There are a number of options for navigating around the maps. Probably the most convienent method of moving about is to click and drag either of the maps. The other map will move to stay synchronised. To zoom, hover over a map and roll the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Note - zooming is not synchronised between the maps, the zoom will only apply to the map you are currently hovering over.
Alternatively you can use the map controls in the top right hand corner of either map to move and zoom.
The OS map supports a drag box zoom. If you hold down the shift key while dragging you will create a zoom box on the map. After releasing the mouse button the OS map will zoom into that box. This functionality is currently not supported on the Google map.
By default the course creation screen will open up with a large Google map and a small OS map. You can swap the sizes of the maps at any time by clicking on the "Toggle map sizes" button.
A light blue "extents" box will be shown on the map that is zoomed out the most. This shows the extents of the other map. This can be useful if you lose the position of the smaller map due to big differences in zoom level between the maps.
Once you have a route displayed you can use the "Go to Start/End" button to centre both maps on the start or end points. The button will toggle between start and end so you may need to click it twice to get to the desired point.
Click on either map to start creating a course. The start of the course will always be identified by a green marker. The end of the course will similarly be identified by a red marker.
Click on another area of the map and a course will be created between the two points. The method of creating the course differs slightly between the two maps. The Google map has a "Follow Road" mode. If this checkbox is ticked then the couse will follow the road as best as possible between the two points. If this checkbox is not ticked the course will be created as a straight line between the two points. The OS map does not have a follow road mode.
The Google follow road mode is very useful for creating routes that follow roads; it saves a lot of time and mouse clicks. You will however get unpredictible results if you try to use follow mode on an off-road section as it will try to direct you to the nearest road.
Keep clicking to build up your course. You can swap between maps at any time, e.g. building up the road sections on the Google map (using follow road mode) then swapping to the OS map to create the off road sections.
Alternately, if you want to create a road only route, you can use the drag edit facility. With follow mode selected click on your start point and then on your end point. A route will be created between these two points. Select drag edit mode and drag the route to follow your desired course.
Any time while creating a course you can undo your previous input(s) by clicking the Undo button. This works in two slightly different ways. If you have follow mode enabled, the undo will remove the whole of the last course segment added. If you are not in follow mode, the undo action will only remove the last course point.
Therefore, if you add a large segment using follow mode but, say, it overshoots your desired endpoint, you can disable follow mode and repeatedly click Uno to remove the last few course points from the course.
The are a number of editing controls explained below:
Drag EditingAs the name suggests drag editing allows you to edit your course by dragging route points around on the screen. As it is computationally intensive drag editing is not permanently enabled; you must enable and disable it via the Drag Edit Mode button. Drag editing and course creation are mutually exclusive modes. Drag editing is only active in the large map.
There are two types of drag editing: single point drag editing and route dragging. In both cases a route marker is overlaid on your route. This becomes visible when you move your mouse close to the route.
Single point drag editing is the mode that is always active in the OS map, and in the Google map when Follow Road option is not selected. If you drag the route marker then a single point will be moved or added. If the route marker is on a vertex when you start to drag then that vertex will be moved. If the route marker is between two vertices, then a new point will be inserted between the two vertices located at the drag end point. The route marker snaps slightly to the vertices to make vertex selection a little easier.
Route dragging is similar to the route drag facility on the Google Maps website. It is the mode that is active in the Google map when the Follow Road option is selected. When you drag the route marker the route will be recalculated to pass through the drag point. Note - if you hover for about half a second over a point on the map while dragging you will see a preview of the new route. You are not committed to this new route until you release the mouse button. Therefore you can preview several options before finalising the drag.
After completing a route drag you will see a black dot appear at your drag point. These black dots designate hard points. Subsequent route drags will not alter the position of these hardpoints.
As you might suspect, route dragging knows nothing about off road routes. Therefore hardpoints are automatically added at the beginning and ending of any off road section you enter on the maps. This should protect your off road section if you choose to route drag on a route with on-road and off road sections.
A problem arises with routes uploaded from GPS units or downloaded from the database. There is no hardpoint information stored in these routes - so any route dragging will destroy the off road sections. Therefore you can manually add your own hardpoints by ctrl-clicking on the route. If you add hardpoints at the start and end of the off road sections these will be safe from subsequent route drags.
Note - you can't undo drag editing operations. However if you ctrl-click on a hardpoint you will get an option to delete the hardpoint. You can then re-drag the route. Note - the ctrl-click works better on the Google map than the OS map at the moment.
Cut to EndAs the name suggests, the Cut to End facility allows you to cut out the tail end of a route. When you click the Cut to End button it becomes highlighted indicating you are in cut mode. If you then click on your course (on either map) it will cut out the section from that point to the end of the course. Clicking on any other part of the map while in cut mode has no effect.
ReverseThe Reverse button does simply that: it reverses the course such that the start becomes the end, and the end becomes the start.
As new course points are always added to the end of a course, the Reverse button allows you to add points to the start of a course (by reversing it and making it the end). In this way you can load a course from the database, cut out the interesting bit, then add your own start and end sections to it.
The Reverse option is also useful if you find a route in the database and want to download it to your GPS - but it's going in the wrong direction. Simply reverse and you're away.
When you click on the "Add Point of Interest" button it will become highlighted, indicating you are in add POI mode. The next click on either map will add a point of interest to your course. A dialog box will appear prompting you to add a name and description for this POI.
If you want to exit add POI mde without adding a POI, just click the Add Point of Interest button again.
The addition of a POI can be undone using the undo button.
The POIs appear as pushpins on the maps. You can click on the POI to display the POI information (only supported on the Google map at present). The POIs are only displayed on the maps - they are not downloaded as waypoints when the course is downloaded to a GPS unit. Please let me know if you think this would be a useful feature.
The POIs are saved when you save your course to the database. Therefore if you know a good walk with a nice pub at the end - add it to the database for others to enjoy.
As you create your course elevation data is downloaded for each course point. If you tick the "Show Elevation Data" checkbox the elevation data will be shown in place of the smaller map.
The elevation graph is interactive: if you click any point on the elevation graph a marker will appear on the course at that point. If that point is not currently visible, the map will re-centre at that point.
If you click and drag on the elevation graph, the corresponding section of the course will be highlighted on the map. Again the map will re-centre and zoom to best show the selected section of the course. The elevation graph itself will zoom into the selected section. To show the whole of the elevation graph again, click the "Back" button just above the graph.
Note - the units of the elevation graph are currently always km for distance and metres for elevation regardless of the units chosen.
The Upload button allows you to upload a course from a GPS unit to view on the maps - and/or save to the database.
The Download button allows you to download a course you have created or extracted from the database to load onto your GPS. You can set the average speed to use this course in a Garmin Edge or Forerunner unit as a virtual training partner.
Supported file formats for both upload and download are .tcx (Garmin Edge/Forerunner) and .gpx (GPS exchange format). Tracklog (.trl) files can be uploaded only. Note, only the later XML tracklog files are supported, not the older binary format. You can also download your course as a plain text file.
Once you have created a course - or uploaded it from your GPS unit, you may want to save it to the database to share with your friends or other users.
Click the "Save Route" button to save a route to the database. You will be asked to add a name, a brief description and a category. Once the route has been successfully saved you will be given a link that you can cut and paste to share with your friends - or put on your website.
I will, from time to time, delete all courses named "test route" or similar - or with a "please delete" description. So if you want to experiment, please feel free.
Click the "Find Route" button to search the database for routes. There are four search options:
If one or more courses are found they will be displayed in a table. Click on the appropriate row to load the route. The link for the highlighted route is shown in the bottom left hand corner of the results window.
First off - there is no compulsion to register to use this site. However I wanted to add the facility to allow users to edit their routes, and I couldn't allow this without enforcing a log on (to prevent a malicious user from trashing someone else's routes).
If you are logged on you can:
If neither of these are of any interest you can continue using the site as before with no need to register or log on.
Your user name and password can be anything - but the user name must be unique. Any route that you save while logged on will be associated with your user name (i.e. will become your route). You can subsequently search for and edit these routes as described above.