How do courses actually work?

[987]

Hi.
I played around with the Courses for a bit on the GPSMAP 66st (firmware 9.60).
While creating the Course i can select Direct path or Roads & trails.
I added a few points to pass through and a total distance of around 2km.

When i later select FIND -> Courses i again have to chose between Direct path or Roads & trails.
If i select Direct path it will show straight lines (same as Routing - Direct route).
If i select Roads & Trails it will route along the available map (same as Routing - Automobile driving or any other that is on road).

Up till this point i see no difference in a Course compared to a Route, at least not when creating it on the unit.



At one point in time, which i believe (but i am no longer sure) when i chose to route the Course, it created all the points of the track (breadcrumbs) and made something similar to "track back" on a track. In the Active route page i could see many hundreds of points to pass which were just points along the roads. I have never been able to reproduce this, so maybe i accidentally did something else.

I get the idea of a Course if one plans it on a computer and does not have the same map on the unit.
In that case the Course can be pre-made with all the breadcrumbs, but what else is there that is different from a Route or a Track?

[987]

It's a bit confusing but i think i see how it can work.

While creating a Course (not afterwards).
If one selects Direct path, the routing will be working in the same way as a Route, with direct routing or from the points that one manually added to the course or along the road network on a map.
If one selects Roads & trails, the Course will first calculate all breadcrumbs along the available road network on a map and then route along those breadcrumbs in the same way as a "track back" for tracks. This allows to share a Course with a unit that does not have the same map installed, and allow that person/unit to route the same way.

[GPSrChive]

We are still exploring what support for 'Courses' brings to the table ourselves.

We think one of the largest benefits is the added ability to 'Save Track as Course' - Which finally allows users to receive guided routing prompts for tracks download from their favorite outdoor activity service (such as Wikiloc) after converting them to a course.

[kampy]

I also do not quite understand how the courses work in the GPSMAP 66st
When I saw the announcement of this feature, I got excited because I asked for this feature at
https://www.gpsrchive.com/Discussion/vi ... .php?t=862
but I did not really hope that they would hear me. However, as often happens at Garmin, instead of using mechanisms that work well with their other devices, they come up with something new.
It would seem that the idea should have been that if I put a .fit from ridewithgps.com or plotaroute.com into the device and prepared a route legend there (clearing obvious turns, adding comments for the remaining ones and adding my own points of interest). Further, the movement along the course should be similar to the movement along the track, but react to turning points, and react similarly to turns with the routing set, i.e. showing arrows
Alas, I only heard the signals, it’s somehow very small, but even this didn’t work very well.