How to make Organic Maps convenient for trips planning?

[biodranik]

Please share how you are planning your trips now and what could help you to save time and make it very easy.

[sanketgarade]

I use an electric vehicle (car) often and especially for out station trips, I need to know how much range the car will give. This often depends on the ground elevation changes (if they are significant). Just like we get the elevation profile in walking routing, it'll be helpful to get the same in (electric) car navigation. Old reference here.

Related to EVs, it'll be helpful if charger nodes show more information like type of charging connector, number of connectors, brand/operator of charger, rate of charging etc. (below tags).

OSM wiki reference here.

brand
operator
charge
capacity
socket:<type> (may be multiple of these, since 1 station can have different types of socket).

[biodranik]

Thanks for the details!

1. If you use Google My Maps, then you can export all pins from there in KML/KMZ and open them in Organic Maps (export is in the vertical 3 dots "menu" button).
2. Customized icons are planned.
3. What are you missing in Organic Maps navigation mode so you prefer to use Garmin instead?

[sabbia63]

1. Yes, Google My Maps would be so much easier for exporting but I travel frequently to places with no cell service and therefore can't use any of the map data I created when offline. At least with Google Maps, I can download areas for offline use and see all my customized pins when needed (problem is that I have to update the offline maps frequently or will lose functionality, that's why I am migrating to Organic Maps). When Organic Maps has ability to customized the bookmark icons, I may stop using Google completely for pinning....unless there is a limitation to how many bookmarks that can be stored?
2. Alleluia! :-)
3. I must admit I haven't used OrganicMaps navigation to know since I purchased the Garmin long before using Maps.Me and then OrganicMaps. But, I will let you know what I like about the Garmin over using Google Maps, which I do use on occasion and am assuming Organic Maps is similar in function.

• Garmin has bigger screen than my phone so is easier to use when driving
• Garmin has a graphic screen that will give a preview of an upcoming intersection/exit on highway and will show what lane to be in far in advance
• detours can be created on the fly with one click if traffic jam or road block (I usually use the voice activation command)
• voice activated commands for completely hand-free use
• has a portion on screen that shows how many miles to next rest stop, gas, restaurant, etc on the route that come pre-installed with device so I don't have to create them. Also, the category of the POI you want to see is customizable.
• EDITED TO ADD: I can save the order of waypoints as trips on the Garmin for future use if I need to use the navigation screen for another route.

[muralito]

3. What are you missing in Organic Maps navigation mode so you prefer to use Garmin instead?

I miss the "trail of crumbs" feature (showing the track of the previous positions you have been, of the previous hours or days). For me it's very useful in areas that you don't know or are not used to. In fact, in my last trip, I brougth to life my last Nuvi 2455 (with OSM maps and POI alerts), and it worked much better than phones (I also carry 2 android phones simultaneously, one with OM and the other with Waze) and the Nuvi was more precise and faster showing the real position, and calculating the routes (distances of 500-1000km).

Another interesting feature in the nuvi is the "Search along the route", when you are in routing mode, with a destination and route already selected, it allow you to find e.g. a fuel station or a restaurant close to the chosen route. I didn't used so much, because I prefer to plan in advance, but it saved my *** several times, when I had to get out of the plan.

[biodranik]

Searching for objects along the route works now in driving navigation mode. Recent (24h) track recording works on iOS, and is planned for Android too.

[zhl111]

2. Customized icons are planned.计划提供定制图标。

Do you have it now?现在有了吗？

[reinhart1010]

Some roads in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Iran are often restricted by the "odd-even policy", which restricts odd-number vehicles to enter certain roads on even-numbered dates and vice versa.

For example, in Jakarta, Indonesia, these restrictions apply except on Saturday, Sunday, public holidays, or:

• Bikes
• Registered taxi cabs (not ride-hailing vehicles like Uber and Lyft)
• Buses and trucks
• Microbuses and mini-buses intended for public transport
• Any EV cars and EV motorcycles (hybrid-fueled vehicles are still subject to the policy)

It would be nice to have this feature built-in for route-planning, but unfortunately, the OSM communities currently don't have an agreement yet to standardize these tags. There's one forum thread on https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/50754/conditional-restrictions-for-accessing-specific-streets-based-on-odd-even-weekdays-and-cars-license-plate-numbers, but as always, there is not enough traction yet to implement this feature.

[zyphlar]

Sometimes it takes awhile to recalculate a route especially if I close Organic Maps and reopen it after awhile (like planning a long roadtrip route in advance, or taking a rest stop at a gas station, or staying at a motel.) It's gotten faster lately, but the ability to save a precalculated route for later and then tweak it as plans change (maybe modifying waypoints or changing toll vs non-toll) could be useful. Then I just open up my phone and load or resume the route.

To be clear however this is priority 5 for me after:

• adding a source of national or global addresses, or importing them into OSM, so that every address is searchable and navigable. Like openaddresses.io for example.
• my TTS street name PR
• lane-based navigation ("use the left two lanes to turn...")
• my latest gripe, navigating to the best points when a building or area is searched: often OM will route to a grocery store's loading dock or an airport's service road instead of the main entrance or marked terminal. Some ideas for this include zooming to the destination for visual confirmation before the user presses Start Navigation; prompting the user to select a more specific POI within a large area; adding automatic logic for entrances and buildings inside areas.

[johnwgoodin]

Hey that’s a great idea of using something like openaddresses.io to do address searches. It kind of reminds you of how DNS works. You put in a website name and the DNS server converts it. Can openaddresses.io be similarly used? You put in a physical address and openaddresses.io converts it into longitudinal and latitudinal values and returns that to the original program that called it?

Question: Can you manually do a search In Organic Maps using longitudinal and latitudinal values? If so why can’t a service like openaddresses.io be called up to do all of the grunt work stuff?

[biodranik]

Type coordinates in OM's search. Supported formats are displayed in the place page when you select any object (tap to change format).

OM works offline. Using online services may not be suitable in all cases (privacy, no internet, expensive roaming).

[mirror176]

openaddresses.io data can be downloaded as a whole instead of doing an online lookup. That could be processed into the mapfile directly or work like another dataset the mapping/searching engine refers to. Adding an additional set of addresses requires being able to switch sources on/off and/or comparing them to avoid unnecessary duplicates. I'm a fan of attaching an address to a building/parcel instead of just putting a node in there when there are not multiple addresses within. Would be nice to be able to enable/disable it for openstreetmap mappers though people doing everyday navigation would not care as much.
MapWithAI is also providing address data that users have been importing into openstreetmap so the map itself is getting better for address lookup. Not sure if their data could be requested or if bypassing them to go to the source could be done too. openaddresses.io gave sources of their data.

[biodranik]

The trickiest part is how to filter out duplicates from different sources, and reuse the database conveniently for the search. And what to do if the user presses the Edit button.

[mirror176]

I'd expect duplicates to not be easy to properly do. Comparing different sources node vs node could be to default to whatever we put higher trust in: osm, newest date, etc. If it is area vs area, a building in a parcel rather than the parcel itself is probably what the user prefers to 'navigate to' though the search could present if the lookup was an otherwise unpurposed node, building, door, parcel, etc. I'd recommend duplicate filtering take place before the map was even made.
Pressing 'edit', for OSM contributions 'could' identify sources were not compatible for OSM sharing and could strip any of their data out and provide a user with a warning that it happened and why; needs to make it clear that a user NOT contribute data from that source and that the information needs to be obtained by other means. Maybe even require an OSM sign in/nonanonymous report. Or we could just disable the edit button when incompatible sources are added and explain so unless it is just being stored as a user's private local POI collection on their device.

[cypherworld]

Please share how you are planning your trips now and what could help you to save time and make it very easy.

I use Waze for the crowdsourcing traffic prediction part. It helps when travelling to know how to plan ahead for traffic on a different day.

[muralito]

For a trip, especially long ones, saving the precalculated route would help a lot. Also importing routes from other "trip planners", maybe gpx format. This would save a lot of time when resuming the trip after stopping in a cafe or fuel station. Calculating a route of 1000kms or more takes a very long time, and it shouldn't change much from the route calculated before starting the trip.

Another good feature could be that you could search for cafe/restaurants or fuel stations along the route every x km or hours.

And a feature that i miss from my old garmin nuvi is a trip log, recording the location/speed data every x seconds. It's very useful for a later analysis of the trip.

[johnwgoodin]

One feature that I would love? Being able to see all of the little things that could slow down my trip. I’m talking about traffic lights on a route… Everybody seems to be hung up on traffic signals that have cameras. I’d like to be able to see traffic signals in the first place before I even left on a trip. Most trip planning in maps in general gets hung up on shortest or quickest routes. Nobody remembers that there is another, the simplest route. And one way to do it is to be following the age old army saying of “Keep it simple stupid”. The more complicated you make something the more chances it’s going to get screwed up. The best way to avoid traffic light cameras is to avoid traffic lights in the first place whenever you can. I just wish all OpenStreetMaps permanently showed traffic signals by default, not just when you were already driving a route. If when you were setting in your motel room and the fog was literally so thick you couldn’t cut it with a knife. I’d like to be able to see all of the traffic lights on my route in advance. Not show up until I was literally under it and about to t-bone a semi Its following Ben Franklins old “A ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

[SievaFliesAlone]

I use Komoot to plan bicycle trips. Some of the features that I find useful are:

• waypoint management (reordering, reversing order)
• highlighting cycling-specific features (see Add Hiking, Cycling, Driving, City Tourism, Public Transport map styles/layers #1577 (comment))
• saving created routes for later
• importing/exporting GPS files (as routes)

[ZMensRain]

When routing it could be nice to have an opinion to take detours to sights on way to your destination

[biodranik]

Just any sights? Can it be solved by drawing an alternate "sights preferred" route in addition to the main one?

[thegrasshopper104]

It would be really useful if you could add which vignettes you have. Then OM would only calculate routes which you don't need an extra fee for, and tell you which vignette to buy if there's a shorter road with extra fees.

[biodranik]

Interesting, which country requires so many vignettes?

[thegrasshopper104]

I only know for sure in Hungary. We have an annual per-county vignette option. OM could handle this and always use the highways in the counties you have a vignette for, even when avoid tolls is turned on.

[johnwgoodin]

I basically just want to find solutions to limitations that bug most of the software based on OpenStreetMaps. Be it OsmAnd, Maps.Me, or organic Maps they all have limitations on the the maximum distance that they can handle when planning a route. I would like to see ways / workarounds for planning a long route. You try to plan a long trip from New York City, to Los Angeles and either they take forever to the point you think it’s hung up or the program simply flat out crashes. Rather than adding tons of new features concentrate on getting core features bug free. One way of planning a long route would simply try to find ways of breaking the task down into smaller easier to handle chunks. Rather than trying throw a huge task at the program in one massive gulp are there ways of simplifying the task? Rather than trying to make organic maps try to plan a 3,000 mile trip add waypoints. Rather than just trying to make the program go from A to B 3,000 miles apart. Find a way of getting it to go thru A, B, C, D, E, and F. Where A is New York City, and F is Seattle, Washington. The waypoints could basically be a day’s drive apart. OpenStreetMaps based software would plan a route from waypoint to waypoint and then string them together.

[johnwgoodin]

The only thing that I still have problems with is trying to manually download the maps I might need in the future. I tried downloading a couple of them in the past thinking that I could just download them and then use the iOS files app to transfer them into the location organic maps used. I was just spoiled from my old Microsoft DOS days thinking that it would be simple.

[biodranik]

Why do you need to manually download them outside the app? Download maps in the app directly instead.

[johnwgoodin]

It would totally make Organic Maps truly 100% offline and totally independent of needing the Internet. That would make it totally useful anywhere on the planet. All you would need was your device and an external storage device to keep an archive of all of the maps that you would ever need. Internet totally down due to a hurricane and you forgot about downloading Alabama, or Georgia before you evacuated Miami? No sweat just transfer them over from the USB device or USB based CD-ROM.

I’m still a firm believer in any port in a storm.

[biodranik]

Please see relevant issues, for example, #1801

[biodranik]

For iOS, you can copy the whole maps folder from the app/to the app using Finder. Direct Mac/PC download is possible from https://cdn.organicmaps.app/mirrors/

[thegrasshopper104]

Something nice about Magic Earth is that it tells you which street to take. It translates to something like: "Turn right/left on the 3rd street" or "Take the second opportunity left"

[biodranik]

There is already work in progress about it. It is not related to the topic of trip planning.

[thegrasshopper104]

I can again only speak for the Hungarian version: The TTS instructions could have accentuation. Currently, it speaks really fast and says: "TURN right" instead of "turn RIGHT"

[biodranik]

Please create a new issue (or update a relevant existing one). This thread is about planning.

[reallew]

People, please stick to the topic. The question here is about how to improve trips planning, nothing else. For bug reports and other ideas please use the appropriate channels.

At the moment we have two tools for planning: bookmarks and lists of bookmarks. These are great. For a trip I normally create a new list ("France holiday") and store bookmarks of places I want to visit in that list.

To improve that we could have a routing-by-list function. It should assume that you are on a trip and one list is related to that current trip. The user selects a list as "current trip". After that all bookmarks from that list are highlighted on the map. The app remembers which bookmarks from the list you have already visited. When you click a trip-routing button it presents the list's bookmarks. The nearest bookmark at which you have not been is presented first.

I hope you get my point. Lists can be used for planning and during the trip we would need a convenient function to work with such a list.

[johnwgoodin]

Please share how you are planning your trips now and what could help you to save time and make it very easy.

I like doing things like using the map itself to choose starting and ending points when I wanted to discover just how long it's going to take me to drive between two points. It helps me to get a handle if I'm driving to a certain point could I get there before dark. I just love using the program that way to help with getting estimates on trip distances and times, it really helps me with trips planning in the first place. It's so so true that you can make so much better time on the interstate. I used the maps point to point trip planning for estimating a trip from my home to a point in Birmingham, Alabama once. I discovered that staying on the interstate only took 3 minutes longer than taking the most direct route between the two points. I wound up being a lot better rested when I got to my destination. Just set the cruise control on 70 and set back... Using the point to point system made Organic Maps very very useful and extremely easy to use. What would make using it even easier to use? Simply use it and be able to add stopover points between your starting and ending points. Most of the other internet based mapping sites allows for the setting of points between your starting and ending points. It helps you get more consistent control of the software routes that it's providing. One feature option that OsmAnd has that would help make organic maps more useful is the prefer motorways option. You would be able to make the routing keep you on major interstates and highways for as much as possible. Nobody wants to be forced into a two lane road for 90 minutes when they could have stayed on the interstate for roughly same length of time.

[biodranik]

But you already can add intermediate stops. Build a route, select any point, and then press "add stop" at the bottom bar.

[madpipeline]

The biggest problem I have with OM is the automatic zoom in/out when navigating. This is something that I see is working quite well in Google Maps, Waze, even iGO:

• zoom in when nearing an intersection where a turn is needed
• zoom out when no changes to driving direction is near
• zoom in and show lanes information before a multi lane intersection

These and other related scenarios are very confusing and distracting when driving, and can potentially cause enough distraction to be dangerous, when attempting to figure out when and where to turn.

[biodranik]

This thread is not about issues during navigation (please check existing ones or create a new one if necessary), but about the trip planning.

[lnbycp]

I usually only plan a trip on Organic Maps to see which way I should go, and then I don't look at it (because I ride a bike and I prefer looking at the road). So I have to zoom at the maximum on every street that OM indicates I shoud take to see its name. It would be really helpful to see the names of the streets of the planned trip written and highlighted without having to zoom endlessly.

[Misalf-git]

• It's a pain having to entirely start planning a route from scratch after accidentally cancelling it by tapping the back button.
  A fix may be like caching the last route until app restart (unrelated to saving or exporting tracks) and the possibility for the user to select and re-use it when needed.

• A button for switching direction of the current route and recalculate it.

• Please get rid of the fanciness that erratically zooms-in/out while calculating the route after tapping the "Go to" button. It makes me dizzy.

[WojciechKusa]

Button to switch direction (or some other option to reorder the waypoints) would be nice.

[johnwgoodin]

Button to switch direction (or some other option to reorder the waypoints) would be nice.

I agree in other apps the waypoints are just that waypoints or intermediate points on your route. Seems like in organic Maps they're places to visit. In other apps they're intermediate points or control points. It's modifiers that help to control your routing. It's literally like telling it to start route at A, route thru B, C, D, and then finish at E. Where B thru D were places where you needed to take a turn onto a different road. In other apps once you added A and E you could add B, C, and D. You could drag and drop the waypoints in any order via simply by pressing on them and literally dragging them into another place in the listing. Only three waypoints is simply not enough for route planning. The waypoints in Organic Maps are more like for vacation planning. IE stop at Joes Crab Shack for lunch...

[biodranik]

1. OM supports up to 100 waypoints.
2. iOS version already allows to drag and rearrange them.

[oleg-rswll]

The reorder option does exist, although currently it’s buried and hard to find.

[matkoniecz]

Fixing Wikipedia extract bugs would help a lot.

pie-in-sky request but for cycling trip planning ability to see surface data would be nice

[biodranik]

What are Wikipedia extract bugs? What should be fixed? There is https://github.com/organicmaps/wikiparser/

[matkoniecz]

#5182

some articles seem missing what may be result of #3478

if it is not expected, then I can report it once I spot it again

[muralito]

I'm planning a trip, and was doing like i always do, went to a car travelers site, "ruta0", and then remember this topic, because i think this kind of simplified interface can improve OM.

The output of the "Roadmap" in ruta0 is an appropiate summary of the bigger towns and cities you will find in your route, including travel time and distance.
See an example (in spanish) in https://www.ruta0.com/rutas_argentinas.aspx?d1=Gualeguaych%C3%BA&h1=Rosario&tipo=1&tipoq=1&desde=29&hasta=4

(Alojamiento translate to hotels, you click on that and it searches hotels in that city)
If you click on the city name you go to a page describing that city (maybe OM can show the wikipedia article of that city, or some wikimedia)
It also shows the surface (asfalto=asphalt) and the status of the roads =smoothness score of the road (Estado 6/10) scoring 6 points over 10.

[kiz-tech]

My Idea is to add the option to avoid secondary Highways without cycle ways (for bicycle routing) or without pedestrians ways (for pedestrians routing) see here: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dsecondary
As example for bicycles: The routing should see if there is a seperated line (beside the road) and use this or an alternative route if the secondary Highway is mapped as example with cycleway:both=no (or no cycleway information, maybe 2 different options?)

Best Regards, Daniel

[manouche]

Hello hello :) I'm doing small trips with my bike every year, about 1000 km. I carry heavy stuff like most bikers to be autonomous so the profile of the road is very important. To do planning, here is the tools I need

• like brouter.de : Waymarked Trails lisible in all zoom level :)

• like brouter.de or gurumap : Аnalysis and visualization of GPS tracks (chiffrage d’inclinaison, d’altitude ou des pénalités liées au profil)

• Ground nature and type of way like komoot

• 3 alternatives and Definition of prohibited zone

• Custom profil like brouter and profil type import (https://brouter.de/brouter/profiles2/)

• GPX export

• Add POI to visite during the trip

• Day to day planning like garmin basecamp
  

1. First define date's
   
2. Add first etape. If it is too long function of the user profile, the app can divide the route
   
3. Add POI to cross
   
4. Organize elements, modif date…

Hope this list help ?
Best regards, Emmanuel

[AvdkHiker]

I hike large multi-day hikes, and for that I would love to see distance markers on an imported GPS track.
That way I can easily determine how much km I have to walk to the next grocery store, so I can calculate how much days worth of food I have to buy now, to not starve before reaching the next store.

Ideally, a dynamic distance marker which changes according to zoom level is best, say from 50km down to 25/10/5/1 km markers depending on zoom level. The marker can be a small dot, in which the total distance from the start of the route is printed.

Love the app!
Cheers, Ar

[BikeRun]

For sightseeing in cities I create a set of bookmarks to display them in the map and figure out a route.

For this use case I would like to have the labels of the bookmarks displayed in the map to directly see where the points to visit are.

The list of bookmarks I create with this website https://www.geoplaner.de/ download the list and import it into organic maps.

So far I use the iOS app „GPX viewer 2“ for this purpose. But its functionality is rather limited.

[DavyLandman]

For driving with a car that has a lower limit than the roads allow, for example an legal limit for a trailer, or a physical limit of an older camper for example, it would be great to say: hey, I can only drive 90km/h max, so please take that into account with the estimated total time.

Not many apps have this, and it would be so nice to have a better estimate. Especially if your for example driving on roads in Germany, that allow for 130km/h, but you have a trailer that restricts you to 80km/h

[biodranik]

Please update the related #1507

[DavyLandman]

Sorry, I should have searched better.

[devhost97]

• Ability to edit the order of points while driving. For example, during the route we had to get off the road, point 2 is closer than the first stop.
• Possibility to view the route together with stops while driving in the form of points along with the possibility of removing stops.

[woelfchen72]

Normally, when I plan a trip, I know, where i want to go. But often not when.
So it would be very useful, if I could name and save trips as a sequence of destinations.
So I could go to the favorite trips folder later and load them, when I need them.
Also a nice feature would be a way to edit the trip (changeing, adding, deleting destination points) and recalculating the route.
At the moment I am missing a way to save (and export) a sequence of waypoints.

[biodranik]

What does it mean "load them when I need them"? Are you planning to save a route, and then hide it, and then unhide again when you need to see it on the map?

[woelfchen72]

No, I dont need to hide anything. I just want so save, edit and delete routes in favorites. And give it a senseful name.

[thegrasshopper104]

My biggest issue with planning bike rides and hikes is that OM doesn't show "areas". When I'm just browsing an area (so not starting a turn by turn navigation), I often miss the small gate icons (if they are there at all). So looking at paths/roads in OM gotten me into university campuses, a restaurant's seating area, allotments, a stable / horse riding school, a zoo, a private vineyard.
Some of these areas are relevant for mappers and may even be public, but showing which paths are part of organizations would help a lot.
Additionally, I'd love differentiated private roads/paths on high zoom levels - because those are more often mapped than fences in my experience.

[patepelo]

#Emails&Reviews
Google Play Review requesting a feature to plan a route on PC and export to smartphone:
[...]would it be possible to find solution for planning the route on big pc (best online) and then transfer the trip to phone easily (e.g. using web link)? THX!

[mrg358]

Organic Maps works really well for me to plan my trips. But the absence of saving my planned routes drives me crazy. I have to manually plan my recuring daily trips over and over again because there is no option to save it as a track or route.

There is an idea already discussed here: Saving a route (to bookmarks) #781

If implemented, this simple option would save me a ton of time and greatly improve the usability of the app.

[Joseph-Willem-Ricci]

Hi, I'm pretty new to open source offline maps including Organic Maps, so forgive me for any potential ignorance.

I'm planning on doing a cross country (US) road trip this summer. Not a sightseeing trip, just a straight shot as fast as possible. At the moment, it looks like I'll have to download some very large maps (all of South Dakota!) when I'll only be "using" a very thin band of them.

Maybe I'm too efficiency-minded, but I would love to be able to download just a route (including maybe like 2 miles of map on either side of the route, for gas stations, restaurants, etc.).

Thanks!

[biodranik]

What if you need to detour for whatever reason?

[muralito]

:-) if you plan, you stick to the plan A, B, or C, but already have a plan, where to stop, where to refuel or charge batteries, where to eat, where to sleep. that is what previous planning and investigation is for.

For optimization maybe is easier to separate the maps in several layers, e.g. one for routing (roads), one for eat&sleep&refuel, another for tourism attraction and museums, other layer for the remaining shops and services, etc.

[millerGrey]

When I set intermediate points on my route, it being rebuilt and map is zooming out. It needs zoom in to set new intermediate point. It would be more convenient if I could set all intermediate points and the route would be rebuilt without changing a scale. And scale would be changed only if i set start or end point. What do you think about it?
Also it would be nice if I could see intermediate distance between points and not only all route distance.

[millerGrey]

I don't think it is a bug. May be it was meant to be that way. I don't know. But it not convient for me. May be it could be a separate button for observe full route. User could click on it when he needed to. I recorded a video for example. I need zoom in, every time I want add next point.
Link for a video - https://TransFiles.ru/1i4q8

[biodranik]

Agree, that is not convenient at all. Here is the fix: #11153

[millerGrey]

Thanks a lot. It's great! And what do you say about:

Also it would be nice if I could see intermediate distance between points and not only all route distance.

[biodranik]

That would be nice too.
Related: #10573

[millerGrey]

You planed it already. It's good. Thanks.