Improved Route EditingFORUMS HOME SEARCH FORUMS

We are very pleased to announce a major upgrade to our route editing tools, aimed at making it much easier to make changes to routes you've previously plotted. You told us in our 2019 User Survey that route editing was an aspect of the website that you felt could be improved, so we've listened to this feedback and your suggestions for alternative approaches. As a result we've replaced the previous Drag Points and Replot Section tools with two simpler tools that are much more intuitive and quicker to use.

Reshape Route Tool

The new Reshape Route tool enables you to change a route by dragging fixed Anchor Points. Anchor Points are a new concept on plotaroute.com - they are fixed points on a route that can only be moved when you drag them. You add them by clicking on points on the route when using the Reshape Route tool and they are saved with your route, so that you can reuse them.

Replot Section

The Replot Section tool has been redeveloped and will now function as its name implies - it will allow you to replot a section of the route in the normal way, by clicking on the map from the start of the section you want to replace to the end of it. Importantly, you can use the UNDO button to undo mistakes and you can also change the Auto-Plot switch at any time without affecting what you've already replotted.

Mobile Route Editing

Until now it's not been possible to edit routes using the mobile version of our route planner. We're pleased to say that Premium members can now access the new Reshape Route and Replot Section tools on the mobile site. We've also added the Shorten Route tool, which is available to both Standard and Premium members. The Reshape Route tool uses a unique magnifying glass concept to help you see the section of the map under your finger, as you drag anchor points around to reshape the route.

We're very pleased with these latest changes, which we think provide a step change in ease of use for editing routes. We hope you agree and find the new tools useful. If you would like to see a demonstration of the new editing tools in action, take a look at our video tutorial on Editing Routes, which has been updated to reflect these latest changes.

Thanks, this really helps. Did a quick test with both new option on my old Galaxy 7 and it works great. I really like the new reshape with anchors.

Thanks Peter - we appreciate the feedback.

Overall it seems that this is an improvement if you are plotting a route from scratch, but for editing existing long routes it's a bit frustrating in places.

I am trying to clean up a 50km GPX file, which was previously quite easy to do because you could just isolate a section of the route and drag bits of it to match the intended paths. Now you end up having to add loads of anchor points. In some situations this is quicker than before, and in others it's frustrating. I find that to clean up the route I have to add quite a lot of anchor points to ensure that dragging them gets the route on the correct paths, but I don't really want them to stick around permanently. Once I've done with a section all I want is an anchor point for the end of it to get on with the next section, which I won't want any more after that next section is done.

For this use case I would also like something like the old re-plot tool back under a different name. If you had it working using anchor points then any dragging could add a temporary anchor point for the duration of the tool, then when you click finish just leave the start and end points as permanent anchors. That would get rid of most of the click to place, drag what i just placed, click on lots of superfluous points stuff that I'm having to do now.

Some way of deleting all anchor points with one click would be very helpful too.

Will also add my applause for the updates.  Thank you for continuing to refine and upgrade!

Thanks for the feedback.

Just so everyone knows, there is no need to delete any anchor points that you add when you've finished editing a section of the route, as these are only used by the Reshape Route tool, so they won't affect anything else - you can leave them in place.

I know leaving them in place doesn't affect anything, but when you are trying to clean up an entire 50km+ route in small sections they make everything look really cluttered.

Reshape Route

I am agree with Tom. First, I wanted to choose the beginning and the end and use the anchor already inside the section.

Replot Section

I would like to be able to click on the end point of the section to end the connection of the track

We'll have a think about how we can add an easy way of remove multiple anchor points in one go.  I think it should be easy for us to add an option to remove all anchor points, but less easy to add a way of removing just some of the anchor points. I'm thinking that maybe we could add a right-click option on the anchor points that would remove any anchor points before the one you right-clicked on. This would then also provide a quick way to remove all of them.

For the Replot Section tool, the reason we ask you to select the end point of the section you want to replot before you start replotting it, is so that you can see how long the revised route would be as you plot the replacement section. This wouldn't be possible if you didn't select the end point of the replacement section until you'd finished plotting it.

Support the non directional U-turn command for improved more secure route plotting edit results.

A well known issue:

To avoid false turn generation (Left where expected a Right) issues, it is best to try to avoid clicking near junctions when you are plotting your route.

RWGPS detects clicks (too) near to junctions clicks and than adds a warning popup.

Q: Plotaroute's route engine is by GraphHopper ? Than:

So more comfortably detect such annoying navigation errors @ plotting and planning.

1. Not all near junction clicks are problemetic as it depends where you precisely had a click.

2. When a false turn command anyway occurs than find small 180° trackreturns (glitches) over the same path.

3. When the map is zoomed out such small tracktails are mostly unobserved and so not detected in the route planner map view.

3. The GH router on the other hand reports unexpected trackglitches by a non directional U turn command at 180° track returns.

4. Suspicious U-turn(-98) commands in the instruction list can so be usefull indicators and a warning for unexpected hidden plotting errors.

Thanks for this feedback Willy.

A demo by the Kurviger app.

https://youtu.be/UgcEw2YSTus

Part 1: By the online GH engine.

Generates and supports U-turns.

Find and locate unexpected U-turns in the instruction list.

Remove trackglitch by removing the associated Planner Point.

Part 2: By the offline BRouter engine.

Does not generate U-turns. Locate trackglitches ONLY by map inspection.