Remember TTS4

[mcinner1]

Since a few days I'm on TDA.
Of course - the films are very nice to ride and it is a nice App in general.

But I also like to follow my "real" tours from the summer, and I found some screenshots from the good old TTS4 days - back then with 3D Google world.
That was really cool!
Here are two of them - left TTS4 and right side TDA:





And where is the little cycling man - I miss him!



And... why must the "pause-window" be that big?
When I take a break I will see the landscape and not a huge black window with nearly no information!

Ok, now I am calm again and still enjoy the TDA!

[mcorn]

You had to pay an extra $30 per year for Google Maps in TTS to cover what Google charged Tacx. I recall that when Tacx first released this in TTS there was no extra charge, but then Google discovered that Tacx was making commercial use of its GPS maps and starting charging Tacx.

I am guessing that not enough customers are interested in paying this fee, which is why they now have the 2D maps. Maybe Garmin could bring back the 3D maps, given its connection to the GPS world.

I always thought the GPS maps feature was interesting (as was Google Street View), but at the end of the day, I made very little use of it, maybe only a couple of times a year. No matter what you did to enhance it, it still were just aerial maps and not as interesting as videos for me. If Google Street View had worked really well and provided higher resolution and smoother video, that would have been a different matter. But in my experience, it never got very good.

[ms6073]

I thought I had read somewhere that one of the advantages of using the Microsoft development foundation for TDA was that it allowed Tacx to leverage Bing Maps. If that is the case, from the screen shots above, would sure seem to illustrate the old adage 'you get what you pay for'.

[mcorn]

I thought I had read somewhere that one of the advantages of using the Microsoft development foundation for TDA was that it allowed Tacx to leverage Bing Maps. If that is the case, from the screen shots above, would sure seem to illustrate the old adage 'you get what you pay for'.

Not quite sure what the map source is for TDA, but Bing maps have aerial 3D capability just like Google. There are many sites that use Bing 3D maps, like various real estate listings, that allow selection of a 3D perspective. But perhaps the licensee has to pay extra for that.

One interesting thing is if you look at the thumbnails of the GPS rides, some of them have Google in the thumbnail, but if you start the ride, it is Bing. Also, some of the rides do have Bing 3D. Here is a screen shot of the New York Central Park ride, which looks quite good. So, I think it just depends on the ride.

TDA Central Park Screen Shot..jpg (88.72 KiB) Viewed 31949 times

[Luelue]

Hi! I just got into cycling after getting a road bike a few weeks ago. There is an overwhelming amount of information and I am struggling to keep up with all the gadgets, apps, lubes and whatnot, but I am getting wiser, learning a lot and stumbled onto this forum.

What's got me real stumped though, is the lack of trainer apps that offer the functionality that TTS4 had with custom routes with street/3d view. I bought a kickr snap and was looking forward to plotting and training on local routes during winter and ride them for real in summer, only to realize it can't be done anymore...bummer!

This amazing technology is already here and I would gladly pay for licenses to play with it. Please tell me there is hope. Is there really no apps that lets you ride in street view anymore, did Google put a stop to all of them?

[mcorn]

TDA has a pretty good GPS function. Below are some screen shots I took from importing parts of an 80 mile ride from my home. I think this works much better than Street View ever did for me in TTS4. Occasionally, the course gets off the road, but this is more a function of the quality of the GPS data and not TDA. This is a course that I just now created in TDA by importing a GPX file that I created from a bicycle mounted GPS unit I had on my bike when I did the ride.

Home GPS Bridge Shot.jpg (105.83 KiB) Viewed 32028 times

Personal GPS Ride.jpg (135.4 KiB) Viewed 32028 times

[Luelue]

Nice! Thanks for sharing, that looks pretty good!
In a small town, far far away, Google did not ride like that, all is flat and kind of meh around here. I will try some plots in Paris or something just to see how that looks.

In my stubborness to ride street view I bought a Quest 2 just to try out VZFit Explorer, it looks pretty cool and seems to have an active development path with incline resistance in the pipeline.
For training, sweat will probably be an issue, but for planning and getting familiar with routes during winter it should be fine.

Has any of you had any experience with it?

Here's how it looks as of june-2020 by the way:
https://youtu.be/UEjuOv0HP80?t=141

[mcorn]

Others have also reported sweat issues when attempting to do exercise while wearing video goggles. Some other potential issues I see with the VZFit are being teathered to a 10' or less USB cable, the need for a higher end gaming computer, the lack of resistance function on the trainer, no current ability to interface with Tacx Smart Trainers, and use videos. Some of these may get fixed, but there seem to be so many competing products right now, that many of them may fall by the wayside as the market shakes out.

[Luelue]

Oculus should have solved all this with the Quest 2 though. It's untethered and no computer is needed since it has an internal Snapdragon cpu. The trainer resistance is unfortunately missing still, but in the works according to vzfit. I'll see how it works and post an update when it arrives sometime next week

[mcinner1]

TDA has a pretty good GPS function. Below are some screen shots I took from importing parts of an 80 mile ride from my home. I think this works much better than Street View ever did for me in TTS4. Occasionally, the course gets off the road, but this is more a function of the quality of the GPS data and not TDA. This is a course that I just now created in TDA by importing a GPX file that I created from a bicycle mounted GPS unit I had on my bike when I did the ride.


Home GPS Bridge Shot.jpgPersonal GPS Ride.jpg

That looks very impressing!
Would it be possible to zip your gmx and submit it here?
I would be very interested if it looks the same on my machine.

[Luelue]

Sorry for asking, but how do you get the 3d maps? All I get when starting a GPS route, for example Central Park is a flat map, no satellite or 3d and the buttons in top right corner does not do anything (zoom, satellite/map) is this a premium feature?

[mcinner1]

One interesting thing is if you look at the thumbnails of the GPS rides, some of them have Google in the thumbnail, but if you start the ride, it is Bing. Also, some of the rides do have Bing 3D. Here is a screen shot of the New York Central Park ride, which looks quite good. So, I think it just depends on the ride.

TDA Central Park Screen Shot..jpg

I think you‘re right. The „Central Park“ gps ride looks fantastic.
Would be nice to know which area is covered by 3D Bing.

I tried some other Tacx GPS rides in „famous“ places - but simple Google 2D look...

[mcinner1]

Sorry for asking, but how do you get the 3d maps? All I get when starting a GPS route, for example Central Park is a flat map, no satellite or 3d and the buttons in top right corner does not do anything (zoom, satellite/map) is this a premium feature?

„S“ key on your keyboard is your friend! It toggles between GPS and Map view.

(Press F1 for seeing all keyboard shortcuts!)

[Luelue]

„S“ key on your keyboard is your friend! It toggles between GPS and Map view.

(Press F1 for seeing all keyboard shortcuts!)

hmm, my keys or menu buttons do not do anything, except F1, it shows the shortcuts window but the damn pause screen pops up before I can go off the bike and see what it actually says.
Maybe I should contact support if this is supposed to work without premium in Central Park

[mcinner1]

You need Premium for using GPS 3D!

And yes ... this huge pause screen is annoying

[Luelue]

I upgraded to premium, but it is still the same, weird.

And that pause screen pop-up is really starting to freak me out, is there a way to disable it?

[mcorn]

I should have mentioned that Premium TDA is required for GPS 3D.

There is a toggle button in the upper right hand corner to switch between map and photo view.

I am a tester and previously provided negative comments on the pause feature.

[Luelue]

I talked to support and they are looking into it, none of the buttons do anything.
I have a premium already, but I'll try a reinstall on another computer and see what happens there.

I just got the Quest 2 vr headset and tried vzfit explorer street view. It worked surprisingly well. They've got some funky algorithms that produce an incredibly smooth ride. I'm not much of a training guy, but that may change, this was a lot of fun. Just import a route from Strava and ride anywhere. Sweat was not a problem either, there was pools on the floor but nothing in the face/headset.

I'm thinking of pairing to tda with ant to get the resistance, and Bluetooth to vzfit while waiting for native resistance, not sure if that will work though, I guess I'll find out.

[mcorn]

You are saying that when you put your mouse cursor and click on the icon with the red arrow, nothing happens?

TDA Map - Aerial Picture Toggle Switch.jpg (20.7 KiB) Viewed 31840 times

[Luelue]

Yep, that button, +, - and hotkeys, nothing happens...not even on a fresh install on a different pc, same thing, very strange, I suspect I am stupid.
Log files are sent to support anyway.

[mcorn]

Yep, that button, +, - and hotkeys, nothing happens...not even on a fresh install on a different pc, same thing, very strange, I suspect I am stupid.
Log files are sent to support anyway.

So, when you open TDA and click on "My activities", it will take you to your cloud account webpage. When you click "Subscription and Settings", does it show you have a subscription?

[Luelue]

It does indeed say I have Premium
I contacted local support, they could not help any further but sent the issue forward to Tacx, I have not heard anything more yet.
Very strange

[mcorn]

It does indeed say I have Premium
I contacted local support, they could not help any further but sent the issue forward to Tacx, I have not heard anything more yet.
Very strange

You need to have Premium HD, not just Premium.

[Luelue]

I had forgotten there was a HD subscription, thanks for the reminder! Still, the webpage and support says the regular premium has the 3d GPS workouts and the only difference with HD is 1080p films...I will try an upgrade anyway and see if it helps. Thanks!

[mcorn]

I had forgotten there was a HD subscription, thanks for the reminder! Still, the webpage and support says the regular premium has the 3d GPS workouts and the only difference with HD is 1080p films...I will try an upgrade anyway and see if it helps. Thanks!

Sorry. My bad. You shouldn't need to upgrade. For some reason, I thought I remembered you needed HD. I think if you upgrade your subscription, it might screw up your cloud account. So, I really do not know what your problem is. Have you contacted Garmin Norway support:

https://support.garmin.com/nb-NO/

There is also a support button on the bottom of opening TDA page. If you are trying to get help locally, that may not be of much value.

[Luelue]

I did the upgrade already just to see if it made any difference, but it did not. I did not have my trainer connected this time though, so I was stuck on the pause screen, but i assume the buttons should still work?
I'll contact support again and see if they have any more suggestions

[mcorn]

I did the upgrade already just to see if it made any difference, but it did not. I did not have my trainer connected this time though, so I was stuck on the pause screen, but i assume the buttons should still work?
I'll contact support again and see if they have any more suggestions

If you want to test functions on the desktop without a trainer, go to the Devices page and select Demo.

[Luelue]

Good tip on the demo mode for testing, thanks. It is still the same though, none of the buttons or keyboard shortcuts do anything.
I hope support can come up with something, TDA seems by far the best and most feature rich platform out there so far

[mcorn]

none of the buttons or keyboard shortcuts do anything

Got to admit that this is one of the oddest problems I have ever heard of. Is there anything unusual about your PC or setup?

If you are running this in full screen, I would try running it in a Window. Go to Settings - General and turn off Full Screen.

[Luelue]

Haha, yes, I have a feeling I am being really stupid, I just cant figure it out why.
Nothing odd about my setup, win10, geforce 1080, cabled and wifi tested on different pc's, fullscreen/windowed same thing, all I get is that overview map