Trailcatalog.org was made to organize and visualize OSM trails. You can search trails globally, see them with distance and elevation, and correct any errors via links back to OSM.
Here’s an example of Mt. Rainier National Park rendered with its boundary and all trails within. If you’re an editor or a hiker what would be helpful to you in Trailcatalog?
I’ve been looking for a good OSM-based trails map. I’m not sure I understand what this map is doing, or how to use it, or something. When I look around where I live (on the east coast), most of the trails I know of (and have added to OSM) are dashed lines, and clicking them gives the OSM way id and link, whereas I would expect at least the trail name and things like the colour if trailblazed and such.
There are a couple trails which are solid lines instead of dashed, and show up in the trail list on the left, but I don’t know how it’s figuring out which trails to show that way and which ones not to.
Also, I don’t know which park boundaries it is choosing to show. A lot of places to walk near me are a leisure=nature_reserve, which I think is the normal tagging for “places where there are trails to go for a walk in the woods”.
And the whole thing seems rather slow, but that may be related to me dragging it all around so much trying to figure it out.
Does it use the OSM US Trail Rendering Recommendations, to emphasize trails with an operator (or informal=no) as being “official”, and to clearly identify closed/discouraged trails?
I’m excited about the possibilities, I’m just still trying to sort out what this map is exactly doing, and how it’s different from other trail maps that may have different goals.
That is also my feeling. A lot of people here are probably familiar with waymarkedtrails.org, which seems comparable as it is also browser based. Perhaps it would be hepful to explain what you see as different. I think you are trying to do something similar to that site with waymarked trails mapped as route relations, and then add information about other trails not mapped as routes. I’m not sure if it is specifically for hiking routes - I saw some MTB routes also.
Again, I agree. I ended up staring at a blank white “loading” screen several times. I also found that on Android (both Firefox and Edge) the copyright message often blocked functionality near the bottom of the screen.
I also came across a few trails that mentioned “OSM data issues” as in this screenshot, but give no clue as to what kind of issue. It looked like it might refer to non continuous or non linear route relations, but if so that may reflect reality, e.g. I have mapped multi-stage trails that have no defined route through population centres, so have gaps in the route.
I would find it useful to be able to easily follow a link to a website about a trail where that is mapped in OSM. Also a visual distinction between iwn/nwn/rwn/lwn networks would be useful.
One other comment on the map style. I understand it is intended to minimise distractions, and not as a general purpose map. But I feel it may go too far in removing clutter, to the point that it is difficult to keep track of where you are on the map because there is no context. In this screenshot, the white roads on light grey background are almost invisible to me - and without roads or village names it is hard to orient yourself.
Incidentally, the screenshot also shows an issue I mentioned earlier, of the copyright notice obscuring the bottom menu.
This is really cool!
As a mapper, I don’t know a lot of tools for viewing OSM hiking route relations. On openstreetmap.org, none of the layers show them and they aren’t even searchable. The main OSM-based hiking apps (Komoot, Alltrails, Outdooractive) just ignore them as far as I know. There is of course waymarkedtrails.org but its focus is very different. So this is a very welcome addition. I especially like the indexing by area, e.g. here for the Lake District National Park, England. I don’t know of any other website that lets me explore the OSM data like this.
I have lots of comments and ideas but first of all, the question, are you planning to develop this as a QA tool for mappers (see what’s in OSM, where it’s wrong, etc.) or as a tool for the general public to find hikes, mountain bike trails, etc.?
I don’t want to hijack this thread too much with alternative trail maps, but OSM US has been working on some sort of trail map website, though I don’t think it’s officially “released” or “done” yet, and I think is more focused on data QA than on being something for a hiker to actually use.
I don’t know if it makes sense to combine forces in some way, but it’s exciting to see multiple ways of looking at the OSM data and how it can turn into useful maps for hikers (and bicyclists, and so on).
