MapSource Basic Familiarzation - Tutorial - Draw Tracks - Part 4

[DRZ Charlie]

DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert, nor is this tutorial for experts. I am just trying to help those new to MapSource

If you have read the Part 3 you are ready to you are now ready to move on to learning how to draw tracks. Drawing tracks takes a lot of practice and it is tedious but worth learning.

I will not be going into detail on how to join or divide tracks at this time. This is a basic tutorial and will only hit on how to build a track.

Before we start, what is the difference between Tracks and Routes. They are actually quite different.

A "Track", simply put is a line that you follow on your GPS. It may also contain points to denote places along the way (Waypoints). It is very basic but very accurate. It is most often with the terrain is tough such as one track that is technical with a lot of turns. In this instance you don't want pop ups on your screen telling you where to turn.

A "Route" on the other hand gives your GPS the ability to display pop ups with turn by turn information. It will tell you when to turn and how far that turn is up ahead. It still follows a line but gives you turn by turn directions.

Transferring Maps to your GPS

You are almost ready to learn to draw tracks. First you have one more operation to perform. That operation is transferring the maps you have installed on MapSource to your GPS.

Now that you have MapSource loaded and your mapping program loaded into MapSource you need to transfer the maps you will be using to your GPS unit PRIOR to transferring any route or track to the unit.

If this is not done the route or track will still transfer but since only the base map is on your GPS the roads may appear to be hanging in mid air so to speak.

Some units (I believe) come with the Map software loaded to them but this may not be the case with your GPS. The following procedure will explain how to do it.

First open Mapsource



Next zoom out to 70 or 100 miles or so. This is dependent on what portion of the maps you will be transfering. The more maps you transfer the further out you need to zoom. For the purpose of illustrating this I am only going to transfer the Arkansas maps.

So, I have zoomed out 70 miles and that makes all of Arkansas visible on my copy of MapSource. Zoom out to at least 70 miles, more if you are transfering multiple states



Next we will use the map tool to select the maps we want to transfer



Move the map tool cursor onto the portions of the maps you want to transfer. In this case I will be choosing all of Arkansas. The maps are divided into sections. Just click on the sections you want. Once clicked they will turn pink. Continue until you have chosen all maps you want on your GPS. If you make a mistake you can re-click on the highlighted state and deselect it.

This is the result



Now that the state/s are highlighted they are ready for transfer to your unit. Simply choose the "Send to Device" button.



Once you have selected send to device you will see this window.



Untick all boxes except the Maps box



Now hit the send button, your maps are now being transfered to the unit.

Drawing Tracks

Lets begin, Open a blank Mapsource window



Next go to your track tool bar and select the "Draw tool" (the pencil)



Now you need to decide where you are going to start the track. If you have a place in mind you need to navigate to it. If that place is a town you can use the "Find" tool to find the town and then click ok. Next you need to select the "track draw tool". Place your cursor on the start point of your track or find a start point using the Find icon or text.



If you use the "find" feature your screen will look like this once your location is found. Remember, MapSource datum may not be able to locate your city or feature.



Next click "find"



Then click "ok"



Now you should see a window that looks like this



MapSource has now centered on your start location. In addition you will not that the "Map Scale" has changed to 0.2 miles. This is a good scale to draw a track on.



Now that the MapSource scale is below one (1) mile the window will now show local businesses. This is undesirable for drawing the track as it makes it hard to see intersections and roads. So we need to show less detail in order to start our track with an unobstructed view. You can change the map detail by clicking as shown.



You only need to decrease the map detail enough to get rid of the icons on the map. In this case with the map zoom at 0.2 miles you need to change the Map Detail setting to medium.



We are now ready to draw our track. When you do this the first time start small, think small. You can graduate to longer and longer tracks as you gain knowledge.

So, the first thing we need to do is decide on a start point. With the start point in mind you might want to drop a waypoint at the start of your track. Do this by selecting the Waypoint Flag from the tool bar. Just click on it.



Next move your cursor to the start point of your track and click, you will now see the waypoint properties screen



In this screen you select an icon for your start point. Do this by clicking on the default "blue arrow" and then selecting the icon from the drop down window.



You can also assign a waypoint category if you like. My categories are shown. You can assign categories as you wish but this is optional.



Next you need to assign a waypoint name. Highlight the MapSource autoname and enter your own name then click "ok".





Now we are ready to build the track

First choose Track Draw Tool (the pencil) then place it on your starting waypoint.



Before we begin drawing you need to know that this takes time. You need to keep your track as close to the road as you can. If you don't you will only see a series of straight lines. This is critical to drawing a good track. Drop as many points as you need to stay within the curves and turns of the road.

As you progress your track will look something like this



Note that within the yellow track line there are a series of black dots. Each dot represents a "Track Point". The track points allow me to adhere to the road contours.

Even though you must use track points to draw your track, each GPS unit has a maximum number of track points that are allowed. To understand how many track points you have dropped you can open the track tab in the left pane then drag the divider bar to the right so you can see the detail. You can see that I have 33 track points in this track. My GPS allows 700 track points, others may allow 300 or 500. You need to know how many points your unit allows. Read the documentation provided with your unit to find the allowable track points in each track.

The slide below shows the current track points on my track.



For the purpose of this tutorial we will consider this track complete. So now that it is complete we need to drop a waypoint on the end of the route, to do this repeat the steps that you took to place a starting waypoint but choose a different name for the waypoint and a different icon for the ending waypoint.



This is an over simplified track building session but gives you the basics for drawing a track. You can also join two or more tracks or divide tracks into separate tracks. Practice the basics and then experiment with the other tools. You can't mess anything up and you can always start over. Remember to start small, this will keep the frustration factor to a minimum. Remember the undo and redo tool will delete a mistake or restore the previous portion of track.

The next section is Draw Routes - Part 5.


You will find more MapSource Tutorials HERE (Scroll to the bottom)

[bete]

These are great, thanks so much Charlie. bete.

[DRZ Charlie]

Glad it helps Bete.

[JonnyCinco]

Great info, but when I transfer to my GPS (zumo 665), I do not see it under custom routes???

[DRZ Charlie]

Originally Posted by JonnyCinco

Great info, but when I transfer to my GPS (zumo 665), I do not see it under custom routes???

Jonny I just saw this sorry. I can't address your problem as I don't own a Zumo but it should be in Custom Data I think.

[JonnyCinco]

No worries Charlie

I didn't realize (actually, no directions that Garmin supplied stated), that after you load onto your device, you then have to load it...onto the device....which was weird to me, but it worked.