D3 - Just back from France: Oh Dear...

siwatkins · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 07, 2003 Posts: 32

Just returned from my Ski Trip to the French Alps. Naturally I took D3 with me, but wished I'd not bothered I'm afraid.

The standard route, used by many skiers is to head from Calais, via Reims, Dijon, Lyon, Moutiers to the ski resort. D3 steadfastly refused to follow that route, consistently trying to route off the A roads onto D roads for the whole journey. It was as if there is a hidden option for "Avoid Toll Roads".

The weighting of its routing algorithm was such that it so hated being on the A road, it would try and route me through just about every rest area! Perverse - it would take you through the rest area, then back onto the autoroute. It tried to take me off every junction of the A roads over the 600 or so miles from Calais to the ski resort, and the same on the return trip. It thus wasn't especially useful (understatement alert).

Steadfastly, the routing bug D3 has, meant that at one point, although I was only 250km away from my destination, D3 was trying to take me back via the original route it had calculated giving a distance of 450km!!! Forcing D3 to recalculate a route again based on the current position brought the distance back down to 250km. However, on a couple of occasions, it refused to route calculate from my position to the south of Dijon, saying impossible to calculate route etc. This bug is known though I believe.

On the bright side - Roundabouts worked in France, even if they don't with the UK map. However, it's utility in France was extremely questionable if it insists on avoiding the autoroutes! (and it was the Euro maps that convinced me to buy and stick with D3 Sad

).

Simon

Dave · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2003 3:56 pm Post subject:

So it sounds like it's not just the UK maps that are having routing difficulties, but Europe also ? Rolling Eyes

siwatkins · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 07, 2003 Posts: 32

Dave,

Fraid so. The program is barking. It strikes me that it has been released far too early, with inadequate QC and testing.

For a piece of software to be unable to route (at all) without downloading a patch, not be able to cope with roundabouts in the UK, make very questionable routing decisions, be unable to re-route adequately, crash, unable to adequately route through Europe (France at least), take you off into every rest area of an Autoroute, be unable to route on Autoroutes! and have so many other residual bugs, I think is a disgrace on Destinator's part.

This IS a 3rd generation product from their company. They should be ashamed, and it would be appropriate if they read these forums for them to make a public response to advise those who've bought this product what they are going to be doing to "make it right". The product, imnsho, is not currently of merchantable quality.

The fact that it received 3rd place in the PocketGPS awards is even more worrying, as that indicates to me that there are worse products out there, and I find that a stunning reflection on the state of the market.

At the moment, I wouldn't personally advise anyone to buy Destinator 3.

Simon

thevoyeur · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 11, 2003 Posts: 15

Just got back from a Ski trip in Switzerland, and pretty much without exception D3 was virtually useless to me the whole time. Although it would have gotten me to my destination most times, the routing was completely daft. I mainly know this as I was travelling with a native Swiss person from the area I was in.... and most routes were calculated using secondary roads and in one case a road that has been replaced with a newer one more than 10 years ago! It even tried to route me via a pass that is closed in winter! Evil or Very Mad

Anyway, hopefully this will be sorted out, because I do a lot of European travel and would like to know I can rely on the system to efficiently get me where I am going..... at this point a paper map would be better!

siwatkins · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 07, 2003 Posts: 32

The annoying thing is, Beta testers normally get their Beta release software for free. Evil or Very Mad

Don't think Destinator3 is quite at the Beta test phase yet unfortunately.

Can Destinator confirm or deny that this software was tested in the UK or Europe at all? I'm struggling to believe that this can be the case, as it was clear from the first couple of trips that the software was majorly flawed. On a less sarcastic note, Destinator, I'm sure you'd have a far more successful product if you engaged some of the people in this forum and others, from different countries to help you real world test the product *before* you release it to the market. What do you think?

Simon

siwatkins · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 07, 2003 Posts: 32

thevoyeur.... it appears that by default, Toll Roads are "Avoided".

If you click on the Destinate menu, (with the foreign country map loaded), and click on the Avoid Roads button, you'll see that Toll Roads are listed. If you highlight it, and choose Use, you can force it to use Toll Roads. Try recalculating your trip after doing that, and it works rather more sensibly. It seems a very strange way of doing things Destinator, but I would have been happy with the route it had chosen on my ski trip to the French Alps had I been aware of this little "gotcha".

There is still a bug though Destinator. If you are on a Toll Road, and your Avoid Toll Roads option is "on" by default, the routing algorithm shouldn't try and route you through every Autoroute rest area, just because those aren't Toll Roads. They need to be regarded as Toll Roads in the same way as the Autoroute that they service.

Simon

sid · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 14, 2004 Posts: 4

Do you mind posting exact address you travel in France , the route you had a problem with?

thevoyeur · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 11, 2003 Posts: 15

siwatkins:

Sorry for the delay in replying..... I've not really been following the forum since I got back from Switzerland. With regards to your "Toll Roads" suggestion, I will certainly try it when I am in Switzerland again next month. However, I don't see how this will change anything as none of the roads that Destinator should have chosen were toll roads! In fact, I am not even aware of any toll roads at all in Graubunden, the area of Switzerland that I frequently spend time in.

Did you find it made a difference in France regardless of whether there were toll roads?

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