Discussion: Route Gadget

We've got the Sprint into Route Gadget

We're really interested to see your choices and the time differences from them.

Can you upload the map file with the added fences?

Here are the Long distance courses in Route Gadget

@D-MAN - I think I've screwed it up so I can't think of how to do it. I realized that I'd done it but Stefan had already drawn his course. I'll have to recreate the event to get the proper map with fences... unless I can think of some other solution

(I suppose we could lobby Stefan to redraw his route?)

Edit - I think I may have thought up a way to add the fences without disturbing anyone's entered routes. I'll try to get it fixed tonight or in the morning

My routes are drawn - Thank you Adrian!!

Okay, we have added the four fake fences to the Sprint map.

For those curious about why we used them, it was mostly to try out the concept.
One of them was used for safety - to push runners away from the side of a building so they wouldn't be running blindly around a busy corner.
Three of them were used to remove blindingly-obvious route choices and one of those also created a small trap (but that wasn't the main objective)

I've heard various reactions to them - mostly they didn't play a large role in route choice and on most courses only a couple of the fences would have come into play

And finally the Middle distance courses

What is the aversion that Canadian orienteers have to Route Gadget?
I think it is about an average of five participants per course at this year's COC that have placed their routes out there for everyone to see.
Five out of over 200? And at least one of those five is not Canadian.
Come on folks. How can the rest of us learn and improve if we are not seeing others' routes and getting a chance to race our icon against theirs?
I cannot believe that the rest do not care where they went or care about seeing how their movement through the forest compared to others'.
Same story last year. Few bothered to use Route Gadget. I think someone will have to carry around a lap top after each event to get the participants to enter their routes on the spot.
In the meantime follow the links, click on your class, click on your name and start clicking on the map.

FWIW, it's not just Canada. Most Route Gadgets that I've put tracks on only have a few other tracks.

Hey Gordon the same problem the world over no one wants to come out from behind the curtain. Will do the other courses later :-)

Without a GPS tracker, Rg entry can be tedious. GPS watches were not allowed in any of the COC races -- WRE or otherwise.

GPS was ok for none elite classes. Did not stop me from the usual screw ups, just lets me know later just how stupid I can be.

That RouteGadget at orienteering .ca is old and misses lots of features and bug fixes. These days dots have tails, there is slider for controlling animation, gps upload timing offset gets placed right straight away, there is share buttons, competitors from different classes can be compared and animated more nicely and so on, for example if you go to the latest routes page you get direct link to your route and animation, and you can post to AP or share at FB/Twitter. And setting up event is easier too, no java needed, control set can be rotated, even iof 3 xml split files may work.

LOST_Richard: actually, at the start of the long I was asked if I had a GPS and was only allowed to start when I told them my GPS did not have a display. And I was not in an elite class. So you were lucky if you were allowed to run with a GPS watch.

@MChub - actually I think it was you that was unlucky. The Start Crew was only trying to enforce the no-GPS rules for the WRE classes. Non-WRE classes should have been allowed to take their GPS units (and you can see several GPS tracks in RouteGadget)

My observation was not based on anything in the event info, but on seeing a clearly non-elite participant asked if his watch had GPS at the Long start -- then surrendering it when requested. I had a smaller, non-GPS watch but was asked the same question -- even though I was on Open-Advanced.

There was bit of confusion at the start of the long - a volunteer just trying to follow instructions but didn't understand that it was only WRE runners who were not allowed to have GPS watches.He also said it wouldn't be fair to those runners already on course to then allow them. I got mine reinstated when I pointed out that I no longer had a watch so wouldn't know how long I would be out there... Not sure what happened after I started.

mbo is right. There was a misinterpretation of the rule during the Long and GPS units were taken from all competitors who admitted to having them. (I saw at least one person wearing a Forerunner 305 who told the official he did not have a GPS and he was able to proceed).
Sometime after mbo started we (I was helping at the start) got a clarification from down the mountain and late starting non-WRE participants were allowed to keep their GPS units.
The person to feel sorry for is AZ who had to wait at the Finish to give back the GPS watches to participants, some of whom must have forgotten to re-claim the units when they finished.

As to entering routes on RG I have been drawing my routes on my maps, every map since 1969. Entering routes on Route Gadget is easier than drawing them on a map and, unlike using a felt tip pen on a paper map, corrections are possible on route gadget.

@jagge - no java required for Event setup? That would be great. But the RG website says "No Java used anymore (except for Event Management)". Hopefully the website is wrong? ;-)

The new features (especially comparing routes from different classes) sound very good and it is convincing us to upgrade.

Our main frustration in hosting the site is that few event organizers put up their events and then (as Gord points out) very few runners put in their routes.

When it is used it can be really awesome tool For example, in the COC Sprint check out the M45 race between Simon Errington & Andrew Cornett. They run at almost exactly the same speed but took some different route choices so it is possible to see which is the best route and by how much

Well, there is two special cases java is still used. 1) setting up event without course setting files with splits file. The case you pinpoint location for each control code found in splits file one by one manually. 2) Setting it up without splits or course setting data, with just map image, the case you click courses one by one and runners has to type in their split times if they took any. But for usual cases it is not needed.

Great. Thanks. I think support for IOF XML 3 and not needing Java will make this very easy to set up events.

And the other features will make viewing more interesting and fun.

Thanks Jagge.

With latest versions you can embed animations like this to event's page or any web page (this is eGames H35 two days ago):



And tell top placed runners you are going to do it and ask them to input their routes for it.

Looks like a film we used to show in first year high school health class. Except there those little squiggly things had only one circle to penetrate and once one got in it never came out.

As you can see there is now more runners in that animation than back when I posted it. That's one advantage over making a screen cam youtube animation or something similar. There is asterix * in url, it means as soon as new routes are posted they appear in the embedded animation too.

@Gord - Lol

Upgrade seems to be done:

That is why I love Route Gadget and why I wish more people would use it.
It takes people who started at time intervals and puts them head to head. Then in the replay we can see where things went right and things went wrong for each competitor.
It was control #12 that did me in, that plus a glitch at #5.
Come on folks. Put yourself up there!
Thanks Jagge.

Make carrying GPS a requirement and require download at finish so the organizer has all the data.

Actually it is a better mental exercise for the participants to add their own route to the map without the benefit of GPS units doing it for them.

But when you add the route by hand, it doesn't show speed variations along a leg.

okay gord, you shamed me into it. By the way, is there a way to back-up if you make a mistake clicking with the mouse?

@JJ I agree. Drawing your route does not show where you *really* went! I don't care how good you are at remembering where you went by definition if you screwed up then you did not know where your were. The GPS does not lie and shows all sorts of subtle or major routes that could be better and as Gord says you can learn from.

No problem with drawing a route, but it is still fiction

The other (secondary, usually right) button of your mouse makes it go back. Alternatively you can press that tiny undo button. If you are drawing with pad/phone in touch mode by dragging the large cross-hair icon around the course with your fingers you should see a large undo button.

With same right mouse button you use to add and remove those blue edit points to you can drag around to edit your GPS route.

Some say best approach is drawing first manually and then uploading GPS track, so one will see did you run as you though.

GPS is just as fiction as drawing, map, gps and calibration is never perfect.

Fiction? Maybe a bit but the benefits of retroactive map study easily trump the guesswork parts. In the illustrated COC Middle example above there are several examples of where I was able to see by my retracing that I actually went left or right of where I had intended to go. By studying features on the map and recalling features from the ground it all starts to make sense - well not my route to #12 but the rest of it does.