1. • CommentAuthorelee
   • CommentTimeJul 19th 2006

    
   Any chance of adding elevation changes and % grade to routes?
2. •  
     CommentAuthorJules
   • CommentTimeJul 19th 2006

    
   Hopefully - it's on my todo list.
   
   See this, also
3. • CommentAuthorstayrose
   • CommentTimeAug 18th 2006

    
   Bike4fun:
   
   What is the elevation for your ride?
4. • CommentAuthordavidjschloss
   • CommentTimeAug 19th 2006

    
   I was just looking at Routeslip, and they've got elevation data. It's a killer function, I hope it's still on your todo list? I'd really really like to see this one added.
5. •  
     CommentAuthorskil
   • CommentTimeAug 22nd 2006

    
   My dream bikely would allow you the option to turn on and off layers, such as with Vancouver's vanmap:
   
   http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/vanmap/
   
   What I'd especially like to see is a map that shows:
   - CONTOUR LINES and TRAFFIC LIGHTS & STOP SIGNS
6. •  
     CommentAuthorJules
   • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2006

    
   I'm working on the elevation graph today ;-)
   
   The data source is a bit flakey, though, so we'll see how it goes.
7. • CommentAuthormmeiser
   • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2006

    
   topographic data... something gmaps is really, really missing. I've seen some cool hacks and remixes to combine topographic data... but best to wait untill google gets it.
   
   Sadly... I too would LOVE topographic maps.
   
   Like the layers thing too... but admitedly it's not core functionality... it's the cool sort of added value stuff you can add later.
   
   I just wish I lived somewhere where I could say... yeah, that elevation graph is awesome... but there's no flatter place in the world. :P
   
   -Mike
8. •  
     CommentAuthorJules
   • CommentTimeAug 24th 2006

    
   As we speak, the backlog of 3500 routes (comprising nearly half a million geo-points) are being scarfed down from USGS's servers ;-)
   
   You're gonna love the elevation graphs.. stay tuned for deployment late this week!
9. • CommentAuthorsfpinkfloyd
   • CommentTimeAug 29th 2006

    
   Is there a way to look at elevation graphs in feet? I just see them in meters even though I've changed the map to miles.
10. • CommentAuthorstephanosbacon
    • CommentTimeAug 29th 2006

     
    A lot of my routes are loops but when looking at the elevation graphs, the start and end elevations don't match. Am I missing something?
11. • CommentAuthorbrandonwilhite
    • CommentTimeAug 29th 2006

     
    Same here on the loop elevations just keep going up and up. Doesn't seem right.
12. • CommentAuthorwia
    • CommentTimeAug 29th 2006

     
    Same here. The "Naustadt"-route I added yesterday (in Saxony, Germany) is a loop but fails to end at the starting elevation. To me it looks like as if only half of the route is plotted, i.e. from start to km 26 or so. That would make sense.
13. • CommentAuthoreheupel
    • CommentTimeAug 30th 2006

     
    Will the elevation data be updated into the gpx files?
    This would be an idel development for me, wanting to use some of my courses to train over winter for the course itself in the spring. I can dump a GPX file into Computrainer's course creation software, but without elevation field would have to duplicate the effort.
14. •  
      CommentAuthorJules
    • CommentTimeAug 30th 2006

     
    When I get some more time I'll examine this issue (and add elevation to the GPX export).
15. • CommentAuthorandrewheard
    • CommentTimeAug 30th 2006

     
    Jules, fantastic site. Are the elevation graphs supposed to be working? I have two routes where the graph is nothing like reality. Check out Australia > Tasmania > Hobart : Longley to Hobart. The 21km mark is at sea level but the graph shows 368m. The other route Australia > Tasmania > Hobart : Around the channel, anticlockwise, Hobart, Cambridge is similarly badly wrong. At the 2km mark the elevation should rise quickly to 300+ metres but the graph is showing elevation dropping down for the 1st 15km which is completely wrong.
16. •  
      CommentAuthorskil
    • CommentTimeAug 30th 2006

     
    Jules, this is all terrific. Great job -- keep up the good work!
17. • CommentAuthorgraeme.chambers
    • CommentTimeAug 30th 2006

     
    Good work for getting the elevation data going! even if it might be a little dodgey :)
    
    Have you thought about adding two or more sets of elevation to the one graph? eg: user is viewing a route, then selects a "Nearby" route, then clicks for elevation. It'd be nice if you can compare the two routes. It might be a bit of effort to get the two graphs to overlay at the correct points, but hey.. this is a wishlist
18. • CommentAuthorklucht
    • CommentTimeAug 31st 2006

     
    Yes... is there a way to look at elevation in feet? Thanks, your site is outstanding btw.
19. • CommentAuthorjefflynch35
    • CommentTimeAug 31st 2006

     
    Amazing site! New features are wonderful.
    
    Elevation is an excellent feature! Unfortunately, my loop rides don't seem to end up at the same elevation as they start. hmmmm
    
    Other features? - total elevation gained (for comparison of ride difficulty), data in feet/miles. Sorry, we still haven't caught up to the rest of the world yet! Thanks
20. • CommentAuthorTimC
    • CommentTimeSep 4th 2006

     
    Is the data really poor resolution, and your interpolation goes bad?
    
    One of my routes (Coonabarabran to Siding Spring Observatory) seems roughly right from my memory (it's not hard to guess as to its correctness -- there's a big mountain at the end :), but my short distance commutes etc all seems really wrong by 50m or so at places.
21. •  
      CommentAuthorJules
    • CommentTimeSep 5th 2006

     
    It's Bikely's interpolation that causes the problems I think. I'm going to re-write it soon.
22. • CommentAuthorcheg
    • CommentTimeSep 6th 2006 edited

     
    The elevation function does not work for any of the routes I have entered. I have one where I transferred a GPS track that had over 5000' of elevation change over many hills and and the graph shows a steady climb of 50 meters. It is a loop but the elevation is 50 meters different at the ends. Other routes, not from GPS, have NaN.00Mm on the vertical scale. None of the 8 routes I have entered in the Seattle area have anything useful in the elevation grasph.
23. •  
      CommentAuthorJules
    • CommentTimeSep 7th 2006

     
    The other issue is that the data source is very flakey and often just returns '0'. Nothing I can do about that unfortunately.
    
    Routes imported from GPX files may take up to 24 hours to retrieve their elevation data.
24. • CommentAuthormurray
    • CommentTimeSep 7th 2006

     
    This is a very useful site. I've gained great benefit from the route planning capabilities. Hope the combination of a rewrite and improved source data can do something about the elevation problems. There are a number of routes I've added where the results are clearly nonsense - if I start and finish at the same horizontal co-ordinates, the elevation should be the same too.
    Best of luck debugging.
    Murray
25. • CommentAuthorwia
    • CommentTimeSep 8th 2006

     
    For the "Naustadt" route I submitted I now created my own version of the elevation graph. I used the data which are available from NOAA. They are given on a 800x800 m^2 square grid, which is quite coarse. From this data I interpolated the elevations at the positions given in the gpx-file created by bikely. The result is not really accurate, but the overall picture is correct. You can find the image at http://leute.server.de/wilde/index.html. Maybe it helps to debug the bikely-elevation-function. If someone is interested in the small octave-script I wrote to make the plot, just tell me.
26. • CommentAuthordbrower
    • CommentTimeSep 21st 2006

     
    Elevation in feet would be awfully nice.
    
    thanks!
    -dB
27. • CommentAuthorbehanna
    • CommentTimeOct 3rd 2006

     
    Cumulative elevation gain (i.e., total climbing) would also be nice. If it's already there, then disregard. Thanks for the site!
28. •  
      CommentAuthorJules
    • CommentTimeOct 6th 2006

     
    Thanks for your feedback everyone (particularly wia), I believe the graphs are now much more accurate. They also feature total climb + total descent figures and operate in both metric and imperial units.
    
    Take a look and let me know.
29. • CommentAuthorThorArth
    • CommentTimeOct 7th 2006

     
    Jules
    
    I have had another look at elevation data for loop-type routes I entered previously - and it looks much more plausible now. The total climb / descent data is also very welcome. Your fix looks good! Many thanks.
30. • CommentAuthorhellers
    • CommentTimeOct 7th 2006

     
    total climb rocks; thanks
31. • CommentAuthorwia
    • CommentTimeOct 7th 2006

     
    Jules
    
    the elevation graph for the naustadt route looks very well now (better than the version put on web). For one of Moritzburg routes (the longer one) I get two -9 m elevation points which is obviously wrong, but you wrote before, that this is in the data you get. Besides that the elevation data are realy cool. Thanks!!
32. • CommentAuthorhellers
    • CommentTimeOct 8th 2006

     
    When it works, the elevation guide is great, but it's still flakey. I excitedly entered a route yesterday with closely spaced points to see the total climb, but the effort didn't yield results:
    
    http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/7089
    
    :-(
33. •  
      CommentAuthorJules
    • CommentTimeOct 9th 2006

     
    The data source indeed remains very flakey. Nothing we can do but cross our fingers and wait I'm afraid ;-(
    
    Check back in around 12 hours, I've marked that route to re-fetch the elevation data.
34. • CommentAuthordtra
    • CommentTimeOct 9th 2006

     
    hey, great work on the site
    it's really useful and fun
    
    you've prolly already had this suggestion
    but a way to compare/map points on the elevation graph with points on the map would be awesome
    as well as displaying comments for those points on the elevation graph (and better distance display on the elevation graph, eg. perhaps onmouseover a line appears that follows the mouse and displays the distance from the start, and also shows the exact height when it reaches a peak or trough)
    obviously grade would be awesome, but not vital
    
    also, what i've noticed, is that if you add some extra points in, and move them a bit, it can put some more detailed elevations in
    
    just some suggestions
    keep up the great work mate
    
    dave
35. • CommentAuthorpilfjd
    • CommentTimeOct 9th 2006

     
    Thanks for the great site. I agree with everyone, it's a very useful and fun site.
    
    Just a couple of questions:
    
    1) I'm just wondering why some elevation graphs of mine contain mile markers along the x-axis of the graph and some do not.
    2) Also, how often will a route refresh it's elevation profile? One of my current routes seems to have just 1 elevation data point that is invalid. And, a couple of my routes from yesterday (more than 12 hours ago) still had no elevation data. I deleted and recreated it and the elevation data was present. Was the route going to get it's elevation data soon and I was just too impatient?
    
    Regards
36. •  
      CommentAuthorJules
    • CommentTimeOct 9th 2006

     
    1 - The graph library appears to be a bit buggy and doesn't print x-axis lables for graphs with more than ~250 points in them.
    
    2 - It doesn't refresh unless all the points failed, or if I flag it to refresh. I will at some point add a facility to "re-request" all the elevation data, but for the moment that's not available.
    
    Moving a point will cause its elevation to be refreshed, so if you can guess which point is missing, then you can take that approach. But I admit it's not particularly viable.
    
    Hopefully USGS will improve the reliability of their elevation service so that it at least notifies the consumer when it cannot fulfill the request - rather than just returning 0 as it does now!
37. • CommentAuthorpilfjd
    • CommentTimeOct 11th 2006

     
    Jules, thanks for the quick responses. Again, the site is great enough as it is, and I definitely understand that you are relying on an unreliable datasource for the elevation data. This site is by far the best out of the other "route creation" Google Map mashups I've used for creating routes. I definitely love the community feel about it. Much thanks, again.
    
    Regards,
    Jay
38. • CommentAuthordheatley
    • CommentTimeOct 11th 2006

     
    I plotted some routes Bright Boot Camp - Stage 4, Bright Boot Camp - Stage 3, Stage 1, and BBC - Stage 2 on Saturday. I noticed that some of the data is populated on some of the routes when I created them where as others just don't have any data. There are big gaps in the data thouhg. They all have not had their Elevation updated since I created them. Is this normal? Will I have to wait longer?
39. •  
      CommentAuthorJules
    • CommentTimeOct 11th 2006

     
    dheatley - I think my previous post in this thread answers your questions.
40. • CommentAuthorTimC
    • CommentTimeOct 16th 2006

     
    Hey Jules -- commulative climbing -- I assume there is no filtering of bad points in that?
    
    http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Coonabarabran-to-Siding-Spring-Observatory had one obvious bad point, which would really stuff up cummulative climb/descent, if not filtered out.
    
    So my thought is -- is the bad data exactly 0 (someone mentioned -9m before)? Sure, you can't filter that out directly, because for all you know, someone from the Netherlands will come along with their route at or below sea level, and they won't be given elevation data if filtered as such. But what you can do is to filter out data that is both exactly 0, and has a large change from a previous or next point (and do this recursively in the case of multiple potentially bad data). A large change can be defined as say 200m in 1km. If my points are 100m apart, and one is exactly 0m, and one is greater than 20m elevation, then the 0 is filtered out.
41. • CommentAuthorTimC
    • CommentTimeOct 16th 2006

     
    And second -- what about a zoom function in the elevation graph? Over 29km, my route doens't look very "bumpy". But in real life, there's plenty of undulations that you just can't see because of my screen resolution. Let me define a zoom box (both X and Y dimensions independantly), and it will be clearer. Then, as a bonus, the horizontal direction has a chance of having less than 256points (I'm guessing?) and we'll get an X axis display.
42. •  
      CommentAuthorJules
    • CommentTimeOct 16th 2006

     
    It does attempt to re-request bad data (0's, yes) using exactly the algorithm you describe. Sometimes it works, but apparently when USGS is down, it just keeps on returning 0's ;-)
    
    No filtering at render time, but yes I could use that same algorithm to try to filter out the bad data during rendering.
    
    I'm might try writing a friendly letter to USGS instead!
43. • CommentAuthorhellers
    • CommentTimeOct 17th 2006

     
    I think zeros tend to come up more when I add a point to the graph with the add-before or add-after feature, ie, while editing the route, more than while initially entering it. The elevation data usually works after I take the added point and move it (at all) by dragging it with the mouse. As a wild guess, there may be different rounding of positioning data going on in the two situations, and USGS reacts differently.
44. • CommentAuthorjeremy
    • CommentTimeOct 18th 2006

     
    Here's a thought, if a route is being imported from GPX, how about generating the elevation profile from the GPS data if the user specifies that they are using a GPS with a barometric altimeter? This is likely to be more accurate than sourcing it the current way, though if changes are made to the route then elevations at those locations will have to be sourced the same way as now.
45. •  
      CommentAuthorJules
    • CommentTimeOct 18th 2006

     
    Agreed Jeremy - that's on my todo list.
    
    Do most GPSs include altitude data?
46. • CommentAuthorjeremy
    • CommentTimeOct 20th 2006

     
    I think they do, though without a barometric altimeter it isn't as accurate (30m vs 3m) and it's only available if the unit can lock onto at least four satellites. I noticed that on Garmin's motionbased site they offer elevation data for track logs recorded from units without an altimeter but recommend that it not be used for track logs form units that do have an altimeter.
    
    The other thing that would be nice to get some info (i.e. figures) of actual grades along the way. I'm not aware of any sites (or apps) that do this at the moment though it should be quite trivial provided you have the horizontal distance travelled and the vertical elevation gained or lost. Not sure how you'd present the info though, maybe just mousing over various sections of the graph. An even more trivial thing that could be done though is to show individual waypoints on the graph as well to help get an idea of where the steeper sections are.
47. • CommentAuthornkhnz
    • CommentTimeOct 26th 2006

     
    Could you maybe show the elevation info as part of the point when editing the map? I am finding that in Wellington, NZ, with all the roads/tracks on the sides of steep hills I am getting some weird results. The current solution seems to be to move the point a bit to get a better elevation, but this is slow if you have to move the point and then generate the elevation chart to check it.
    
    Also is it possible to show the points with notes on the elevation chart?
    
    cheers for the great site.
48. •  
      CommentAuthorJules
    • CommentTimeOct 27th 2006

     
    I do plan to include "elevation at current point" - it will be included in my next round of changes.
    
    The elevation chart is an approximation of most routes - it cannot display more than a few hundred points. So it's not really feasible to annotate it.
49. • CommentAuthorsean_clift
    • CommentTimeOct 27th 2006

     
    Hi Jules,
    
    Great site! I'm also finding elevation flakey, just tried to fix a route by moving all the bad points which was going well until I got to the last one, when a whole new batch went bad...
    
    Your refresh idea sounds like the go... and the friendly letter!
    
    Sean
50. • CommentAuthordr2chase
    • CommentTimeJan 6th 2007

     
    Seems to me that a true zero elevation would be rare, and if you get one, you should just interpolate from neighbors.
    
    I will try moving points in my routes.
    
    David

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