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Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

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Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#21

Post by thrownaway2424 »

cryptoz wrote: post #20
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #11

What's neat here is how clean their elevation data seems to be. Having spent a long time trying to work with various dataset like the NASA SRTM and USGS files, I quickly came to realize how hard it is to clean up this data. Looking at this feature I tried out a couple of things that would have tripped up a naive implementation and Google Maps seems to have dodged the most obvious pitfalls. For example a bike route th…

They're almost certainly using barometer data from Android devices to help know elevations and differences between roads. The barometers can measure altitude differences as small as ~0.5m - it's pretty amazing.

That's interesting. What kind of datastream do you get from that sensor? Something that has a useful ∆Z over short intervals but essentially no absolute accuracy?

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#22

Post by Theodores »

What bike routes need is some indication as to whether a given cycle route is actually any good. 'Traffic levels' for bikes is what I want. Some of the proper routes with little blue signs are great for ten year old's but no good if you are on a reasonable commute.

I followed Google Maps suggested bike route and the ones provided by Transport for London for several weeks before I figured out that I should use the main road in certain sections. Plenty of other cyclists were on the main road going roughly the same direction. The 'cyclist' route had me going on quieter roads that were just not that good. I would find myself going against the main flow of the traffic at junctions and having to navigate a lot more of them, never with the lights in my favour. Plus the distance was longer.

Why is nobody on Strava on this road? Is probably the best way to decide if a bike route is any good.

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#23

Post by maxerickson »

daleharvey wrote: post #17

As someone who really enjoys cycling I have been surprised at how bad mapping and routing applications are, google maps have large portions of the world that are unavailable offline, its impossible (or hard to find out how_ to save routes offline, regularly sends me down dual carriageways and motorways. Open cycle routes loses your position every time you rotate the device and generally lacks quality. Am I missing so…

Try Komoot:

https://www.komoot.de/plan

(I've never used the app, just pointing you at the router)

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#24

Post by cryptoz »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #21
cryptoz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're almost certainly using barometer data from Android devices to help know elevations and differences between roads. The barometers can measure altitude differences as small as ~0.5m - it's pretty amazing.

That's interesting. What kind of datastream do you get from that sensor? Something that has a useful ∆Z over short intervals but essentially no absolute accuracy?

You can check it out yourself if you like - I provide a live feed of barometric data from Android sensors at http://pressurenet.io/. The data I collect is polled every 10 minutes, and while the exact pressure is often nearly useless due to noise, trends in the data are very clear. I'm looking specifically at the weather, so over periods of ~6 hours we get really really clear trend lines.

When a device moves rapidly in a short period of time, you know that the sensor data will be reflecting the altitude changes and not the weather changes. Moving the device from my feet to my head shows a clear change of ~.5mb typically.

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#25

Post by ygra »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #11

What's neat here is how clean their elevation data seems to be. Having spent a long time trying to work with various dataset like the NASA SRTM and USGS files, I quickly came to realize how hard it is to clean up this data. Looking at this feature I tried out a couple of things that would have tripped up a naive implementation and Google Maps seems to have dodged the most obvious pitfalls. For example a bike route th…

Google already has lots of people working on Maps to make the data better, correct mistakes, etc. They almost certainly have data about bridges and tunnels they can use here to make sure that you get a straight line for them instead of following the terrain profile.

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#26

Post by ygra »

Theodores wrote: post #22

What bike routes need is some indication as to whether a given cycle route is actually any good. 'Traffic levels' for bikes is what I want. Some of the proper routes with little blue signs are great for ten year old's but no good if you are on a reasonable commute. I followed Google Maps suggested bike route and the ones provided by Transport for London for several weeks before I figured out that I should use the mai…

Well, at least Strava now has a global heatmap: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap. Makes it easier to avoid roads less travelled, I guess.

Regarding the data quality: At least in Germany the ADFC maintains its own cycle path network which also contains metadata about road surface, motor traffic and such things. This is also one of the sources Google licensed for their bike stuff in Maps (although back when they introduced it they had a very hard time matching up their two or three different data sets and there were lots of errors where junctions wouldn't connect, etc.).

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#28

Post by Brakenshire »

Sprint wrote: post #14

Heh, Google is catching up. I want to highly recommend https://www.komoot.de/plan for hike or bike planning. It's fundamentally based on OSM and very very nice.

Google simply doesn't have the data in the UK, it has probably a tenth of the footpath and cyclepath routes compared to OSM, let alone all the information about surfaces, unofficial paths etc.

Share the recommendation for komoot, although it's quite new, and a bit buggy.

OSMAnd is also useful, not so polished, but you get a lot of power over the way you use the map, for instance searching for attractions, pubs, cycle parking, etc along the way, and it's completely offline.

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#29

Post by IvyMike »

IvyMike wrote: post #8

Six years ago, I spent an hour learning to drive manual transmission in my friends car. I did not get very good in that hour. Then I went and bought a manual transmission car of my own. The drive back home from the dealer was one hell of a trip. I learned very quickly how tricky it is to get a car moving when you're stopped on a hill. So I totally could have used this back then. :)

I don't get the downvotes. Repurposing something for another useful purpose is exactly what hacking is all about.

Re: Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes

#30

Post by voltagex_ »

cryptoz wrote: post #24
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. What kind of datastream do you get from that sensor? Something that has a useful ∆Z over short intervals but essentially no absolute accuracy?

You can check it out yourself if you like - I provide a live feed of barometric data from Android sensors at http://pressurenet.io/ . The data I collect is polled every 10 minutes, and while the exact pressure is often nearly useless due to noise, trends in the data are very clear. I'm looking specifically at the weather, so over periods of ~6 hours we get really really clear trend lines. When a device moves rapidly…

Didn't you also have issues with pressure differences inside, outside and between buildings in dense metro areas?
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