Maps: easy printing & route planning...?

esuhl

I've recently got into cycling and exploring the local area as a way to keep fit, and I often want to plan a route and print of several pages of maps so I don't get lost.

I currently use OpenCycleMap and Google Maps, but even with a 24" monitor I end up scrolling around a lot and zooming in and out. I find it quite hard to keep an "overview" of the direction I want to go as well as zooming in and planning which paths/roads to take... if that makes sense.

Not only that, but printing maps is a bit tedious. At the moment, I use Windows 7's snip-it tool to take a screenshot of the web browser, scroll to the next bit of map, take another screenshot, etc. Then I have to open each image file and print it individually.

I'm not even sure if it exists, but it would be great if there was a program (or website) where I could mark two points on a map, specify a zoom-level, and automatically print off a number of A4 maps that tesselate perfectly.

It would also be really useful if I could specify a start and end point, then see a line representing the journey which I could drag or modify depending on the particular route I'd want to take. If it could tell me the total distance and highlight the route when I print the maps, that would be perfect.

Does anyone know if such quick and easy-to-use mapping software exists?

Thanks in advance

JasX

esuhl wrote: »

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It would also be really useful if I could specify a start and end point, then see a line representing the journey which I could drag or modify depending on the particular route I'd want to take. If it could tell me the total distance and highlight the route when I print the maps, that would be perfect.

gooogle maps already does this, not found anything better let alone free myself, guess you might be stuck zooming and scrolling.... tho you can print to A4 directly from google maps if you push the print button in google and isn't that badly laid out.....

tronator

esuhl wrote: »

I've recently got into cycling and exploring the local area as a way to keep fit, and I often want to plan a route and print of several pages of maps so I don't get lost.

I currently use OpenCycleMap and Google Maps, but even with a 24" monitor I end up scrolling around a lot and zooming in and out. I find it quite hard to keep an "overview" of the direction I want to go as well as zooming in and planning which paths/roads to take... if that makes sense.

Not only that, but printing maps is a bit tedious. At the moment, I use Windows 7's snip-it tool to take a screenshot of the web browser, scroll to the next bit of map, take another screenshot, etc. Then I have to open each image file and print it individually.

I'm not even sure if it exists, but it would be great if there was a program (or website) where I could mark two points on a map, specify a zoom-level, and automatically print off a number of A4 maps that tesselate perfectly.

It would also be really useful if I could specify a start and end point, then see a line representing the journey which I could drag or modify depending on the particular route I'd want to take. If it could tell me the total distance and highlight the route when I print the maps, that would be perfect.

Does anyone know if such quick and easy-to-use mapping software exists?

Thanks in advance

I would recommend you to buy yourself a smart phone with GPS and a bike holder for it for < £5 on ebay. You also might need one or two spare batteries or an external charger which takes standard batteries. Then you could use Google Maps or the new turn-by-turn navigation. Or you plan your routes at home, save it in your Google account and use an app on your phone which can read the routes from your Google account.

It's much easier than stopping on each junction or crossing to check the map again and again...

esuhl

JasX wrote: »

gooogle maps already does this, not found anything better let alone free myself, guess you might be stuck zooming and scrolling.... tho you can print to A4 directly from google maps if you push the print button in google and isn't that badly laid out.....

Thanks - I didn't realise Google Maps had a routing tool! Unfortunately it only wants to let me travel on roads - most of my cycling is off-road on cycle-paths, bridleways, tow-paths, etc., but it's still really useful seeing a rough approximation of the route I'm trying to take. I'll definitely use this feature in future!

I don't think I can get Google Maps to print off a multi-page map, though. I can get it to fit on one A4 sheet, but the map is so zoomed-out that I can't see enough detail, or I can print directions and get lots of tiny maps for each turning/junction...

Thanks for the suggestions, though.

esuhl

tronator wrote: »

I would recommend you to buy yourself a smart phone with GPS and a bike holder for it for < £5 on ebay. You also might need one or two spare batteries or an external charger which takes standard batteries. Then you could use Google Maps or the new turn-by-turn navigation. Or you plan your routes at home, save it in your Google account and use an app on your phone which can read the routes from your Google account.

It's much easier than stopping on each junction or crossing to check the map again and again...

Interesting idea... I'm a bit strapped for cash at the moment (and I'd be a bit worried that my off-road cycling would shake the phone a bit too violently!) but I might look into this in future.

I'm not sure it would be worth spending £150 or so on a smart phone as I've got so used to carrying my tiny non-smart (stupid?) phone around - it's 5.9mm thick and weighs 57g or something crazy. Hopefully when my one finally gives up the ghost I'll be able to get something just as small & light with GPS too!

I'll look into this a bit further, though - thanks for the suggestion.

KillerWatt

You don't need to spend £150 on a smartphone to get GPS, you can buy SatNav for less than £50 these days with ease.

Granted a £50 SatNav isn't going to be feature packed, but it will be more than sufficient for what you want.

KingL

Not directly what you're you're looking for, but I recently discovered map my ride, which is a useful planning tool with an auto routing algorithm.

esuhl

KingL wrote: »

Not directly what you're you're looking for, but I recently discovered map my ride, which is a useful planning tool with an auto routing algorithm.

Hey - that's great. I'm planning a really long ride (40 miles) to a friend's house and it's a nightmare tying to plan the route. At least now I can save the route and zoom in and out to "tweak it" as I discover good bike trails (or busy roads to avoid) as I discover better paths to take or busy roads to avoid.

HO87

As others have suggested MapMyRide is probably best for an easy, cheap solution but I'd upgrade to the Premium membership for the better quality. If you were looking to go beyond that I recommend Memory Map using the 1:25K mapping.

esuhl

I've been playing around a bit more, and MapMyRide really does make it a lot easier to plan the route. I enter the start and end points on MapMyRide to get a route travelling by road, then look at OpenCycleMap.org to see if there are any good cycle tracks, and then Google Streetview to check how cyclist-friendly particular roads are (or to make a note of any landmarks or sign-posts so I know what to look out for en route).

It would be great if I could do all this on one website, but it's much better than what I was trying to do before (i.e. make a mental note of the route and estimate the distance!).

I probably will get a GPS or sat-nav at some point (when I have a bit more cash). I like the idea of being able to download maps from OpenCycleMap to my GPS device (and maybe upload newly discovered paths), although I'm not sure how this will work in practice...

If only there was a way to automatically print a whole route automatically, with the PC working out how many pages to print across (instead of manually printing each page individually)...