Calculating route failed "starting point is too far from any route"

[DJCM]

Hi, I would normally plot a route for a walk using another website, then import the route to follow and record as a track.  I decided to give your one a go but as I often climb subsiduary peaks off the main routes, when I tried to plot one of these, I got the following error:

You cannot view this attachment.

Are you able to fix this so that I can plot away from a path on your map?  Unfortunately, your planner is no use to me if I can't stray from any paths.

Also, are there plans to make any Ordnance Survey (or other) maps you have bought available to view on the planner, or are they only going to be visible on my phone?

Many thanks,

Chris

[michaelbechtold]

Use the leftmost button to switch to manual planning. Then you can go anywhere. Once your manual route reaches a way that is available in OSM (at the time when the routing data has been extracted), you can switch back to one of the other buttons and let the routing machine do teh work.
Cheers
Michael

[DJCM]

Use the leftmost button to switch to manual planning. Then you can go anywhere. Once your manual route reaches a way that is available in OSM (at the time when the routing data has been extracted), you can switch back to one of the other buttons and let the routing machine do teh work.
Cheers
Michael

Nice one thanks Michael, I hadn't spotted that.  I gave it a test and it works to a point but when I was off-route and tried to remove a waypoint, it wouldn't let me.  I've tried to replicate this and it won't happen again, so seems fine now but it might have a gremlin or two that needs checking. 

When testing again I was able to switch between manual and auto which was quite useful and made for fast plotting.  I plotted the route I walked today though and it has a few categories that are way off and need looked at. 

The planner tells me the following stats:

Planner Statistics

Total distance
11.11 km - pretty much spot on, give or take inaccuracies in my plotting compared to track

Total time
1:59 h - inaccurate

Elevation loss
-581 m - inaccurate

Elevation gain
467 m - inaccurate

Distance (downhill)
3.85 km - inaccurate

Distance (uphill)
3.19 km  - inaccurate


Track Statistics from today hiking the same route:

Total distance
11.45 km

Total time
3:34:21 track time (movement) and 4:42:34 (total track time) - obviously taking into account stoppages which you can't factor in, so this is fine.  I did walk in winter conditions but had microspikes and although the snow was frozen, there wasn't too much on the ground for this time of year, so that shouldn't be a big factor.  1hr 59 on the planner is way off.

Elevation loss
-764 m (183 m difference)

Elevation gain
754 m (287 m difference)

Distance (downhill)
5.39 km (1.54 km difference)

Distance (uphill)
5.26 km (2.07 km difference)

Are you able to fix the planner to make it more accurate and is your timing based on Naismith's rule?

When I plot the same route using a different website map I get the following, which is a much better reflection of my track, minus a slight detour I had to take to cross a burn in spate:

Length: 6.91 miles  11.1 km
Ascent: +790m  -789m
Naismith: 3h 33m

Cheers,

Chris

[michaelbechtold]

Hi Chris,
I learnt to distrust GPS when it comes to vertical results. On the original tracks I must have had wings to fly 100m on top of the physical track on the ground.
Hence the elevation gain/loss can be ignored at first view. Locus offers a feature to adjust the elevation by stored elevation data (often referred to as SRTM), which gives more realistic results.

However, "SRTM" was only the initial source of such data, from decades back, having a low resolution (3") and distortions by trees and alike. Today, for Europe and North America, there is LIDAR based data, which is much more reliable. But you need to make sure to download such (1", LIDAR source!!) data into your SRTM folder of Locus first.

[michaelbechtold]

PS: the time estimates, though, have been a tricky dispute for months, if not years ...