Guide to using Carto Exploreur files
Files for the Carto Exploreur software are available for download for routes organised in France by the Club des Cent Cols.
You must first open the downloaded ZIP file and extract the TXT file included on your hard disk. We suggest that you define a new workspace for the trip circuits. Then import the relevant points (waypoints) and track layouts in this workspace. Please follow the steps below for importing, importing the waypoints and the layout.
| stage | waypoints | routes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Open the libraries and click on 'Workspaces'. | (This step has already been performed when importing waypoints). |
| 2 | Create a new workspace by clicking on 'New' and renaming the new workspace to a name of your choice. Then click on 'OK'. The new workspace becomes the active workspace. | (This step has already been performed when importing waypoints). |
| 3 | Open the libraries and click on the 'waypoints' library. | Open the libraries and click on the 'plots' library. |
| 4 | Click on the 'Import' icon. | Click on the 'Import' icon. |
| 5 | Select the Carto Exploreur interne TXT file extracted from the ZIP file downloaded to your hard disk and click on the 'Open' button. Make sure that the file type is 'Internal text file (*.txt)'. | Select the Carto Exploreur interne TXT file extracted from the ZIP file downloaded to your hard disk and click on the 'Open' button. Make sure that the file type is 'Internal text file (*.txt)'. |
| 6 | The route waypoints will be imported and saved. Click on the 'OK' button. | The routes will be imported and saved, each in its own folder. Click on the 'OK' button. |
| 7 | Waypoints for all circuits are now present in the waypoint library, with each circuit in a separate folder. | The routes for all the circuits are now present in the list of routes in the workspace. |
| 8 | By ticking one of the folders, display the waypoints for that route on the background map. Then play with the zoom control for map details. | Tick one of the track folders to display its segments on the background map. Then play with the zoom control for map details. |
| To avoid confusion on the map, display only one route at a time. This means unchecking the current folder before checking another folder, and preferably displaying the waypoints of a route with its corresponding track. | ||
AttentionIf you use Carto Exploreur to export tracks to your GPS receiver, the latter may not have sufficient capacity to record all the points. There are three solutions in this case:
- Split the plot (in Carto Exploreur, position yourself on a plot with the 'plot' tool activated, right-click at a point on the plot and choose 'split': 2 plots are created with the initial name followed by the number 1 or 2.
- In the track library, right-click on 'reduce' and choose the number of points suitable for the GPS by selecting the 'points on the sharpest bends' option. This option will reduce the precision of the tracks in favour of a smaller number of points.
- Use GPX files limited to 500 points rather than Carto Exploreur.