
Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes - sunilkumarc
http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/16/google-maps-adds-elevation-profiles-to-bike-routes-to-help-you-avoid-those-steep-hills/
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thrownaway2424
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 that crosses a freeway in a trench
correctly shows the route without discontinuities. It also seems like Google
are getting around some of the problems just by being intentionally vague and
blurry. If you make a route short enough it will just say "mostly flat"
instead of trying to draw a misleadingly detailed profile.

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cryptoz
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.

~~~
thrownaway2424
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?

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cryptoz
You can check it out yourself if you like - I provide a live feed of
barometric data from Android sensors at
[http://pressurenet.io/](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.

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

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

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Brakenshire
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.

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
Also in the UK: [http://cycle.travel/map](http://cycle.travel/map) (disclaimer
- my site)

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dang
Url changed from [http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/16/5724652/google-adds-
elevat...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/16/5724652/google-adds-elevation-
data-to-bike-routes), which points to this one.

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daleharvey
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 something? with the amount of effort gone into OSM I dont really
understand why there isnt a top quality app to display and use all that data.

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maxerickson
Try Komoot:

[https://www.komoot.de/plan](https://www.komoot.de/plan)

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

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liotier
And the router is good - in Europe at least, where Openstreetmap data is
excellent !

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mejackreed
I think they must be using sensor data from GMaps. Yesterday I mapped a ride
that said mostly flat. It was not after riding it with Google Maps giving me
directions while on the route. Today it shows an incline of 504ft. Same
destination, same origin just two different days.

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IvyMike
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. :)

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Stratoscope
Oh man. I learned to drive in my parents' automatic mid-sixties Impala, so
when when I bought my first car - a yellow 1969 Toyota Corolla - I wanted an
automatic. The salesman said, "You know, this is just a two-speed automatic,
and it doesn't perform very well. I really think you'd be happier with the
stick shift." I told him I didn't know how to drive a stick shift and he said,
"That's no problem, I'll teach you."

So we drove a few lurchy blocks around San Francisco - yes, San Francisco, the
city of seven hills. Ah, if it were only seven!

After a while he said, "Doing great, drive me back to the dealership and
you're on your own."

I knew my way home, but I couldn't remember where the hills were.

I could have used elevation data that day...

"...sweat beading upon his brow, he might recount that Damp Morning when he
drove his Manual Transmission up the Impossible Grade, and was forced to stop,
just below the top! In frantic pantomime, he’ll pull the emergency brake and
disengage the clutch. Crane his neck to peer anxiously at the car sniffing his
downhill bumper. Bulge his eyes. Gun the engine. Pop the clutch. Release the
brakes. Lay down some rubber with a piercing squeal. Float his steed slowly
onto the flat. Wave the smoke from his eyes. Pump his arms in brief
celebration. And finally, grouse about that sadistic driving instructor who
got him into the pickle in the first place. What a jerk!"

[http://www.datapointed.net/2009/11/the-steeps-of-san-
francis...](http://www.datapointed.net/2009/11/the-steeps-of-san-francisco/)

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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.

~~~
ygra
Well, at least Strava now has a global heatmap:
[http://labs.strava.com/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.).

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cmos
I use google maps bicycling directions every day on my bike trip across the US
and just saw this the other day.. that plus street view to see how good
shoulders + road conditions are can be very cool tools for planning a bike
trip.

Sadly in west Texas good shoulders tend to be covered in chipseal resulting in
days/weeks of much vibration.

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alttab
I've heard Google is working on "street view" for trails. It is a backpack. My
guess is they've done this with Bike trails too.

~~~
fudged71
They have the backpack... but the elevation is much easier to get from Ingress
players :P

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al_gore
Doesn't seem to recognize bridges -
[https://www.google.com/maps/dir/40.7104202,-73.9608626/40.71...](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/40.7104202,-73.9608626/40.7181556,-73.9867842/@40.714307,-73.9910309,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m4!4m3!1m0!1m0!3e1)
is considered "mostly flat".

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stinos
Needs some tuning of the mostly flat definition. When a route contains roads
where you're looking at several 100s of meters > 10%, it is not considered
mostly flat by the average cyclist. On the contrary.

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jonknee
This is a really nifty addition, I can't wait until it shows up in the mobile
app. I recently went on a very hilly bike ride and it was neat to find out
exactly how steep/high the hills were.

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davidw
Now if only they'd put terrain mode back.

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maxerickson
It's accessible if you put 'terrain' in the search box (and I see a text
button for it).

I couldn't get it to work together with a bike route.

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thrownaway2424
The link disappears if you're zoomed in too closely.

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amha
YES! Thank god. I've been waiting for this for years!!!

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Pxtl
Oooh...too bad google is so committed to online-only, I'd love this feature
but I'm too cheap for a data-plan.

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thrownaway2424
I Google Maps even capable of routing when offline? I don't see why having the
height data would be useful if it can't start routing anyway.

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icebraining
Yes, it is. If you start the route when you're still online, you can proceed
offline the rest of your trip.

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jonknee
... So no, you can't.

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icebraining
I think I misunderstood the question. No, it can't start a route offline, but
it can route you through it as you go.

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PMan74
> To Help You Avoid Those Steep Hills

But, but ..... what if you like those steep hills, what then?

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uulbiy
Obviously the article was not written by a cyclist! The feature is really
great for us with limited time.

