OptiMap version 4 is here
New user interface
Hold down shift while pressing reload to make sure the page fully reloads if OptiMap appears broken.
The first thing you’ll notice is a complete makeover of the user interface. The functionality has grown considerably since I first posted OptiMap in 2007, and the controls were scattered randomly around. Now, they are organized into neat little drawers on the left, in the order you are likely to be using them.
There is some new functionality as well. The ‘Edit Route’ section gives you the chance to re-order the trip after it has been computed. Have to visit one client first? No problem, drag to the top. You can also delete stops from the itinerary here.
OptiMap 4 also has a more powerful TSP solver routine. The new solver kicks in when there are more than 15 stops, and produces better and more robust solutions than the old engine. It is guaranteed to perform better than before, and in some hard cases I’ve tested, it improved the solutions by as much as 6-7%. That means that if you spent 8 hours on the road before, you now get home half an hour earlier.
Support for Garmin GPS units is now added as well. Support is experimental, since I only had access to one Garmin device, which did not support routes. I’m interested to hear whether this works on your device if you have a Garmin GPS.
There are some bug fixes as well: When pasting data from Excel spreadsheets into the bulk add box, the cell delimiters were lost. This is fixed. The print function used to show half a page of unnecessary white space at the bottom, thus it sometimes would print blank pages at the end. This is fixed so you won’t be wasting paper needlessly any more.
As a bonus, you may now access the service from a shorter address: www.optimap.net (the old address will continue to work, and the page will remain identical)
I hope you enjoy the update! Please post questions, feedback, bugs and suggestions here. I’m sure I broke something during the update…
January 25th, 2012 at 21:38
Hi, quick question does optimap require a certain browser? ie 8 or 9? My problem is that my company computer i use has ie 7 installed and the map portion doesnt show up. Any thoughts would be great. Thanks.
January 25th, 2012 at 22:31
I wasn’t aware of a browser restriction. Did OptiMap work before for you? I’ll check to see what I can find. I’ve tested on Chrome, Firefox and Safari, but IE isn’t available for macs, so I can’t easily test it.
January 25th, 2012 at 22:35
I did some searching, and found a guy who had a problem similar to yours:
“Do you have IE enhanced security turned on? We recently were scratching our heads over problem #1 until we added the following sites to IE’s list of not-restricted (e.g., trusted) sites:
- http://*.google.com
- http://*.googleapis.com
- http://*.gstatic.com ”
Maybe it helps?
January 27th, 2012 at 08:34
Thanks Geir.
I have been using your TSP Solver on my iPad and Garmin GPS while doing a trail delivery network in Brisbane Australia. V4 looks good, more stable, a little quicker and more robust. Safari on iPad runs out of memory at about 25-30 stops.
Again Thanks.
p.s. Look forward to the Garmin export.
January 27th, 2012 at 09:05
Thanks for the report. I’ll see if there’s anywhere I can save some memory and I hope to have the Garmin code ready this weekend.
January 30th, 2012 at 12:25
Garmin code is added, but it’s experimental. The device I tested on had no support for routes, so the route export feature is untested. There is an option to just export waypoints, which works on most units, but is a bit cumbersome to use.
January 30th, 2012 at 23:47
The export to Google Maps is helpful thanks! If you could show the trip time between locations it would be very helpful! (now i currently export to Google maps to accomplish this)
February 2nd, 2012 at 16:27
Does anyone know a api that can convert the route data to other formats for other devices?
@gebweb, do you code custom solutions for paying clients, i may be interested. Can you please contact me?
February 8th, 2012 at 18:26
Love this program. However, the latitudes and longitudes when you export the “Toggle Raw Path Output” are often different than the latitudes and longitudes that are bulk entered. This makes it difficult to compare what was entered with the resulting output.
Is there a way to make the longitude and latitude “Raw Path Output” data match what was bulk added?
Or perhaps a “Calculate As Entered” functionality could be added so that the “Raw Path Output” can first be associated with the data that is bulk entered. The “Fastest Route” could then be calculated and compared to the revised latitudes and longitudes that the program uses.
February 9th, 2012 at 10:33
Hi,
I think adding labels to each lat, lng pair is more efficient than trying to match them with the original data. There is a way to do this, albeit a bit cumbersome, with the http interface and the name parameter. E.g http://www.optimap.net/?loc0=(60.0,10.0)&name0=home&loc1=(60.1,10.0)&name1=geocache1 . I’ll try to come up with a way to add labels to the user interface, but as always, user interface is my weakest side…
Geir
February 18th, 2012 at 20:53
A simple but useful output would just be a list of the ordered stop addresses without the driving directions. One additional column of output information would also be helpful: the position index from the bulk added input list.
February 19th, 2012 at 19:53
Hi,
Really liked the new look and options. It would be really great to have the option to add label. I would think a three column setup of lat, long, label would be very user friendly.
If it is difficult to split, you could add an option to label upload that would correspond to the lat long in the same sequence.
From new stuff, the ability to give an input of number of vehicles available would be great. Not sure how complicated the model becomes. It is something that a lot of people planning multiple routes would need.
March 3rd, 2012 at 08:33
Hi
“Toggle Raw Path Output” :
Your idea for adding labels to the original point – for easy match of the new ordered points with the originals is GREAT !
Waiting for this is well !!! (any idea when to expect this to happen ?)
could you please just spit a sample of the new input http request and its raw output so we can prepare our code ?
Many thanks for a great site !!
March 3rd, 2012 at 22:05
Hi Gonen,
I’ve had little spare time the last few weeks, and will be busy until late March, but the http request params will be
label0=your label&label1=…
in addition to the current params. The output is likely to be of the form
label1:(lat,lng)
label0:(lat,lng)
…
Hope that helps
March 4th, 2012 at 08:16
1 – Super !
Will solve lot of problems for me and others and will make it very easy to understand the new route.
===================================
2 – Just would like to remind you about new routing option that we discussed already.
Currently we have A-Z and Round trip.
I named this new suggested option – “Tourist walking tour”
This option has a starting point (e.g – the hotel where he sleeps) and more points the tourist would like to visit (e.g – museums)
This option does not have ending point.
Why ? because when a tourist comes to town, he wants to walk through several points of interest in the shortest way. He does not care where will be the last point (As he plans to take a taxi back to the hotel…)
Is it complicated ?
===================================
3 – Please note that viewing the route on Google Maps, has the 25 points limit…
=====================================================
Great site !!!
Thanks
March 5th, 2012 at 08:50
Hi Geir,
Great website!!!! I have a question, on the export function, would it be possible to export the route segments? Currenttly it only exports the way points coordinates. Would it be possible to export the total line segment coordinates?
Let me know if this is possible.
I appreciate your time,
Sincerely,
March 7th, 2012 at 07:27
Hi Geir,
Would it be possible to export the route to KML?
Thanks,
March 17th, 2012 at 18:12
Hey have you tried or is it possible to get a QR Code output from this?
March 22nd, 2012 at 21:18
Great functionality!
I believe I have found a bug, though. When I try to view in Google Maps, only the first 4/31 destinations is displayed.
Is there a way to export the list of addresses?
Below is the raw path output I am using:
(41.84434, -87.71935000000002)
(41.84617, -87.71971000000002)
(41.85087, -87.72543999999999)
(41.87481, -87.74504999999999)
(41.90419000000001, -87.72145999999998)
(41.90656000000001, -87.72153000000003)
(41.89190000000001, -87.70641999999998)
(41.8804, -87.68639000000002)
(41.89081000000001, -87.67689000000001)
(41.89686, -87.67462)
(41.90141000000001, -87.67474000000004)
(41.90328, -87.67236000000003)
(41.91775000000001, -87.67790000000002)
(41.91935, -87.68016999999998)
(41.91761, -87.68499000000003)
(41.93209, -87.69987000000003)
(41.93213, -87.69289000000003)
(41.93952, -87.68319000000002)
(41.93977, -87.66380000000004)
(41.94251000000001, -87.66389000000004)
(41.94258000000001, -87.65904)
(41.92171, -87.65607)
(41.87811000000001, -87.62979000000001)
(41.87811000000001, -87.62979000000001)
(41.85285, -87.6465)
(41.85255, -87.64648)
(41.83028, -87.68531999999999)
(41.85672, -87.67858999999999)
(41.85382000000001, -87.69056999999998)
(41.84999000000001, -87.69538)
(41.84626, -87.70137999999997)
(41.84434, -87.71935000000002)
March 22nd, 2012 at 21:21
Google Maps only handles up to 25 addresses, so that’s probably why they won’t display in Google Maps.
March 22nd, 2012 at 22:45
Also, it appears to not want to calculate a route if I try add the above raw output into the bulk address area.
March 29th, 2012 at 17:12
Hi Geir
Any news about the:
label1:(lat,lng)
label0:(lat,lng)
thanks for any update
April 2nd, 2012 at 13:49
Hi,
Labels in the toggle raw path output, would be a nice update.
Now it’s almost impossible to use this ordered output, because it slightly changed the coordinats…
thanks for any update
I’am waithing for the next version
April 2nd, 2012 at 15:56
It’s been quite a busy time for me, but I’ll try to add labels in the raw output very soon…
April 14th, 2012 at 09:04
We wait – Many thanks !!!!!
April 17th, 2012 at 13:15
@Gonen, I finally got around to doing this. Sorry for the long wait and thank you for your patience!
There is now a new button under export which shows the raw path including labels when you press it.
To add labels, use the HTTP GET parameter called name, e.g: http://gebweb.net/optimap/index.php?name0=Start&loc0=(60,10)&name1=First%20stop&loc1=(59.5,9.8)&name2=2nd%20stop&loc2=Askroken%2051
April 17th, 2012 at 13:26
Works perfect !!!!! Bravo !!!
April 23rd, 2012 at 22:45
wen i try bulk add by adress , he will not work.
N 51° 19.513 E 005° 34.912
N 51° 19.491 E 005° 38.323
N 51° 19.897 E 005° 36.315
N 51° 19.239 E 005° 33.969
N 51° 17.712 E 005° 30.942
N 51° 18.337 E 005° 31.993
N 51° 18.505 E 005° 32.369
he says :failed to geocode adress: N etc.
Reason: no result was found for this geocoder request.
Before the update there was no problem.
April 24th, 2012 at 07:21
Ad,
Your list of destinations worked perfectly for me in Google Chrome. Maybe there was some temporary problem?
April 24th, 2012 at 15:37
I copy paste it from an excell sheet and sometimes he will not accept the destination. when i delete the destination and i fill the excell sheet again with the same destination then it is correct.!!
I use it for geocaching.
April 26th, 2012 at 22:54
I am trying to get address for around 50 locations but the system seems to freeze up and not give me any results
April 27th, 2012 at 15:59
Hello, I noticed a little bug: if there is an apostrophe in one of the place-names, the “View in Google Maps” button doesn’t work (I think the underlying JS interprets the apostrophe as an end-of-string marker).
Thank you for your great effort and keep up the good job!
April 28th, 2012 at 09:44
I fixed the bug with apostrophes now (by simply ignoring them).
May 4th, 2012 at 15:20
Excellent tool! Will be donating for sure. I like the custom labels and the website integration which I am currently using. Although I would like to have this run strictly from my own site but I’m finding the code is confusing and it won’t work for me.
May 15th, 2012 at 17:19
About missing waypoints in Google Maps: is there a way to modify the Export function, so that the comma following State is not exported to GMaps? As it is now each comma must be deleted by hand to avoid problems.
Great Program!
May 15th, 2012 at 17:25
This might also resolve the lat/long variations mentioned earlier.