Placement of waypoints

[D Griffin]

Hello, was wondering if I have a route that has multiple turns, should I have a waypoint on each road? I know I shouldn't have them near the turns, however should I place a waypoint further down after the turn?

[Marinus van Deudekom]

Realy in General you could say: Depending on the Roads you choose everything 4 or 5 km one shapingpoints. Alfred you’re done planning see what happens when you delete a shapingpoint. If the route doesn’t change it was an unneccesary shapingpoint. If the route changes simply press ctrl z and it will be original.
So the best is not to many but certainly not to less.
Placing a shapingpoint the best way is not naar to a crossing but about 100 meters from the crossing

[Brian McG]

@D-Griffin if you really want to navigate a particular road then you need to place a point on it
if you don't place a point on that particular road & the route is recalculated for any reason, then it may miss / deviate away from the road you wanted to do

The only reason I can think of for not having lots of points is that this can make waypoint list quite long, so maybe a bit more scrolling & the map can look a little cluttered
I don't believe there is any technical reason or benefit to using less points
If your sharing routes with others using different navigation devices, Garmin, Tomtom or other phone apps, then you definitely want to opt for lots of points as each different device will calculate the route a little differently, the more points you have then the smaller these differences can be

My preference is for a lot of points so that the route always follows the path I planned

[D Griffin]

I have always been a fan of many waypoints! I want to ride the roads I want to go on, so I figure more waypoints, the better chance I have to stay on the route I want to go. However when MRA goes ballistic and takes me places I never thought (which it does). I reach out for help, every time they say way to many waypoints! So guess I'm just looking for that right placement. I don't understand "to many waypoints" If I go 5 miles and put 50 waypoints in, what's the problem? Will it keep me on route (route that I want?). Again just looking for that fine line, what to do and what not to do...

[Brian McG]

@D-Griffin as I said I don't believe there technical reason to use less points
there is a maximum number of 200 points so you are limited on how crazy you can get

the only reason I can see for anyone to say use less is if a point does not achieve anything as @Marinus-van-Deudekom alludes to
if you have a point A at the beginning & point B at end of a road & there are no junctions between them & there is no obvious other way to get from A  to B, like a motorway parallel to the road you want to use, then is a bit pointless placing another point half way between those points

if you take a look at the MRA route Library you can find plenty of good examples of routes by RouteXperts with good waypoint placement

[Tony 13]

Personally I prefer less to more. I find too more many waypoints just onscures other information about the route, eg distances to junctions or stops etc. But I use MRA for planning and Tom Tom for navigating.

[Con Hennekens]

@Brian-McG said in Placement of waypoints:

I don't believe there is any technical reason or benefit to using less points

There certainly is!
Too many waypoints makes the auto-skip function unworkable. I often see people place so many waypoints that it gives the skip algorithm no room for skipping around any obstacle. Also I see sometimes people using so many waypoints that they pass multiple ones while trying to skip one... I'd say the opposite is true: there is no benefit in using too many waypoints...

[Brian McG]

@Con-Hennekens I think your highlighting how bad the skip function is rather than a technical reason for not using lots of points

[Marinus van Deudekom]

@Brian-McG what @Con-Hennekens said is certainly valid. Why, imagine all those useless many shapingpoints and something occurs on your route. The auto skip function will have some difficulties arranging the wright route without the obstacle.
Like I said try to delete shapingpoints and if the route stays the same you can consider them useless.
I can think of one exception: of you're using an XT some extra points could be useful. Thus ensuring the XT to not mess up your route

[D Griffin]

@Con-Hennekens Ok so with this info being said, If I route a route from point A to point B and I just let MRA do its work, Do I need any waypoints? Or will it follow what it suggest? For instance...the following route?
https://www.myrouteapp.com/en/social/route/11944724?mode=share

If I don't put any waypoints, will MRA take me on the roads that are shown on this route? Thanks for the feedback, I thought I had this figured out, but maybe not!! Nothing wrong with a little more knowledge...

[Mike wiruth]

@Brian-McG Is there a limit to how many waypoints you can have?

[Marinus van Deudekom]

@D-Griffin Yes it will but…… If you take a route that long, over 500 something is boud to happen on that route and it will cause the route to be different than intendant. You might miss Some places or sites you want to see.
If you like an d’aventure, shure go ahead. My guess that you would want to go to Some specific places so put in shaping and viapoints to make sure you pass those.
As said not to many but certainly not to less

[Con Hennekens]

@D-Griffin said in Placement of waypoints:

If I don't put any waypoints, will MRA take me on the roads that are shown on this route?

Yes of course, but only until something happens...

If it is an A2B route (destination only) it will guide you following the route preferences defined at the start of your navigation session. That means if you deviate, another quickest route could be found and and your route (which is not really a route but just a destination) is obsolete. Also traffic info can lead to alternative quickest routes. Just like with for example Google Maps

If you used some curvy options to your destination it works very differently! In case of curvy options (in the app!) your "route" will become a track that gets navigated. If you deviate, the app tries to lead you back to the track.

[Con Hennekens]

@D-Griffin, I am sorry, I answered your post before I saw the route you linked, so I want to add this:

The route you linked shows a destination only route. What I told about a an A2B route also counts for everything routed between 2 waypoints, like in your route. By having waypoints this far from each other leaves a lot of options for alternative routes being quicker. If you want specific roads to be followed, you will have to point them out by placing shaping points.

There is however one trick you can use: you can enable "Navigate route-as-track" in the app settings. In that case your "route" will be navigated as a track, and then the "leading back to a track" takes place whenever you deviate.