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General Category => Map Making Support => Topic started by: RCinSTP on December 14, 2015, 11:25:40 AM

Title: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: RCinSTP on December 14, 2015, 11:25:40 AM
I understand "routing" on road maps.  Is it possible to add routing to a canoeing map where the "route" goes directly across a lake to a specific portage (hiking trail between two lakes) and continues on through several lakes and portages?
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: Seldom on December 14, 2015, 06:19:05 PM
I don't see why you shouldn't be able to do that as long as the end nodes lined up.  "Water or Rail Ferry" looks like it would be your line type.
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: RCinSTP on December 15, 2015, 05:16:35 AM
Is there any low cost mapping software that has the Routable feature which will work with img format?
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: Seldom on December 19, 2015, 05:53:34 PM
Just looked at this:
http://www.cgpsmapper.com/buy.htm
cgpsmapper doesn't look too promising.  When I bought it, it was the "PERSONAL" version and was reasonably priced. It's not there now.  Maybe popej can help if that's the way you want to go.

The other option is mkgmap.  It's the free IMG compiler for OSM data.   Not lockable though.
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: Boyd on December 20, 2015, 05:15:56 AM
Mapwel can make routable maps too. https://www.mapwel.net/manual/0500routing.htm
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: RCinSTP on December 20, 2015, 05:37:21 AM
There is no OSM data for the area I am mapping Can mkgmap work with other data or only OSM data?
My map has hundreds of lakes and possible routes. It would be very difficult to manually create all the routes across lakes.  With Mapwel, can the routing feature consider specific polygon types which are lakes as places the route can go through?  For example, can I specify those types of polygons as "highways" or something that the routing feature will recognize?
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: Boyd on December 20, 2015, 08:44:47 AM
I purchased a Mapwel license long ago, but haven't used it for years and never created any routable maps. However, for what you describe, you could create a special line type (call it something like water route) and use these like routable roads? You could make them invisible with TypViewer if desired.
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: RCinSTP on December 20, 2015, 09:06:04 AM
If I understand correctly, I would still need to manually draw hundreds of these water route polylines.  I hope that it might be possible to designate the "lake" polygons as some type of road that the routing feature would recognize, but I imagine that routing only works with polylines and not with polygons, but I don't know for sure.
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: Boyd on December 20, 2015, 09:15:43 AM
How could you route on a polygon?  :-\

The NHD already includes lines that indicate the flow on corresponding polygons like rivers, I always just delete them on my maps. But if you want a specific route to be taken across a lake (or whatever), I don't see how that could be possible unless you create a line object.
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: RCinSTP on December 20, 2015, 01:17:27 PM
Thanks Boyd, I'm going to forget about the routing for now, too much work.
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: maps4gps on December 20, 2015, 03:21:44 PM
Curious as to where there are no OSM data (and hundreds of interconnected lakes)?

Yes, specialty interest do usually require more work to create a good map.
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: RCinSTP on December 20, 2015, 04:38:43 PM
The map is for a wilderness area in Ontario, Canada, just across the border from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota, USA.  There is OSM data for the area but the data is not consistent across the mapping area.
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: maps4gps on December 20, 2015, 06:24:12 PM
Have you tried the data from Natural resources Canada - Geogratis - National Hydro Network (NHN)?  Canada and the US (USGS - NHD) were aligning their hydro data along the border.  It was a multi-year effort and I do not know if it has been totally completed. 
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: RCinSTP on December 21, 2015, 08:09:56 AM
Thanks maps4gps, I got the NHN hydro data and the data could possibly work for lakes which have water flowing through them where the portages more or less follow the flow of the "watercourse", but many lakes do not have water flowing through them so those lakes don't have any watercourse polylines running through them.  Also, some lakes have water flowing through them and a corresponding polyline representing the water flow but there may be several portages going from that lake to other lakes in locations that don't correspond with the watercourse.
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: popej on December 22, 2015, 02:54:32 AM
mkgmap supports polish format with minor limitations but last time I have tried, it had problems with objects with multiple "data" statements. Maybe it is already corrected. I suggest to use mkgmap with OSM specific input file types. These can be created with the help of some converter tools, like for example ogr2osm.
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: z_statman on December 22, 2015, 05:43:02 AM
Not really sure as to reasoning: If you have the trail map loaded then you have the route? If you don't then create one in Google Earth or BaseMap or MapSource and load it to your GPSr. For GE, it is loaded as an overlay then enable)

My $.02
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: RCinSTP on December 22, 2015, 06:49:41 AM
popej, when you say "objects with multiple 'data' statements", do you mean that if I convert my polygons into OSM type polygons, the OSM type polygons have routing capability?
z_statman, I have the trail map loaded which has polyline trails between the lakes, but there are no polylines crossing the lakes from portage trail to portage trail.  For example, in the attached image, the red lines are a polyline layer, the yellow lines do not exist. The yellow lines represent canoe routes from one red line/portage trail to the next red line/portage trail. There are too many lakes and portage trails to hand draw all the yellow lines so that those line could be used with GPS routing features. I don't know anything about routing and I thought maybe there might be some way to automatically create a "route" from one red line/portage trail to the next but the route would need to stay on the lake polygons and not cut directly across the land. From the previous posts it sounds like it is not possible to make a route across a polygon and it's not possible to automatically generate polylines to represent the yellow lines in the image.
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: popej on December 28, 2015, 10:39:04 AM
Quote from: RCinSTP on December 22, 2015, 06:49:41 AM
popej, when you say "objects with multiple 'data' statements", do you mean that if I convert my polygons into OSM type polygons, the OSM type polygons have routing capability?
This note was about polish mp format, which is supported by cGPSmaper and mkgmap. If you use OSM format, then mkgmap should work better.

Objects with multiple 'data' statements are for example polygons with holes or polylines consisted of multiple separate pieces.
Title: Re: "routable" hiking trails?
Post by: RCinSTP on December 28, 2015, 12:07:44 PM
popej, thanks for the clarification.  With GPSMapEdit when  you have polygons with holes, the holes don't display as transparent, they block the layer underneath, however, that is only is the screen display, the map will look correct on the GPS.

Per Konstantin Galichsky creator of GPSMapEdit "unfortunately holes may be visualized incorrectly in GPSMapEdit in some cases. However it does not affect the final view in GPSr."