[OSM-talk] Walking routes made up of OSM ways on Freemap

[Nick Whitelegg]

Hello everyone,

Have added experimental, prototype functionality to Freemap to allow users 
to create walking routes by selecting multiple OSM ways.

If you go to

http://www.free-map.org.uk/freemap/index.php?lat=51.05&lon=-0.72&zoom=14

try clicking on footpaths with CTRL held down, and you'll be able to 
select a walking route comprising sections of those OSM ways. You can then 
specify the title and description and upload it to the server.

Walking routes are defined in terms of the OSM ways making them up. A 
further feature is that a walking route will automatically contain any map 
annotations that are nearby. So if you click on a path and add an 
annotation indicating that there is a good view, or the path is hard to 
follow, that annotation will be automatically included in the walking 
route. You can also now download a walking route (map plus description) as 
a PDF file.

The main remaining issue with this is the possibility of ways being 
deleted - if a deleted way is part of a walk route, then the walk route 
will become undefined. This will really need to be solved by using 
additional database tables storing the nodes making up a way, so that the 
walk route can be redefined using the replacement way to a deleted way.

Any comments on the approach?

Thanks,
Nick