Waypoints not being importedFORUMS HOME SEARCH FORUMS

Thank you for your response ;-)

Placing points outside a track is not normally possible with the Plotaroute/Visorando tools. As with many competitors, every point in a GPX file must be on a track.

To respond, if I may, this is not true. The thing is, in a gpx file, waypoints are not trackpoints... Even in Plotaroute itself, just now I made a route/track consisting of only 2 points. Then I used the Plotaroute Annotate option, which lets you add a label and/or symbol anywhere on the map (so, not on the track!). I then exported & downloaded this as a gpx file. In this gpx file, produced completely by Plotaroute, there is 1 <wpt> element at the top, and then 2 <trkpt> elements. So far so good! The annotation/label is treated differently: on the Plotaroute map it is separate from the track, and in the Plotaroute export it is not a <trkpt> element but a <wpt> element.

Importing this Plotaroute file into various other gpx tools (for instance Google Earth and afstandmeten.nl) keeps the waypoint intact. Importing this Plotaroute file back into Plotaroute itself loses the waypoint.

Hello Shadowfax,

We do exist :D
Sorry for the delay in responding. We're doing our best to handle the whole Plotaroute project, and your problem is very specific. That doesn't make it any less interesting.

If I understand correctly, you've built a sample GPX file by hand (or with another tool) with waypoints placed outside any track. Placing points outside a track is not normally possible with the Plotaroute/Visorando tools. As with many competitors, every point in a GPX file must be on a track.

When imported, waypoints that are not on a track are therefore ‘deleted’... but not really. The waypoints are actually moved to the nearest points. The point labelled ‘A’ is the first waypoint in the file, so it replaces the nearest point: point No. 3, which was labelled ‘X’. And so on for B and C. Then there are no more points available (other than start and finish) for D and E, so they are deleted and do not appear in the GPX when exported from Plotaroute.

We're going to look into this from a technical point of view and analyse the best way to improve the import script.
Thanks again for your patience,
Best regards

Hi PlotARoute Support Department,

That is, assuming you do exist ;-) I am very happy to pay for this service, and am doing so. In return I would expect this quite basic and clear question to be at least acknowledged....

Thank you

Update after a lot of testing.... There is a problem importing GPX files with waypoints. I have made a very small clean gpx file to demonstrate this, containing 6 <trkpt> trackpoints and 8 <wpt> waypoints.

The track is a straight line along a road.

The 8 waypoints are:

S - Start, identical to first trackpoint

X - Halfway, identical to one of the middle trackpoints

F - Finish, identical to last trackpoint

A to E - waypoints on a line perpendicular to the track on an intersecting road. A is 25 meters from X, E is 52 meters from X

This zip file waypoints.zip contains the gpx file, and screenshots showing the import results in plotaroute.com and TopoGPS.

On plotaroute.com, when importing this file, the waypoints S and F are correctly mapped to Directions. The waypoint X, which is exactly on the track, disappears! Waypoints A, B and C which are within 40 meters of the track, are mapped to Direction points on the track (but this changes their locations!). Waypoints D and E disappear completely, just like X.

So some (close enough) waypoints are being moved onto the track, incorrectly changing their location by up to 40 meters; others (more than 40m away from track) are ignored and not imported at all.

The same thing happens when exporting a track made in plotaroute.com, which contains waypoints that are not on the track. Importing such a file in other programs works fine, so the export is good, but importing the file back into plotaroute.com results in losing the waypoints....

Thanks for your help, JJ

Hi all,

I might be missing something, but when I import gpx tracks the included waypoints do not show up in PlotARoute. Also, I can create a track in PlotARoute, add some waypoints, and export it as a GPX file (including POIs and/or Directions). Checking the exported GPX file in a text editor, the waypoints are there, with name and gps locations. But when importing this file back into PlotARoute, only the track shows up?

Thanks for any help, JJ