Route Gadget and score events

[Duncan]

I did the North East score champs at the weekend and CLOK have put up a route gadget for it, see http://www.clok.org.uk/Events2006/061210_Goathland.htm. However they've had to work around the fact that Route Gadget doesn't really do score events. I don't fully understand why CLOK have had to set it up the way they have, but it works reasonably well except for knowing anything about which controls you visited (so it can't snap to the controls you visited when drawing your route) or split times (so you can't do head-to-head racing except by assuming constant speed).

Is there anything better you can do with it, or does anyone know if the Route Gadget people have plans to support score events properly?

[FatBoy]

Here's something I knocked up for the guys who run my local trailquests:

http://www.autodownload.co.uk/routebrow ... index.html

It doesn't allow saving of actual routes like RouteGadget does, merely shows order of controls collected and makes sense of the split times- which works purely from a split times file rather than competitor input.

If other people are interested I may do something similar to what Paul's done with RouteGadget - i.e. set up a hosting facility at minor cost.

I'm not sure officially what is the line with map licensing. I think Paul was going to find out? Unoffically I feel as long as the map image is of insufficient quality to print out then use on the ground then it within the spirit of the licensing.

If I get really bored I may try and rewrite it using javascript and some server side crunching, rather than the current java applet, so everybody doesn't have to install the runtime. I would have to get seriously bored though.

[Alastair_M]

RouteGadget does have a Score event capability, but it's marked "Experimental, may not work", so I didn't want to risk it.

Also, the Planner didn't use the course planning facility in OCAD 8 when he was creating the courses. He just created an overlay image with the controls on it. This meant that I couldn't export the course information from OCAD and import it into RouteGadget.

My work-around was quite complicated, and involved creating dummy courses in OCAD and making manual changes to the server-based files that RouteGadget uses to store information about the courses, competitors, etc.

If anyone is wanting to use RouteGadget for a score event then I'd suggest that you get in touch with the RouteGadget developer, Jarkko Ryyppö, and ask him whether the existing score event facility is working and, if so, what data format is needed for the split times. Jarkko is a very helpful guy.

Alastair Mackenzie
CLOK Webmaster

[Alastair_M]

If you're going to display any map that's based on Ordnance Survey mapping then you need a Paper Map Copying Licence from the Ordnance Survey.

The licence costs £55.81 for a year. It's basically intended to allow businesses to make paper copies of maps for internal use, but it also allows you to "use our paper mapping externally for display and promotion purposes, as long as you make no direct financial gain from its use".

As I understand it, the Ordnance Survey's interpretation of "display and promotion purposes" is that you have to put some sort of overlay on top of their mapping. They don't want people displaying their maps on their own, but they're happy if the display includes, for example, an arrow saying "We're located here". In an orienteering context, we're always going to be overlaying our own information -- courses, routes, etc. -- on top of the map, so we're covered by the "display and promotion" clause.

You can apply for a Paper Map Copying Licence via the Ordnance Survey web site at http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/business/copyright/purpose/internaluse.html. You'll get a temporary licence number straight away, and the licence certificate -- and an invoice! -- will follow by post.

Alastair Mackenzie
CLOK Webmaster

[Paul Frost]

Alistair has described the licence issue perfectly, that is what I was told when I spoke to the OS.

I have emailed Jarkko with the question about how to use RouteGadget with score events, so rather than him getting loads of separate requests for the same thing, I will report back on his reply.

[Paul Frost]

The response from Jarkko is:

It should work just fine with for example SI csv. I haven't tested it with all formats (like etiming, ttime, OO etc files) so it may not work with all formats but it's used a lot with the most common ones - the same mode has been used with butterfly loop and all kind of "gaffling". But all classes should have the same start and finish point at the moment.

Just make sure all control codes in SI csv can be found in Condes/Ocad course setting file including last control and finish punch.