Re: How to make a Garmin GPS FIT the route to the screen

On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:40:18 -0400, Newsgroup Reader wrote:

Answer, yes if you care about learning; no if all you want to do is get
there.

For me, GPS is not just a rote turn-left-turn-right turn-your-brain-off
nag.

A huge part of the reason I use GPS mapping is to LEARN more about the best
ways to get from here to there, and, to learn more about the areas I'm
traversing.

For that purpose, it is VERY HELPFUL to see the whole route in context at
the start of a trip, and then, as I get closer and closer to my
destination, the route fit-to-screen should fit from my current location to
the destination.

The ability to fit route is a basal need that all GPS displays should do. I
just can't figure out how to fit route on the nuvi.

Am I the only one who uses GPS to LEARN more about the areas I'm traversing
- or does everyone just use GPS brainlessly to just get where they're
going?

_Pnina Gersten_ wrote:


My experience with all the car GPS systems I've managed to lay hands on is
that you can't zoom out very far without losing a lot of detail. On a
long trip across a large city or when travelling from city to city, you
wind up with a thick meaningless squiggly line when you zoom out far enough
to see the whole route.

If you really want to see your whole route with reasonable detail, you need
to run software based GPS applications (Like MS Streets & Trips, or Delorme).
You need to run these on a laptop. A 1024x768+ display on a 15+ inch monitor
is superior to any unit that will fit on your dash.

With software based GPS, you can plot a route between Seattle WA and Miami FL
and see the whole route with lots of detail. You can see the states and major
cities you will be passing through and you can read even the number labels on
the interstate highways you will be driving on.

I have a handheld GPS for hiking and geocaching.. A car GPS for general use,
and I have laptop with Microsoft Streets and Trips that I use on long trips.
This provides the ultimate in GPS versatility.

If you want to learn about the areas you will be traversing, get a Road
Atlas or a local Street map. The screen view of a route on the typical GPS
unit is far to small to be of any value on a trip.

You can use Map Quest to find a route for you and it will give a screen on
the computer, but while that is better than a GPS, it still does not compare
with a real map. Never will. It just can't. Putting the information from
a 11 x 17 page onto a 2 x 3 screen does not do it justice.

Use the routing information from the GPS if you want to follow on a real map
in the comfort of your home before the trip. Put the Atlas in your car.
But please, be realistic to the capabilities of every medium and tool for
travel.

I've mentioned before, I can (so can you, of course) travel across the
country to any major city with a very minor knowledge of geography and just
follow the street signs. It is the last mile, or even quarter mile, that the
GPS unit truly shines getting you into a place with many turns and not have
to follow a paper map. I know Buffalo is west of me. I go to the MA
turnpike and there are signs 400 miles ahead of time. I don't need a GPS
for that, but I do to find a house in some development or a business in a
large industrial park.

If you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail, but you still are best
served with the right tool for the job. Unfold that big state map from the
gas station.
--
Ed
http://pages.cthome.net/edhome/

_Pnina Gersten_ wrote:

As do I but my recently purchased Garmin 76Cx does exactly what you wish
all the time, every time and if there is a way to turn it off, I have
yet to find it. It is a serious pain. Consider:

I live in western Canada. My eldest daughter lives in St. Paul and is
working on a PHD at U. of Minnesota. Since the bridge collapse I want
to look around for a route from her place to the University. If I
happen to be away from my computer, I try this on my 76Cx. I'd like to
see you learn anything from a whole-route display that includes British
Columbia and Minnesota on an inch and a half wide screen. Note that
another bug in the 76Cx is that every route starts from where you
currently are whether or not you include that location. Serious bummer.

Ted

Ted Edwards wrote:

The OP is new to GPS and does not understand it yet. He is trying to
get the "big picture" from a device that is intended to give him the
detail view needed to navigate.

The concept is that, if there is a "big picture" somewhere (in his head,
in MapSource on a PC, on a paper map, etc.) what he sees on the GPS
receiver is like looking at the big picture through a large piece of
paper with playing card sized hole in it. The hole pans with his
movements and all he sees is that small area around him and it is at the
same resolution or zoom level as the big picture.


I'm not sure what you are complaining about. It is because it zooms in
when you activate a route? Or is it because it does not zoom in to a
useful level when you activate a route?

Look at the Setup Map menu. Press Menu, choose Setup Map, and press
Enter. Cursor right or left to the Map Setup - General menu (left most
icon at the top).

On that there is a Auto Zoom setting that defaults to On. With Auto
Zoom off, you have to control all zooms manually.

With Auto Zoom on, activating a Follow Road route and takes you back to
the Map Page at a zoom level of 800 feet (if you are not moving yet) by
the label in the lower left corner. From that point on the zoom level
changes as you move. It first zooms out for a "birds eye" view and
zooms in at turning points are approached.

I don't remember the exact zoom levels but with the Auto Zoom feature
on, the zoom levels seem appropriate to your speed and it works well for
navigation over roads by car.


I'm not sure I understand the "bug" here. Are you talking about
activating a route with multiple waypoints? If so, when you activate a
route like that, the default behavior is that it will give you
directions from where you are to the most logical point in the route.

As an example, if a route has 10 waypoints and you are nearer to
waypoint #5 than you are to waypoint #4, it will give you directions for
getting to #5.

That logic is applied as straight line vectors on Off Road (point to
point) routes, if you chose Follow Road, it will take you to the most
logical waypoint by way of road vectors.

Maybe I don't understand the "bug" though.

Jack