Improving your route

What the Improve step does

Improve walks your route leg by leg (between control points) and compares what you actually ran/rode against better alternatives — where time or distance was lost, and how a different choice would have changed the outcome.

Leg comparison needs control points: if the step says it needs more data, import a route and detect or add controls first (see controls, classification & pace).

Computed alternatives

For each leg, Dibber computes alternative paths from OpenStreetMap data and ranks them against your actual track. Quality depends on OSM coverage — in areas with sparse mapping, fewer (or no) alternatives may appear. That's a data limitation, not a bug.

Drawing your own alternative

Two drawing modes are available for manual legs:

• Follow Path — your line snaps to OSM paths and roads. Best when a better route exists on the map but wasn't computed.
• Off-Grid — freehand straight-line drawing for terrain with no mapped paths (open mountain, forest, marsh).

Drawn legs get elevation enrichment so their time estimates are comparable to real ones. Pace factors from step 2 drive those estimates.

Best-route summary & comparison

As you accept alternatives, Dibber maintains a best-route summary (saved with the project) and a route graph; hovering a leg highlights it on the map, and comparison mode overlays actual vs improved with a blinking highlight. The payoff shows up in Analyze as concrete time/distance saved.