[OSM-talk] Walking routes (was: Re: Nature Trails (was: No_comments=yes))

[Nick Whitelegg]

Hello Tom,

On Thu, 08 Feb 2007 01:38:07 +0000, "Ben Robbins" 
<ben_robbins_ at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> All i'm asking is for suggestions as to how to render multple routes 
next
>> to each other, and what would be a suitable tag to use for marking 
trails.

>I'll pitch in and say that I really like the idea of providing 
information on nice walks. I've long wanted to >do this with the data in 
Reading, just to encourage people living there to discover that it's not 
all horrid >:-)

>In terms of rendering I would have thought it would be best as a separate 
layer that you overlay on top of >the basic OSM map. Draw adjacent lines 
if there are multiple routes, and make them slightly transparent if 
>possible so they don't completely obscure the ways underneath. This is 
what bus routes seem to do.

>Your data storage schema of route_ref="xyz;abc;jonny-come-lightly" seems 
OK. Perhaps the start or end of the >route, or even just any old segment 
in between, could also hold something like route_description:xyz="This is 
>a hearty trudge through a wood, for more info see www.doddle.com/wood" 
for renderers to give a little more >information about them. It would help 
if JOSM made it easy to select multiple segments, and append a string >to 
the route_ref route even if the segments each currently hold different 
values (i.e. because some segments >are already in other routes).

>Maybe team up with Freemap, since Nick concentrates on rural walking 
maps, and do an OSM hack with an overlay >layer showing the nice walks 
data? It would also be nice to generate high-res static maps that could be 
>printed out & made into booklets, or just stuck on a static web site, for 
local walking groups / enthusiasts; >one route per map, with a description 
and photos/sketches. I don't think it's suitable for the main slippy >map.

This is precisely the sort of stuff I am planning for Freemap; I would 
like walkers to be able to draw, and annotate, walking routes on top of 
the base slippy map which can then be shared with others. At the moment I 
am waiting for the development technology - the OpenLayers "Vector layer" 
- to mature, as that will allow you to do live drawing on top of a slippy 
map - ideal to allow contribution of walk routes. The current guess on 
release of the Vector layer is early spring I believe, so hopefully I can 
get going on this in a month's time.
The end result will be a walk routes layer overlaid on the base map layer.

Freemap already allows simple map annotations e.g boggy/blocked paths, 
nice views (see www.free-map.org.uk/mapnik demo).

Nick