[mkgmap-dev] Utilizing route=bicycle relations in long-distance routing

Tue Oct 8 12:07:53 BST 2013

On Tue, Oct 08, 2013 at 11:47:15AM +0200, Andrzej Popowski wrote:
>Hi Marko,
>
> > FWIW, I just defined a 25km route relation that could be useful for
> > testing: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/relation/3252216
> > IMO, this is much better than the NCN 4 in this area.
>
>I have found in wiki that route=bicycle defines "named or numbered or 
>otherwise signed routes". Wouldn't people expect some markings on 
>roads, if they find a route on a map?

Yes, and that is one reason why I posted about this to the "Users: 
Finland" forum at <http://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewforum.php?id=15>.  
I do not think that this is as bad a sin as "mapping for a renderer", 
but it does feel a bit wrong. On the positive side, maybe this route 
could some day become part of the official route.

>I have tried to make different routing overlays for different 
>activities. It is not easy, since Garmin defines many new activities, 
>which aren't supported by mkgmap.

Oh, I guess that this is the "activity routing", only available with 
newer devices?

I more or less abandoned the Garmin after switching to a rugged Android 
phone (SonyEricsson Xperia Active) almost two years ago, after the USB 
data transfers on my Edge 705 stopped working. OsmAnd is good enough for 
displaying map and searching for POIs. Its bicycle routing sucks too, 
but at least it is updating the map while recalculating.

FWIW, there is a stand-alone offline routing program for Android that 
can be used with OsmAnd. Unfortunately it appears to be closed-source 
and on data that has been converted with an undisclosed tool: 
<http://brensche.de/brouter/>. It claims to support multiple routing 
profiles (prefer cycle routes, prefer flat terrain, etc.). I did not 
experiment with it yet, because I prefer openness.

Best regards,

	Marko