Re: What's the difference between waypoint, track and route?

Adam Schneider wrote:
> On 03/27/07, Ulf Lamping wrote:
>   
>> a) waypoint
>> b) track
>> c) route
>>     
>
> >From my experience with handling GPS data files for a few years:
>
> a) Waypoints are points in space that are not necessarily connected to other 
> points, and their order is unimportant.  They can be entered before or after 
> you actually visit the place.
>
> b) Tracks are typically records of where you have been with your GPS device 
> -- "breadcrumb trails."  The order of trackpoints within the track is 
> critically important.
>
> c) Routes are like a cross between tracks and waypoints: they are lists of 
> waypoints (often with names) connected in a specific order.  They are usually 
> created by PC software, or generated inside a GPS device, BEFORE setting out 
> on a trip.  They can be composed of existing waypoints, or new "routepoints" 
> might be generated.
>
>   
First of all, a big thank you for all the responses involved :-)

Now it's much clearer!

Looking at the three answers I've seen, Adam hit the nail on the head to 
give me a clear understanding.

At least Christoph thinks that it shouldn't be included in the GPSBabel 
docs. I slightly disagree, as a single page in the docs can prevent a 
lot of confusion IMHO. I'm not thinking to explain GPS in general or 
such. But terminology *extensively* used in the docs should be explained 
(to be sure) - as googling about terms might present different meanings 
(as a newbie you just don't have a clue and can't be sure).

To my experience from developing other projects I'm involved: A single 
person asked was prepended by about hundred persons that just shuts 
their mouth and were just wondering. So this might have been a problem 
several times ago, with people only afraid to ask :-(


It might also be useful to add a some example terms that the different 
manufacturers use. For example, for the TomTom Rider I own:

Waypoints (Points of Interest)
Routes (Itineraries)

Please keep in mind that a lot of GPSBabel users are not native english, 
I've even had to ask a dictionary to get the meaning of the word 
itinerary :-)


I could merge the three responses (Adam, Christoph, Mike) into a patch 
for the xmldoc - if there's a chance to get it included?

Regards, ULFL


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