Route Generator

3.1/5 7

Last updated: Feb 26, 2015 Certified 100% FREE GPLv3

SOFTPEDIA® DOWNLOAD NOW 3,759 downloads so far

Very easy-to-use application for drawing routes on maps, inserting vehicles, previewing an animation and exporting it to AVI movies. #Draw route #Generate route #Create route #Draw #Creator #Generate

Softpedia Review

Route Generator is a very simplistic application specifically designed to help users easily create routes on maps. It's not as glamorous as it sounds, since it comes packed with some basic features, such as route simulation and animation export.

The setup procedure is brief and uneventful. In matter of interface, Route Generator features a standard window with a fairly intuitive structure that shouldn't impose any difficulties to users.

Local images can be imported with the help of the file browser, as long as they have the BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG or TIF format. Moreover, you can add an image from Google Maps without leaving Route Generator's interface (just paste a link).

By entering draw mode you can click various parts of the map to create a route. What the program basically does is apply lines (solid or dashed) with custom colors and sizes, letting users make any adjustments on the go.

You can select the mode of transportation between airplane, bicycle, bike, boat, car or train (or none), set the total animation time (in seconds), and enable a smooth route.

Vehicle settings are customizable when it comes to the size, angle, mirror mode, and orientation (fixed or automatic). Meanwhile, new vehicles can be added to Route Generator from JPG, GIF or PNG images, in order to create custom settings for them too, before inserting them into the map. Undo and redo functions are available.

Once all plans are made, you can preview the animation as well as export it to an AVI clip. Each frame included in the video is saved to BMP format, and you can also consult a log file for any errors.

As far as program options are concerned, you can modify the Bmp2Avi location (the utility used to generate the AVI animation), edit the video name, delete the BMP frames if you have no use for them, select the FPS, key frame rate and codec, establish the smoothing coefficient, as well as hide vehicles in the start and end frames.

Route Generator may take a while to generate an animation and each frame. It uses low-to-moderate memory and low CPU, so it shouldn't affect PC performance.

However, this app is basically a paint tool with very few options aimed at road map editing (nothing advanced). It doesn't even offer support for actual map files, such as KML and KML (supported by Google Earth). On top of that, the output video was distorted during our evaluation.

In conclusion, Route Generator is not really the best application that users may resort to when creating routes on maps. We must also take into account that the tool has not been updated for a while.

What's new in Route Generator 1.7:

You can now select a delay in seconds to add before the beginning or after the end of the generated movie.
It's now possible to select FFmpeg as movie generator on Windows, instead of bmp2avi (on Linux FFmpeg was already the default). However, to use it, you will have to download and install it manually (see instructions in the Tutorial)
Route Generator now supports the new interface of Google Maps.

Read the full changelog

DOWNLOAD Route Generator 1.7 for Windows