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I have DeLorme Street Atlas USA 2005 and TomTom 540. I want to down load a route created on Street Atlas to my TomTom GPS so that I can have voice instructions while driving. Can anyone walk me through the process?
Paul, I don't think it can be done. Anyway, doesn't the TomTom already have voice instructons?
TomTom is not well suited for user involvement in selecting or modifying complex multi-stop routes. Street Atlas USA is more user friendly in such route customization. We travel in a 12 foot high 40 foot long motorhome and tow a car behind so sometimes just choosing the fastest route is not the best choice. However, TomTom has a great user interface as we actually travel along a route. We were hoping for some 3rd party software that allows exporting a final route from the PC-based program and importing it into TomTom.
For whatever it's worth, Street Atlas 2010 Plus has the ability to transfer routes to a number of navigation devices. The list includes Garmin, Magellan, Lowrance and Brunton. Unfortunately I don't see TomTom on the list of devices.
If you are interested, make a quick route, click on the "Map Files" tab and you'll see "Route Files" and the name of the route you just created. Right-click on the name of the route file and select "Exchange". This will bring up the Exchange Wizard for exchanging data with a navigation device.
Click the "Select Device" button and select GPS.
Click the "Device Settings" and you can see a dropdown window with a list of devices.
Below those two buttons you will see a radio button to select "Send to Device". Below it is an "Object type" selector where you can choose to select either "Route Directions" or "Route Points". On the Device Settings screen you can enter the number of number of waypoints per route to allow.
Caveat: I have not tested this to see how/how well it works.
There is a conversion option available that you might be able to figure out how to get working.
GPS Visualizer: Web interface to GPSBabel
That's the online interface to GPSBabel. Or you can download the program.
When trying to convert data from one format to another, it's not very straightforward for some formats. For instance, it supports conversion from a number of DeLorme things. But it won't directly convert a DeLorme route by treating it as a route. You have to call it a Track to select a DeLorme format in the FROM file. But you can't convert a track file from any format into any of the TomTom formats supported. !!!
The only thing you could do to go from DeLorme to TomTom using GPSBabel would be to select the DeLorme Street Atlas Plus [W] ("W" standing for Waypoints) format for the input file and then select one of the TomTom POI [W] formats. Once the waypoints are loaded into the TomTom, of course, you would have to do the route all over again so that wouldn't be much help.
It's all a mess, and mainly because each of the navigation vendors wants to keep all their stuff proprietary so you are pretty much locked into them. Garmin's .GPX format seems to be the best supported when coming from or going to any other vendor formats, mainly because it's so well documented.
...ken...
If you are interested, make a quick route, click on the "Map Files" tab and you'll see "Route Files" and the name of the route you just created. Right-click on the name of the route file and select "Exchange". This will bring up the Exchange Wizard for exchanging data with a navigation device.
Click the "Select Device" button and select GPS.
Click the "Device Settings" and you can see a dropdown window with a list of devices.
Below those two buttons you will see a radio button to select "Send to Device". Below it is an "Object type" selector where you can choose to select either "Route Directions" or "Route Points". On the Device Settings screen you can enter the number of number of waypoints per route to allow.
Caveat: I have not tested this to see how/how well it works.
There is a conversion option available that you might be able to figure out how to get working.
GPS Visualizer: Web interface to GPSBabel
That's the online interface to GPSBabel. Or you can download the program.
When trying to convert data from one format to another, it's not very straightforward for some formats. For instance, it supports conversion from a number of DeLorme things. But it won't directly convert a DeLorme route by treating it as a route. You have to call it a Track to select a DeLorme format in the FROM file. But you can't convert a track file from any format into any of the TomTom formats supported. !!!
The only thing you could do to go from DeLorme to TomTom using GPSBabel would be to select the DeLorme Street Atlas Plus [W] ("W" standing for Waypoints) format for the input file and then select one of the TomTom POI [W] formats. Once the waypoints are loaded into the TomTom, of course, you would have to do the route all over again so that wouldn't be much help.
It's all a mess, and mainly because each of the navigation vendors wants to keep all their stuff proprietary so you are pretty much locked into them. Garmin's .GPX format seems to be the best supported when coming from or going to any other vendor formats, mainly because it's so well documented.
...ken...
Thank you, Ken, for the thorough research you did on my desire to interface a complex Street Atlas route to TomTom. It appears messy at best so I think I will wait for a year or so. If TomTom becomes more popular, some of the PC based trip planners will probably design an easier interface.
In the meanwhile, I will just do the total route customization on the PC. Before starting each leg of the planned journey I will then key the next stop location into TomTom and work with TomTom's limited tool kit to navigate a route that approximates the planned route.
Where necessary I will just ignore the TomTom directions and let the device do an on-the-fly recalculation.\
Thanks again for your help.
Paul K
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