If you don't want to plan a route this trip, skip ahead to the lesson "Saving a GPS Data File" on page 50. But don't forget, planning a route is one of MapCreate's coolest capabilities. If you're ready for some real navigating with routes, read on.
Creating a Route
A route is a series of waypoints, linked together in an ordered sequence, that's used to mark a course of travel. You can visualize a route as beads on a string, or, think of it as the mile marker signs posted at intervals along U.S. interstate highways.
Routes are powerful tools for planning and then navigating your journeys. With your GPS receiver, you can automatically navigate from one waypoint to the next along your intended course. You can start at either end of a route, or even begin navigation in the middle of a route.
You can informally group routes into two broad categories, based on the terrain and type of travel. On water, in the air or just hiking cross- country, you can generally travel in a simple, straight line from waypoint to waypoint (barring obstacles, of course.) The Global Positioning System was originally developed by the U.S. military for this type of routing. It's suitable for airplanes, ships and soldiers in the field. MapCreate and your GPS unit connect all route waypoints with straight lines.
The other route style involves navigating along a road, highway or other winding pathway. When your vehicle has to follow the twists and turns of the pavement, you can't really travel in a straight line from waypoint to waypoint.
Since the legs of all GPS routes are based on straight lines between waypoints, setting up a curvy highway route takes a little more time and practice than our Quick Start format allows. We'll save those details for the Create Route entry in the online Command Reference section.
For this lesson, we'll use an example based on a simple
1.Center the Master Map display on the area where you want to begin your route. Click the CENTER MASTER MAP
then click the 
on the area you want centered.
2.If needed, click the Zoom In or Zoom Out buttons so you can see enough detail to accurately place the route waypoints.
47
