FAQs about Handling
There are at least three ways to achieve this:
- choose 'Send' on the Google Maps page and send the route as an email to yourself, then drag and drop the email body from the mail program into RouteConverter
- choose 'URL for this page' on the Google Maps page to display an URL for the current route, then drag and drop the URL into RouteConverter
- drag and drop the Google Maps URL from the Webbrowser into RouteConverter
To drop something into RouteConverter choose the right side of RouteConverter or the elevation profile in the bottom. The left side is used for the map which is an embedded web browser which cannot be used as a drop target.
If the route is not displayed on the map, the coordinates for the route haven't been transferred correctly. Then the coordinates have to be completed by geocoding them.
Yes. RouteConverter was originally based on the Google Maps API and additionally uses Tile-Server from OpenStreetMap and other projects to display the map and the overlays for tracks, routes and waypoint lists. I've been successfully replacing this with a mapsforge based map with offline elevation- and routing services.
There are still gaps regarding the functionality: augmenting positions with place information, finding places, adding positions and the RouteCatalog depend on webservices, too.
Please compare
Questions like...
'Is it possible to show more than one track at the same time in the map? With no connection between end of one track and begin of the other track. And a different colour for each track would be nice, too.'
...can be found in the forum, several times. And the answer is 'No'. Unfortunately.
Just read this thread as an example.
You may...
- add or insert a position list (in)to an existing one
- switch between position lists at some file formats, i.e. *.gpx, *.kml
- start RouteConverter several times and switch screens with Alt/Tab
The differences in the distance information almost always come from a different method of calculation. In tracks the beeline is calculated, i.e. the direct route on the Earth's surface from one position to another position. For routes, the distance is measured via the road network. The "type" combo box allows to switch between Track und Route to see both distance calculations.
The column "Distance" in the position list, the "Add File" dialog for the RouteCatalog, and the Y-Axis of the elevation and speed profile view always show the beeline distance. Unfortunately, it is technically very challenging to bring the Route distance to these places because the routing takes place on the Google Maps servers and only the result of this calculation is shown in Route Converter: as a Route on the map and in the Length and Duration information
Summing up
RouteConverter sums up all ascends and descends and displays them prominently above the position list as "Overall ascend" and "Overall descend". This is sometimes a source of confusion, because these numbers vary greatly due to
- inaccurate data and
- no smoothing algorithm that is applied to them.
Thus they are largely determined by the number of positions, i.e. the more positions there are, the higher the "Overall" values become. This can be easily checked by significantly reducing the number of positions.
The color of the route has the following semantics:
- red beeline: the routing service couldn't calculate a valid route
- dashed beeline: the data required by the routing service is still downloaded
- continuous blue line along the roads: that is the route