Routster Studio sets the courses on the map, measures every route choice a sprint leg offers, draws the training you had in mind, and hands the finished event to Routster Analyse. It is a desktop app, and it works with the network off.
Four things a course setter does on every event, and what Studio does about each of them.
Sprint routes
The shortest runnable way, and the ways round it
Open the Routes page and Studio measures every leg of the course on screen: the shortest way from control to control, up to two other ways round, and the straight line. The router is Routster Analyse's own file, byte for byte, and a check fails the build when the two drift apart. The route you judge while setting the course is the route the runners are shown afterwards.
Sprint maps from OCAD and OpenOrienteering Mapper. Forest maps are refused with a reason rather than measured wrongly.
Training
Draw a corridor, or take the map apart
Drag along the leg and the corridor saves as you release: full width in ground metres, and how much of the map outside it stays visible. Or switch a whole course between the full map, the map with paths removed, and contours only. Different courses in one event can carry different treatments, which is what a momentbana is.
A corridor is a mask over the map, not a crop of it. The course overprint stays visible, and concealed terrain is still passable to the route search.
Full map
Paths removed
Contours only
Handoff
One upload, and the event is in Analyse
Send the event straight from Studio: the original OCAD map, the courses as IOF XML, the event level and the training settings, in one handoff. Nothing is exported to a folder and imported again by hand, and nothing is retyped in two places.
Analyse keeps the training settings after the handoff. It does not yet render the per-course map treatments for runners.
The app
A desktop app that works without signal
Course setting happens in club huts and car parks, so nothing a course setter needs may depend on the network. Studio is a desktop program built on C# and .NET 10 with Avalonia, which is one code base for all three operating systems. Syncing with the rest of Routster is the one thing that needs a connection, and it is something you choose to do.
Your maps and courses stay in Purple Pen's own file format. Studio writes its settings beside the event, never inside it.
Platforms
macOS, Windows and Linux
One code base, three platforms, because Avalonia draws the same app on each. macOS is first, then Windows, then Linux.
Your system
macOS
Coming soon
Studio runs on macOS today as a development build. The signed, notarised installer is the next thing to ship, and it ships here first.
Your system
Windows
Coming soon
Windows follows macOS, built from the same code base and the same installer work. Purple Pen began life on Windows, so the ground is familiar.
Your system
Linux
Coming soon
Linux follows Windows. Avalonia gives all three the same app rather than a port, so Linux is a build target and not a rewrite.
There are no installers to download yet. When they ship, they appear on this page.
Questions
Questions
What people ask before they try it.
What is Routster Studio?
A desktop course-setting program for orienteering. You set the courses on the map, check the route choices between the controls, print the maps, descriptions and punch cards the event needs, and send the finished event to Routster Analyse for the runners.
Can I download it yet?
Not yet. Studio is a development app: course setting, sprint route measurement, the per-course training treatments and upload to Analyse are built, and the signed installers are the next piece of work. When they are ready they appear on this page, for macOS first, then Windows, then Linux.
How does the route measurement know what is runnable?
It reads the map the way Routster Analyse reads it. Uncrossable areas, walls, fences and the event's own out-of-bounds areas are closed; roads, tracks, paths and bridges are open. The router itself is Analyse's file, taken byte for byte, so a leg measured while setting the course and the same leg shown to a runner afterwards come from the same code.
What is a brunbild, and can Studio make one?
A brunbild is an orienteering map with everything but the contours removed, so the terrain has to be read from shape alone. Studio switches a course between the full map, the map with paths removed, and contours only, and each course in an event can carry a different one.
Does it work offline?
Yes. Everything a course setter does works with the network off. A connection is needed only when you sync with the rest of the Routster platform, and that is an explicit act rather than something happening in the background.
Do I need Routster Analyse to use Studio?
No. Studio sets courses and prints them on its own. The upload to Analyse is there when you want the runners to get the event afterwards, with the map, the courses and the training settings carried across in one step.
Which map files can it open?
Purple Pen's own event files, with OCAD and OpenOrienteering Mapper maps underneath them. Route measurement additionally needs a sprint map with a known scale; a forest map, an image or a PDF is refused with a reason rather than measured wrongly.
Built on Purple Pen
Studio is built on Purple Pen by Peter Golde, used under its BSD licence. Twenty years of course setting that orienteers already trust sits underneath, and Studio adds the measurement, the training tools and the handoff to Analyse on top of it.
