[OSM-talk] Freemap - OpenStreetMap for walkers (hikers) - feature ideas?

[Nick Whitelegg]

Hello everyone,

After a year or so of server memory issues causing problems with Freemap 
(www.free-map.org.uk; currently maps are temporarily unavailable as I'm 
testing one or two things; will be available from later this evening) I'm 
aiming to re-vamp the site this year to use tiles generated by Mapnik at 
home using a home PostGIS setup. The style of the maps will be more like 
the main OSM Mapnik maps than the current, old-style Freemap tiles, but 
with the addition of contours and with clear distinction between rights of 
way and other paths.

The only problem is that coverage may be restricted to a limited amount of 
England with good OSM coverage, mostly the south of England but also the 
Lake District, due to the sheer size of the data: if I tried to cover any 
more, I would have to transfer an immense archive to the server which 
would take an unrealistic amount of time. That said, the Freemap code 
itself is open source and although Freemap itself is UK based though there 
is nothing which inherently ties it to the UK: it could in theory be 
deployed anywhere.

What I want to do this year is to make a good go of developing Freemap to 
make it an attractive-to-the-general-public "OSM for walkers" site - to 
make it as attracitve to walkers as cyclestreets is to cyclists, for 
instance.

I have one or two ideas for the site but would like to get more. So if you 
have any ideas as to what would make Freemap a really good OSM site for 
walkers, do please let me know! Both mainstream website and mobile app 
(Android or Java ME) would be good.

Thanks,
Nick