HOWTO: converting tracks into routes and use them as tracks

The Quest does not work with tracks that well, even though it was advertised as capable of saving 20 tracks. There is a way around it (see Howto: use downloaded tracks on the Quest), but it has the disadvantage that you use the same tracklog you save your currect movement in and you cannot distinguish seperate tracks. Now there is another way that makes the Quest behave as if it is using trackback of a separate track and where you can name the track anything you like. It does however require some extra work in advance, which we describe here.

	You start as usual, by loading the track into Mapsource. We are using version 6.5 here, since that version can write in the GDB file format and can filter tracks. Both features are needed in this procedure. We open the track and click on Filter...
	We now automatically filter the track to a maximum of 250 trackpoints, since the Quest can only use direct routes with a maximum of 254 route points. You can do this by hand, for even more precise track point deletion. You can also delectively delete not needed trackpoints after filtering.
	We now have a track with less than 250 trackpoints. We save the track in the GDB file format. Always check the filtered track against the original track! If the filtered track is missing some important trackpoints, now is the time to go back to the filtering step and correct that. This is also the time you will notice if the track needed splitting up, rather than filtering (this will probably be the case with longer, already optimised tracks).
	Here comes the magic! We now use WinGDB to convert our track to a route. We convert the track to a route with hidden via points, because we don't want to have each route point to show up as a waypoint. Next, we open it in Mapsource and upload it to the Quest, just as we would normally do with a downloaded track.
	When we go to our route List, we see the "track", with a nice descriptive name (if we actually gave it one...). This way you can load multiple "tracks" (the Quest supports 50 routes), each with it's own name and not taking up any tracklog space.
	We can navigate it, just like a normal route. Except, this will now behave like a track. =8-) One word of caution: do not recalculate the route! A direct route can not be recalculated in this form. The Quest might reboot spontaneously. Since you want it to behave as a trackback, a recalculation is not what you want anyway. =8-) The only time a recalculation might be usefull is if the track runs completely over normal roads. You will loose the tracklike behaviour, but get the turn prompts back.
	It shows a nice purple guide, just like a route or trackback would. And you see all via points, just like you would see on a trackback.
	Just like a trackback, it doesn't show turn popups, but it does show the compass page with all info you'd expect from a trackback. Except, this is actually a route. =8-)

It adds a few steps to the normal process of using a downloaded track, but makes the Quest work the same way as any other Garmin with respect to uploaded tracks. But, because they are actually routes, they will not take up any tracklog space and you can have 50 of them (instead of the advertised maximum of 20 saved tracks, which we didn't get anyway). Have fun!

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