Automatically snap waypoint to road

[Davy Vanherbergen]

When placing a waypoint by clicking on the map or dragging the route, it should automatically snap to the closest road available, similar to the default behaviour in the calimoto route planner.

Having this feature would make it unnecessary to review every single waypoint placed, to verify that it is located on the road. Maybe only in the case of highways where there's two sides, would you have to potentially manually correct if the algorithm to snap to the road would not be smart enough to pick the correct side.

This suggestion was already made a few years ago, but not implemented. It would still be a great improvement and time saver though...

Could also be implemented with a toggle to turn the feature on/off for those rare cases that you don't want to drive on the road...

[Kaspar Hintermüller]

I actually posted this ‘Snap-to-Road’ suggestion on the forum a few years ago. Unfortunately, I only received a rather dismissive reply: ‘There are currently no plans to introduce this feature.’ I’m a big fan of the MyRoute-App. However, I also consider the lack of a ‘Snap-to-Road’ feature to be a major shortcoming. I’d be interested to know whether we can expect this feature at some point, or whether it’s unlikely. What are the arguments for and against it, from the developers’ perspective?

[richtea999]

As an option, not as default. Sometimes I want a waypoint to be off-road, because the map isn't accurate or the point isn't mapped.

I can understand why it might have originally received a dismissive reply - it's quite tricky to describe, let alone code.
Making decisions for inexperienced users is OK, but it might need to zoom in and offer options to the user:

• 'Which side of the dual carriageway did you want to snap to?'

• 'When you clicked vaguely near that main road, did you mean that tiny backroad 50m south of it?'

• 'You clicked on a body of water. I've randomly picked the north road because it's closer, even though it's not a main road. OK/Cancel?'

But the pros:

• great for new users
• less discussion about routes going wrong on the forum!

[Stevedo 6 0]

@richtea999 said:

As an option, not as default. Sometimes I want a waypoint to be off-road, because the map isn't accurate or the point isn't mapped.

I can understand why it might have originally received a dismissive reply - it's quite tricky to describe, let alone code.
Making decisions for inexperienced users is OK, but it might need to zoom in and offer options to the user:

• 'Which side of the dual carriageway did you want to snap to?'

• 'When you clicked vaguely near that main road, did you mean that tiny backroad 50m south of it?'

• 'You clicked on a body of water. I've randomly picked the north road because it's closer, even though it's not a main road. OK/Cancel?'

But the pros:

• great for new users
• less discussion about routes going wrong on the forum!

Others, such as Kurviger have implemented this feature. I would suggest that if you want the best off-road navigation experience you try DMD2.

Why not set a default e.g. snap to road and then allow the user to set a flag to unsnap specific points and move them off the road when needed. Or a toggle, snap all points to road on/off etc. etc.

I'd much rather there was a "sensible"*** default and then options to change the default as required. At the moment we just get a default and that's it.

*** of course, we'll never be able to agree on what's sensible

[Anonymouse]

I would really appreciate this feature (subject to some of the detailed points others gave raised).

Dropping a point off the road edge is the number one error route designers make. And it is very difficult to detect in the design process.

When you take a group of 30 people out on the road, discover the error live, and have 29 people going in a circle because MRA is trying to get to that waypoint, that’s a pretty unpleasant situation!

[Tom Grzelinski]

This would be a very nice addition to MRA.