Things that I cannot accomplish in Mac BaseCamp

not intuitive to use, impossible to create a long trip/route on designated roads

I just started using BaseCamp, and I find it unintuitive to use. I want to ride a motorcycle from the Seattle area to the Los Angeles area, staying on the coast the whole way, which basically means staying on US 101 and California 1. Seems simple enough.

I tried the Trip Planner, but the calculated route did not stay on the coast. I tried various Routing preferences, but the results were inconsistent. If I configured it to avoid interstates, it would avoid some portions of US-101 (presumably the divided, limited access highway parts of US-101) and calculate circuitous, stupid routes. US-101 is a US Highway; it is not an Interstate Highway. If I unchecked the Interstates "Road Type Avoidance" preference item, BaseCamp took me off the coast entirely and put me on I-5.

I modified the route with drag-and-drop, but BC still had some intermediate destinations in mind (from the calculated route) where it insisted on stopping at the end of each day. I managed to change those, but I ended up with a 15-hour third day of the trip and could not figure out how to break it into two days. Trip Planner is probably okay if you just want to get from A to B and let BaseCamp sort out out the details, but (as far as I can tell) it is mostly useless if you have specific roads that you want to travel. After fighting with with Trip Planner for five hours, I gave up on it.

I then tried the Route tool and was able to plot the exact route I want to take fairly easily, but I had to stop several times along the way to correct BaseCamp's brain-damaged calculated route. Why does it take me off of US 101 between two route points that are both on US 101? This makes no sense - counter intuitive, as I said above.

I finally got the route I want on the roads I want, but because I had to stop several times to correct BaseCamp's stupid calculated routes, I ended up with eight separate route segments which end-to-end make the one single route that I actually want. I can't find any way to tell BaseCamp to combine or concatenate the multiple sections into a single route that I can download to my device. When one section ends, I'd have to pull over and manually select the next section of my trip. This would be a huge PITA, especially on a motorcycle. Is there no way to combine multiple route segments into a single long route?

Is there no way to copy or duplicate a trip? I wanted to do that after I'd finally created the exact route that I wanted so that I could try to break the 15 hour third day into two days of about 7 hours each. After the painful experience of getting BaseCamp to use the roads I wanted, I was reluctant to mess with it for fear that it would do something unexpected and mess up the route that had taken me hours to create. I know about "undo" - that is a poor substitute for making a copy so that I can experiment without losing the original.

In summary, either BaseCamp is woefully inadequate for real-world long trip/route planning, or I am simply too stupid to use the software.

Not stupid, just inexperienced :)

First, all routing is subjective. Just because we might want to go one way doesn't mean that the routing algorithm in Basecamp and the routing detail in the map will choose what we want, so often you will need to input your way by using shaping points. That's normal for any routing software.

I don't use 'trips' or a mac, so one of the mac users will need to answer your specific queries, but certainly on the Windows version everything you suggest is available when using the route tool. You can duplicate routes, and combine more than one route into a single route. You have to be a bit careful though. Basecamp will quite easily create long routes, but you could end up having an issue when you try to use them on your GPS ... there will be limits there as to length and complexity of route, and the number of points allowed. This may or may not force you into breaking up your route anyway. As you don't mention which GPS you have I'm unsure of the limitations of your one.

I just started using BaseCamp, and I find it unintuitive to use. I want to ride a motorcycle from the Seattle area to the Los Angeles area, staying on the coast the whole way, which basically means staying on US 101 and California 1. Seems simple enough.

I tried the Trip Planner, but the calculated route did not stay on the coast. I tried various Routing preferences, but the results were inconsistent. If I configured it to avoid interstates, it would avoid some portions of US-101 (presumably the divided, limited access highway parts of US-101) and calculate circuitous, stupid routes. US-101 is a US Highway; it is not an Interstate Highway. If I unchecked the Interstates "Road Type Avoidance" preference item, BaseCamp took me off the coast entirely and put me on I-5.

I modified the route with drag-and-drop, but BC still had some intermediate destinations in mind (from the calculated route) where it insisted on stopping at the end of each day. I managed to change those, but I ended up with a 15-hour third day of the trip and could not figure out how to break it into two days. Trip Planner is probably okay if you just want to get from A to B and let BaseCamp sort out out the details, but (as far as I can tell) it is mostly useless if you have specific roads that you want to travel. After fighting with with Trip Planner for five hours, I gave up on it.

I then tried the Route tool and was able to plot the exact route I want to take fairly easily, but I had to stop several times along the way to correct BaseCamp's brain-damaged calculated route. Why does it take me off of US 101 between two route points that are both on US 101? This makes no sense - counter intuitive, as I said above.

I finally got the route I want on the roads I want, but because I had to stop several times to correct BaseCamp's stupid calculated routes, I ended up with eight separate route segments which end-to-end make the one single route that I actually want. I can't find any way to tell BaseCamp to combine or concatenate the multiple sections into a single route that I can download to my device. When one section ends, I'd have to pull over and manually select the next section of my trip. This would be a huge PITA, especially on a motorcycle. Is there no way to combine multiple route segments into a single long route?

Is there no way to copy or duplicate a trip? I wanted to do that after I'd finally created the exact route that I wanted so that I could try to break the 15 hour third day into two days of about 7 hours each. After the painful experience of getting BaseCamp to use the roads I wanted, I was reluctant to mess with it for fear that it would do something unexpected and mess up the route that had taken me hours to create. I know about "undo" - that is a poor substitute for making a copy so that I can experiment without losing the original.

In summary, either BaseCamp is woefully inadequate for real-world long trip/route planning, or I am simply too stupid to use the software.

BaseCamp is a powerful tool and is becoming more powerful with each release. Your knowledge of the product needs to keep up. Some things are intuitive to the casual user but other things require some knowledge. For instance, using the proper Activity when Routing may reduce some of your frustration. I'm guessing that you used the Motorcycling Activity for your routing; if I'm mistaken, my apology. This transportation (Activity) mode causes the routing algorithm to take what appear to be random route calculations adding many miles to what you thought should be a rather simple route. Garmin is trying to provide some "adventure" to routing if you use the "Motorcycling" Activity. To simplify your route calculations just use "Driving" Activity. You can change the Activity mode in any route segment (ViaPoint to ViaPoint).

As for using the Trip Planner, you get to set the length of each days ride (or Route). If you used the Trip Planner you could have set the travel time to 7hrs and each route would be calculated to be ~ ≤ that time: you can always manually extend or shorten your daily travel time.

Finally, even with the proper settings in BaseCamp and using the proper technique, routing is "math" and some of the "equations" components come from the map data. If you find that you just can't create a route between to points after adjusting/changing routing properties, have someone else check it out - it could be bad map data.

I am a cyclist and I have some really annoing difficulties.
1) Using Open street\MTB\velo Maps I noticed that the Mac version of BC is simply not showing all the details and color/kind of roads/traks. The OpenstreetMaps legend does not apply. Whay can't it be like in the windows world?
2) When I wanna built a track, I start from a track on the map than I "calculate" a trip and since the preferences don't work well enough with the choice of roads I have to check it carefully and drag the automatic calculation on the road I want. But here come the problem: sometime BS simply doesn't accept the new route and keeps going back to the specific point on the map where i don't wanna pass trough. Now: is there any way I can force the program to proceed diret from one way point to the following one without changing the entire calculation logic? For example I'm using a cycling logic but form point D to E i want to preoceed direct...can I do it?
Thank's for your help.

Use the more detail slider in the gray area in teh below part for more detail. The OpenStreetMaps Legend is indeed not correct, you should look for the VeloMap Legend. OSM is OSM, but not every OSM map looks the same, OpenStreepMaps is not equal Garmin map, processing is done and with a Typ file the colors are "created".

If roads are not routable use walking als activity and unset alle avoidance's in this activity profile. If the roads than still not possible to route, then the error is in the map and Garmin nor BaseCamp is not to blame. You can however adjust OSM yourself with some practice and add and correct roads, so that the map next time is more correct.

If a part of the map is nog routable, then you can place a via-point just before and after that part and in the via-point settings of the route change it from ?walking to Direct and use the direct methode for that (small) part. The rest of the route is then still routed, this is called the mixed-activity route. Don't ever change the main activity of this route ever, you will lose your mixed adjustments in this route.

so maybe the problem is in the conversion phase. I use GmapiBuilder should I use something different. If there is another post for this could you please send the link?
I tried all the stuff you suggest but with no result.
Thank you for your time.

Problem solved

I understood what the matter was.
In the Mac version of BC the function to switch in between the various laiers of the maps is not implemented. So we need to do it manually fom the xxxx.gmap file.
If you right clic on the file and select "show pachage content" a sequence of folders should appaire and one should be "Layout Files". I say "should" because if you download the file from
http://openmtbmap.org/download/macosx/
once you donated than you will find it but if you download the windows version, unzip (unpack) and than convert it using Gmapi Builder, the resulting file will have a totally different folder tree and the Layout Files won't be there.
So I donated and you open that file, chose the layout you prefer, let say classic (the best contrast and more informations), copy the .typ file in it and copy in the main folder overwriting it to the original one. At this poin reinstall the maps, lounch BC and the maps will shine like in the windows version.
For any question refer to this guide:

http://openmtbmap.org/tutorials/install-maps-mac-osx/

See you.

I just bought a dezl760. Since I've started to use, I now have waypoints that I saved that multiplied themselves up to 4 times in the unit. I cannot delete them from the GPS using the software. I can click on Coastal Food Services 1, Coastal Food Services 2 and so on up to number 4 and when I right click, there's no delete. When I click on one of them, I go to EDIT and delete is not allowed (not blackened). How can I delete these multiple waypoints that have been added, I assume when I tried transferring data. When I go to My Collection, they are only there once. When I go to Internal Storage, many of the places appear 4 times. How do I delete them?

:mad:

You can't delete on the dezl, or indeed the nuvi range, by using Basecamp. Deletions must be done on the unit instead.