surprise that they appear differently in the GPX file.
Either you created the route by clicking beside those points and didn't hit them precisely or Streets2010 is choosing some arbitrary point nearby to mark the "stop" when you choose any of those pushpins.
Y'er welcome.
...ken...
Snip
There's your explanation. They really are two different locations in Streets2010. So it's no surprise that they appear differently in the GPX file.
Either you created the route by clicking beside those points and didn't hit them precisely or Streets2010 is choosing some arbitrary point nearby to mark the "stop" when you choose any of those pushpins.
Y'er welcome.
...ken...
Thanks for your review and explanation of this. The route that was in my test est file was created by selecting the pushpins and adding them as a stop on the route. So it appears that of the two explanations you suggested the latter is most likely correct. For some reason when a pushpin is added to a route Streets & Trips 2010 is choosing some arbitrary point nearby to mark the stop. There must be some underlying logic that is being applied to create the route stops.
In any case I am grateful for the help. I understand what's happening if not the underlying logic for the route stop variations. I can now do the things I have to do with Streets & Trips and my GPS without concern that something I don't understand is happening.
Dan
Without checking either file, I am going to surmise this is an S&T issue where it puts stops at the closest intersection. If some of your pushpins are not intersections, S&T picks the closest one when you create a route. This has been pointed out before.
http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/506-stops-should-exact-addresses-instead-closest-intersections
Does this match with your issue?
Terry
http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/506-stops-should-exact-addresses-instead-closest-intersections
Does this match with your issue?
Terry
Terry,
I believe it does. Thanks.
Dan
I believe it does. Thanks.
Dan
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