Map Provider ChangesFORUMS HOME SEARCH FORUMS

Total posts in this topic: 73
Showing oldest posts first - Show newest
Sign in to post to this topicSIGN IN

    Page: 
  • Photo
    leepton hais tee Thursday 18 Feb 2021 07:55:42

    i would consider a premium plus subcrition for gmaps and streetview splitscreen other app that give this services for plan routes on tradmill like ifit cost 100 euro yearly 

  • Photo
    Topic
    Creator
    plotaroute admin   Thursday 18 Feb 2021 09:43:10

    Zenon - thanks for flagging up the missing map scale and also for your kind comments about plotaroute. We'll have a look to see if we can add the map scale in the next update, which should hopefully be early next week.

  • Photo
    Fred Dhenin   Thursday 18 Feb 2021 21:45:06

    It's not a good news for french users. I am disappointed that the new features you have added only benefit US users. That's impact my decision to continue my subscription

  • Photo
    Roger Hunt Saturday 20 Feb 2021 08:23:16

    Well, with what I considered a brilliant route planning service, and your decision to stop using street view, you have made my job 200% harder, why companies insist in modifying succesful formats astounds me, I will consider when my membership runs out whether to continue with your service or not

     

    A backward step and the demise of a great service that I doubt if you consulted any customer over .... end off

  • Photo
    Colin Hoppe   Saturday 20 Feb 2021 10:15:11

    Well, well, well.  I just opened up Plotaroute to plot, but first checked the Latest News.  Google Maps has gone !  Am I disappointed ?  No !

    I long ago stopped plotting using Google Maps anyway.  For cycling and walking I found that OSM, Paths / Trails + other options work better.

    I just tried Google streetview from the Map Inspector and this is a welcome improvement.  Much better than the previous arrangement for dragging the little man on the Plotaroute screen which didn't allow me to see which way the man was facing and didn't allow me to "drive" along the road as well as opening a separate window to use Google Streetview.   So this improvement means that, via Map Inspector, I can go straight to an exact location and I can then navigate better !

    For the UK, Ordnance Survey Maps will be very useful as will be improvements to Paths / Trails.  Map Inspector > Streetview seems to work from all maps whilst on a road.  Very good !  The only downside is that I end up with lots of tabs open with Google Streetview, but closing them is not a problem.

    Not only that , but I'm more than happy to be able to totally avoid all things Google ... apart from my phone, Youtube, Waze, Fitbit, Streetview etc ðŸ˜•

  • Photo
    Julia Westerberg   Saturday 20 Feb 2021 17:50:07

    This is really sad news since street views are critical for creating walking routes in other towns.  Saves a lot of exploratory time by car/foot.  Paths feature is also missing which is used a lot in city parks, etc.  Hopefully Map Inspector will increase in number. I used the one i found in a town and it required a lot of time/errors to get to the area i wanted to explore with street views.  One needs to print out a town map first.

  • Photo
    Colin Hoppe   Saturday 20 Feb 2021 19:02:00

    I've tried to plot routes today and it simply will not work.  Wherever I try to plot I get the message window telling me "UNABLE TO CALCULATE ROUTE".  I get that with autoplot by road and sometiimes by bike.   If I choose "on foot" it will probably use the road I want it to use ... but then wander off somewhere that I really don't want to cycle ...

     

  • Photo
    Topic
    Creator
    plotaroute admin   Sunday 21 Feb 2021 09:16:18

    Hi Colin - have a look at the following FAQ for help with auto-plotting: Why can’t I auto-plot on a path shown on the map? Sounds like the point of origin may be not be tagged on OSM as accessible by bike if you can't auto-plot from this point to anywhere else. We've got a fix for the other issue that you raised about multiple street view tabs -this will be implemented next week. 

  • Photo
    Colin Hoppe   Sunday 21 Feb 2021 10:34:51

    I'd already seen that note and I spent time yesterday updating roads near my house on OSM, but nothing changed on Plotaroute. 

    Unless the updates are recognized by Plotaroute immediately, it makes no difference.  I saw another post saying it could be weeks before updates take effect on Plotaroute.  Is that still the case ?

  • Photo
    Topic
    Creator
    plotaroute admin   Sunday 21 Feb 2021 13:33:02

    Updates to our routing engine usually take place once a month. It takes around a week for us to regenerate a routing network for the whole world using the latest OSM maps and then transfer this to our routing servers, so it's not really practical to update more frequently than this. The next update will be early next month.

  • Photo
    Colin Hoppe   Sunday 21 Feb 2021 17:57:21

    It appears that the default settings for "trunk" roads in the UK is responsible for making plotting difficult using OSM

    See here ... https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/35124/how-to-go-about-resolving-the-uk-trunk-tag-issue

    This could mean that in most of the country, plotting will be a problem using OSM until someone changes every inch of trunk road ...

     

    I'll try to find out if there is a way to list all the roads which could be "wrong" ...

    Unless all "wrong" trunk roads are updated before the next Plotaroute routing update (seems unlikely), then it will still be more weeks before the further improvements appear ...

    If anyone know how to get a listing of trunk road tags in, say, a UK county, that would be handy.  If it also allowed those tags to be updated ... that would be very handy ...

  • Photo
    Colin Hoppe   Sunday 21 Feb 2021 21:26:40

    I suspect that the UK trunk road defaults are not going to change on OSM as a whole any time soon.

    Perhaps Plotaroute should simply ignore the OSM Allowed Access tags for the UK and assume that Allowed Access for UK trunk Roads is as per this  ...  https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_tags_for_routing/Access_restrictions#United_Kingdom

     

    I also noticed along the way that the UK isn't the only country for which the trunk road defaults don't work, so there might be further requests ...

  • Photo
    Colin Hoppe   Sunday 21 Feb 2021 21:38:48

    I probably should add that mostly I'm plotting on country lanes but some of those country routes might include stretches of trunk road.

    Previously, I have used OSM for plotting routes but probably just happened not to include any trunk roads.

    To avoid wet and muddy country lanes in February, cycling on a trunk road can be a good idea and that's what I tried to plot yesterday.

    I didn't really need to plot a single road out and back, but I wanted to try plotting with the changed functionality.  

     

    Well, I don't think there is an easy way to update all the UK trunk roads on OSM.  It's not a major problem for me at the moment, but it might become very annoying ... 

  • Photo
    Julia Westerberg   Sunday 21 Feb 2021 23:07:42

    i have discovered the Map Inspectors are providing street views.  I had found only one yesterday that did but more today.  i had ignored them in the past since i didn't need the info they provided.  But there are Map Inspectors which tell you to right click to get street views.  So I'm back in business again!

  • Photo
    Topic
    Creator
    plotaroute admin   Monday 22 Feb 2021 07:46:41

    Julia - yes, the Map Inspector now gives you a direct link to Google Street View. The link will only be shown if you are inspecting a road.

    Colin  - it might be best to change the Auto-Plot switch to BY ROAD if you want to plot on a trunk road.

  • Photo
    Colin Hoppe   Monday 22 Feb 2021 08:03:18

    BY ROAD didn't work properly either.  That's the problem ...

  • Photo
    Topic
    Creator
    plotaroute admin   Monday 22 Feb 2021 08:35:29

    Can you provide an example Colin? Would you mind starting another forum topic though, as it's probably a bit off-topic for this one? 

  • Photo
    Colin Hoppe   Monday 22 Feb 2021 10:19:23

    Aha ... I've just spotted the problem !   I've just noticed that there is a tickbox beneath the BY ROAD button ... "Avoid Highways" !  

    It was ticked.  I don't recall ever seeing that tickbox before !   Don't know how it got ticked.  (Maybe it was me ... Maybe it's been there years ... has it ?)

    Oh well.  Untick and it's happy with using the trunk roads / A roads that it was avoiding before

     

    So, as per my first post re dropping Google Maps ... I'm happy ðŸ˜€

  • Photo
    Decor Acer   Monday 22 Feb 2021 11:50:16

    Having upgraded to Premium because of the ability to plot routes using OS mapping.

    I am at a loss as to why when recalling those saved routes, OS maps is now missing from the drop down in MAP TYPES. Why can I only use it in the original creation, even though I am still signed in to my account.

  • Photo
    Topic
    Creator
    plotaroute admin   Monday 22 Feb 2021 12:27:10

    Hi Decor - the OS maps have only been implemented where we previously had Google maps at present (on the desktop route planner).  However, subject to trial results we hope to roll them out to other parts of our site including the View Route page and our mobile app.

Page: