Using TYRE to plan routes

[GrannyFrog]

Hi. I'm a new Tomtom One XL owner. My husband and I have used MS Streets & Trips on a laptop with GPS for navigating, but found it very inconvenient to carry the laptop around, so we are trying the Tomtom. Have had it about 10 days and tried it out on familiar routes, and so far we like it. But creating an itinerary in Tomtom is tedious.

Following recommendations here, I'm experimenting with TYRE. Some of the areas on Google Earth are too fuzzy to find the streets. Is it possible to get the waypoints for creating an itinerary from some other source such as Google maps.

Looking at an itinerary file in Wordpad, it looks like we could simply create our own list of waypoints if we have the GPS coordinates.

We are retired and want to do some traveling. We have used personal computers since 1982, and have quite a bit of knowledge about hardware and a little about programming, etc., so I'm willing to experiment.

It's nice to find such a friendly, helpful forum. Thanks to you all for being here.

Grannyfrog

 

[lec510]

I would proceed like this:

1- TomTom not connected to the PC:
With a paper map, highlight the places you want to visit in desired order. Open an itinary in TomTom. Use GE or S&T to locate the places, enter the waypoints one by one using the coordinates given by GE or S&T (I set all the coordinates in decimal degree for easy manipulation).

2- TomTom connected to the PC:
Run TYRE & GE together. In GE have option 'Roads' checked. Find the first waypoint you want to visit in GE , give it a name... when finished, right mouse on the First waypoint, click COPY - then the next ones. The order you click is the order TomTom will take you on the trip. The waypoints will appear in TYRE, just write the ITN file into TomTom.

 

[GrannyFrog]

Thanks lec510. Both of those suggestions are very informative. Setting the "Roads" option in GE solved my problem. But I'm also glad to learn about using coordinates from S&T or GE directly in TT.

Now I need to learn how to negotiate this forum, such as making replies. I hope this is right.

Granny

 

[John]

Welcome aboard!

 

[Sextant]

One thing I've discovered is that when you show roads in Google Earth, sometimes they don't actually cover the real road. You can zoom in and see individual lanes on highways in some areas and very precisely place the waypoint pin. However you may notice the road doesn't line up perfectly with the map road. Place the waypoint pin on the yellow line that GE uses for the road, not on the picture. When I've placed the pin on a road that didn't line up with the yellow line it screws up the waypoint placement in the TT. It may think the waypoint is in the opposite lane. So, put the pin on the yellow line road, not the picture of the pavement.

 

[GrannyFrog]

Thanks, Sextant, for that advice. You've probably saved us some frustration. I have a lot to learn about Google Earth. TYRE seems pretty simple compared to GE.

Granny