DeLorme has a number of mapping products which draw routes and from which files suitable for CueSheetMaker can be obtained. I am familiar with Delorme’s Topo USA, 5.0, Topo USA, 6.0, and Street Atlas 2006. The SAD2CUE write up indicates that the following also produce suitable files: DeLorme’s Street Atlas Deluxe, Topo 4 Topo 5, SA2003, SA2004, and SA2005. Although there is much to like about these products, they are the least satisfactory of bunch, because their directions omit important turns. I have found no way to correct for this, short of inputting the information on the cue sheet, which is awkward, because the mileage is unavailable. The directions are often confusing, in that many turns are included that are not turns at all; and it takes a bit of study to weed them out when preparing a cue sheet. Pedometer and TOPO! do not provide road names, but it is less difficult to fill in the names with these programs than to disentangle the noise produced by DeLorme’s extraneous names.

For DeLorme products, use the “Print” tab to print to a Route file. The “Directions” check box must be checked. The following shows the setup on DeLorme’s Topo USA, 5.0. It will appear somewhat different on other DeLorme products, and some DeLorme produces, except for Topo USA 6.0 (see below), do not support any sort of file output. Click on the image of the diskette to save the route as a .txt file.

The DeLorme interface is nonstandard, and thus confusing, since things one normally wants to do are often hidden in odd places; nonetheless, it will draw routes automatically and the road names and turn markings are superior to the other software discussed here. It’s maps are not as good as the Google maps used by Pedometer, but it allows the user to draw roads when they are missing from the maps.

The set up I use for Topo USA 5.0 is as follows. Note that “Road” is the selected road type. The display for Street Atlas 2006 is slightly different.. The “Road Type” items are set to slow speeds, highways are set to “avoid,” and local roads are set to “Preferred.” 

I start by placing a start, , on the map and then add, not insert, via’s, . (Click on the “New Edit” item in order to bring up a menu which allows setting the via’s to “add.”) A calculation will not be done until a finish, , point is added. I often add, and then delete, finish points to make sure that the calculated route is going where I want it to go. If the resulting road does not go where it is supposed to go, it is worthwhile to check the ordering of the via’s. Use the “Advanced” menu, which looks like the following: It is rather easy to place via’s out of order.

This menu also allows the names of the waypoints to be changed -- in the illustration, point 0-1 has just been renamed. It may be necessary to insert additional via’s, or use the route avoidance settings under “Edit Roads” in the above. If additional via’s are inserted, make sure that the via box on the “New Edit” menu is set to “Insert,” and make sure that the highlighted waypoint in the menu of above illustration is just before where the new point is to be inserted.

Another problem that prevents the route going where it is wanted is that the roads on the maps are not always connected. When there is a problem with the route it is worthwhile to scan the road very carefully, looking for breaks. Such breaks can be fixed by using the drawing layer. I suspect that the breaks occur at points where DeLorme has stitched together two maps.

Clicking on the “Directions” tab shows the directions that will be output to a file for processing by CueSheetMaker. They are often incomplete.

For the route illustrated, a bare five strategically chosen points were enough to determine the route, and the resulting Edit cue sheet is:

This is not correct. Its mileage is in error, and it is missing a critical turn between lines 17 and 18. One would think that this could be corrected by returning to the map and adding a via at the missing turn, but in this case it will not work -- even placing via’s at every turn will not produce directions with correct turns. After revising the Edit cue sheet from which the above was generated, one has:

The total milage should be 17.60 instead of 17.12. Fortunately, the mileage discrepancies with DeLorme do not appear to become worse for longer rides -- even for a century, they seem to be under a mile. However, DeLorme mileages differ enough from those shown by bicycle computers to cause confusion. My guess is that the problem lies in a slight misalignment of the maps that DeLorme has stitched together. The latitudes and longitudes of points on maps must be correct for that map, but a slight misalignment of adjacent maps will introduce an error when calculating distances: the same problem appears with TOPO! which seems to use stitched together USGS maps.

Line 20 in the above cue sheet, was inserted during editing, but since the mileage was left blank the “For” value row 20 is in error.

In general, the DeLorme mileages should be viewed with suspicion, the turn information is far from reliable, and it is sometimes impossible to produce correct directions from DeLorme’s output. The illustrated route is not atypical. There are few routes that I have tried that have not missed critical turns.

Topo USA 6.0 will write .gpx files directly, and these may be loaded into MapSource for transfer to a GPS device. To save a file in this way, use the “File” menu under the “New Edit” menu to export a .gpx file. The appropriate dialog is shown below.