RouteGadget Information
A web utility for drawing and comparing orienteering routes
During the last couple of years, most major Finnish orienteering events have offered an online utility for competitors to draw and compare their routes. RouteGadget not only shows the routes, but when linked with e-punch results, it allows the race to be replayed, even simulating a mass start. You will actually see little squares run across the map. It really adds another dimension to post-race analysis.
Jarkko Ryyppö is developing the Gadget as a hobby and offers it for free for non-commercial use. Jarkko has also been very helpful in resolving minor problems with the implementation. Visit his website.
RouteGadget is now available here on the EckO website. Go to the event listing to see which events are available.
How To View
The Gadget is quite intuitive and easy to use. It also has its own set of instructions. Here's a short summary to give you a quick start:
- First you need to select an event.
- To view a race animation, you need to 'Choose class/course' select the course you want to view.
- You can move the map around by pressing and holding down the left mouse button somewhere on the map while moving the mouse in the desired direction. Now, locate the start triangle.
- Next, 'Choose competitors' whose routes you would like to view. Select up to 10 people who have drawn their route (those with a '*' at the start of the name).
- To start the animation, press 'View animation' button, select 'Mass start' option (on by default), and press 'Start' button. Small squares representing the different competitors should start from the triangle.
- During the animation you can move and zoom the map. You can also increase/decrease the animation speed with 'Speed+/Speed-' buttons.
- You can also view the competitors' routes, splits, and comments by clicking on 'Show route'.
- Smooth scaling improves the quality of the image when you zoom out.
How to Draw
- Check the box "Draw your route", which is located in the top-right corner of the screen.
- Choose your class and name from the lists that appear when you check the box.
- Locate the starting point (the triangle) on the map. You can move the map around by pressing and holding down the left mouse button somewhere on the map while moving the mouse in the desired direction.
- Draw your route from the starting point to the first control by clicking the left mouse button in places where you changed direction. (The program will create a continuous route between these points that you plot.) Your route is drawn in red. The blue line shows the direction to your next control and there is a halo round the circle. When you have created a point close to the center of the ring marking the control, the Blue line switches to the next control. If you make a mistake while plotting the points, you can go back one or more points at any time by pressing "undo".
- Snap on/off, turn it off if you want to plot points near the centre of the control circle, otherwise it automatically snaps it to the centre.
- You can also move the map while drawing your route: Press and hold the left mouse button and move the mouse in the desired direction.
- Draw your entire route from start to finish.
- When you have reached the finish, and you are satisfied with the result, type some short comments in the comment field and press "Save route".
Additional suggestions:
- The Gadget spreads your time out evenly along the route that you draw for each leg. This may not be accurate, particularly if you had trouble with any part of the leg. If you wandered around in some location make sure to include a lot of fine detail in your drawing, even if you don't know exactly where you were. This will appear to slow the animation in that area (and not on the part of the leg where you did well). You can also artificially introduce a pause if, for example, you stood for a minute relocating. You can show this by creating a small tick mark across your route and oscillated back and forth in place on the tick mark for awhile when you are drawing the route. Then the animation will also appear to pause at the same location. You can press the +3sec button once or more to add your thinking time at a particular point.
- In some cases the routes will speak for themselves, but there is also a comment field for you to use. You can write to the comment field when you think of things while you are drawing your route. This can be particularly helpful for beginners looking at the animations and wondering what was going on. Was the route planned or accidental? If it was planned, what was the thinking? Make sure to include the leg number in the comment since the comment is associated with the entire course. For example:
- 1-2: Aimed for the fence corner to use it as an attack point.
- 4-5: Accidentally drifted much lower than planned. Saw the road and turned.
- 5-6: The undergrowth seemed much slower than mapped. So I switched to the stream bed for a faster route.
- 9-10: Was planning to use the trail bend to attack, but found the boulder and used that instead.
- If you make a mistake before you save it you can use the UNDO button to go back. As the Gadget administrator I can remove your route if you realize that you made a drawing mistake after having saved it. Just let me know.
Import from GPS
You can also import a route recorded by your GPS. There are 5 different formats allowed. Help on GPS import from the developers website.
Do you want to have RouteGadget on your site?
What kind of files are needed?
Download the installation files from the RouteGadget website.
I have also produced an updated installation guide.
Some other tips about RouteGadget installation.
On the CHMOD bit, I have my folder and files set to 755, I don't think 999 is a valid option. This applies to a server running Linux/Unix, Windows servers are different. Check with your website host as to which they use.
You also need to make sure that the splits CSV file and Condes XML file have common headers/tables. I had problems with merging files from different applications. In Condes courses were labelled 1, 2, 3 etc. In OE2003 they were Course 1, Course 2 etc. so didn't match. Similar problems with class.
Once RouteGadget is installed on your web server, it's quite easy to set up new events. All that is needed are the following 3 files:
- A jpg or gif image of the map, which can be exported from OCAD. Specs for the image are:
- Resolution should be about 150 dpi (trial an error until you end up with the specs below.
- Dimensions should not be larger than 1500x1500 pixels.
- File size should not be much larger than 300 KB for fast download.
- Condes course data in XML format. Condes has an export option for doing this, so does OCAD9.
- Results splits in csv format (Excel time format) by course (7 other different formats offered).
RouteGadget has a layout tool that allows the courses to be placed over the map. This takes a few iterations, but is quite easy.
That's all there is to it, the Gadget handles the rest.
Parts of the above article were originally written by Tapio Karras and published by the Bay Area Orienteering Club I have added sections and personalised to our implementation of RouteGadget.
Paul Frost
