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Southdowns Orienteers

RouteGadget

A web utility for drawing and comparing orienteering routes

This is an online utility for competitors to draw and compare their routes. RouteGadget not only shows the routes, it allows the race to be replayed, even simulating a mass start. You will actually see little squares run across the map.

Jarkko Ryyppö developed 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.

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. 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. If you realize that you made a drawing mistake after you have saved it contact the webmaster to have it deleted

Posted by on 01st Jan 07 Filed under: