[OSM-talk] Idea: "All town/cities within # hours/minutes of x location"

Daniel Taylor daniel.taylor at danielt.com
Sat Jan 10 23:00:09 GMT 2009


Hello,

I've spent the last couple of days on google maps dragging around map 
pins and using the fancy ajax live updating distance/time calculator 
they now have to find locations 3 hours away from a specified location. 
I am looking to move house, but have to take into account commuting 
distance to and from work.

Using google maps I was able to place a map pin on a work location and 
drag a second pin around (using the nifty 'drag to change the route' 
feature) to a few locations I was considering. Now this is all when and 
good when i know exactly where i want to go, i can check very easily if 
its viable. but... I'm not 100% sure where I want to be, I just want to 
be within 3 hours of my work place.

So here's the insane idea. Given a specified POI all routes 'outward' 
should be tested until they reach the '# hours' limit, taking into 
account speed limits of course, this would produce a circle (more like a 
'splat' shape I predict) which when overlayed on a map would show the 
town/cities in reach within # hours driving distance.

To me it sounds like a perfect google SoC challenge, a student project 
or just a project for some who's a little bored this weekend.

I think this would be a really cool tool to have, think plenty of people 
would use something like this.

now... usually when i have ideas someone has already made them into 
reality... hoping that's the case here ;) really need this.

thoughts?

thanks
- daniel




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