Magellanboard.de

Dear all,

I wonder what's you opinion about eXplorists routing usability?

Let me be more specific
- we just developed routable map for eXplorists, BUT, I noticed that eXplorists routing capabilities are rather limited, especially compared to similar G* units.
Of course I'm aware that handhelds are primary outdoor devices, but since we develop road map for it, I wonder how it works as automotive unit.

Known limitations:
- no car/pedestrian mode
- no shortest/fastest ... navigation mode - this one is special - no one can tell for sure which algorithm eXplorist use - shortest/fastest or else ??
- no night mode
- etc ...


So far we haven't got any experience on day-to-day using eXplorists as routing units, simply because we haven't got maps, and I would appreciate any testimony from somebody who uses eXplorists with some sort of routable map ( redraw speed, turn announcing ... )


Thanks in advance,
Davor

Hi Davor,

the explorist does a quite good job as an automotive device. Since the Meridian I use it for motorcycle touring.
There is indeed only one routing algorithm wich should be the some hind of "fastest" route. In fact the explorist uses the layer sorting from the section [Routing] of the 00map.ini. The layers are simply sorted by freeways, majorroads ... down to alternate streets. By changing the layer sorting within the mapfile, you can change the way the eXplorist calculates routes. For us motorcycle drivers we changed the speedindex of freeways to a low value

There is even one more limitation: The eXplorist can only calculate routes that contain 50 or less turning points, because the the route itself is stored as a waypointroute. But thats quite enough for every-day-navigating.

If You use any kind of maps on an explorist that does not contain elevation data (*.blx) the map redraw is very fast. Anouncements are always right on time. The MapSend DirectRoute for example runs very well on an explorist, because it's made from only 16 layers. The less layers the map has, the faster the redraw is.

I hope this helps You a little bit

Reguards, Matz

Hi inkognito,

thanks for the answer, I wasn't aware about that 50 pts limitation, but now when you mentioned it - yes it's sound familiar.
I noticed that when I calculated long routes ( 300+ km ), it takes ages to calculate, probably because of that limitation.

Also I noticed that XL works better then 400/500/600 models, probably because the XL has better CPU.

Anyway we will release this routable map and see what will be the public verdict

Regards,
Davor

DF wrote:Also I noticed that XL works better then 400/500/600 models, probably because the XL has better CPU.

It's the same CPU but twice as much RAM

Gruss, Matz