Where's The Path Help
To pan the maps around, use Left - Mouse Drag. To zoom in and centre either map, use Left - Double Click.
To zoom out and centre the Google map, use Right - Double Click. Alternatively use the Mousewheel for either map.
Use the 
button to switch between modern and out of copyright 1940s OS maps.
Select a map pair or a single map from the map type list.
OSM is Open Streetmap mapping courtesy of Open Street Map.
OSM Cycle is Open Cycle Map mapping courtesy of Open Street Map, Andy Allan, Dave Stubbs and Cloud Made.
Earth is Google Earth 3D and needs the Google Earth Browser Plugin.
When using 3D Google mapping, click on the top right close box to get back to normal maps.
1930's OS is 'Popular Edition' OS mapping courtesy of Andrew Rowbottom.
1940's OS is 'New Popular Edition' OS mapping courtesy of npemap.org.uk
Select a map linking mode from the Link dropdown. Panning causes the maps to pan together. Pan+Zoom causes the maps to pan and zoom together - good for navigating around the UK. Pointer causes the other map to stay centered on the current map's mousepointer. A blue box shows the coverage of one map on the other - useful when the zoom levels are well separated. On the 3D Earth map, the north edge of the OS map box is plotted in red and linking is by 'Pan' only.
To capture a location, press the 
button,
click on either map, copy the clicked location from the panel at the bottom right and then press the 
button.
On Internet Explorer, the location is automatically copied to the clipboard. To change the location format, double-click
in the location box, its tooltip will explain the selected format. The final two formats include
Watsonian Vice County code(s) for biological recorders. The WVC codes are only
updated after the pointer has been stationary for a second. If you don't need
these codes, please don't use these
formats. The final format gives a 10km grid ref + 2km DINTY tetrad square.
Thanks to Tom at herbariauntited.org
for use of his WVC look up service, please also note the NBN license . Select a grid for the Google map from the Grid
dropdown.
Use the text box to the left of the 
button to access the OS 1:50K Gazetteer, OS Postcode lookup or Google Geocoder.
Enter a name, or part of a name and press return or click the button. More than one place will normally be found.
Select the one you want from the drop down to the right of the button.
The OS Gazetteer includes cities, towns, villages, farms, hills, woods, lakes, rivers etc. If there is a digit in your text, the OS Postcode geocoder will be used.
If the Postcode is found, the maps will center on it (that's all OS allow). This site is limited to 1000 post code lookups per day. If there is a comma in your text,
the Google Geocoder will be used to search for UK results. It will find Street Names and part Post Codes eg 'SO16 4' but not full Post Codes.
If the OS Gazetteer can't find your name the Google Geocoder will be tried and vice versa. Note that the OS Gazetteer results are only for
'the centre point of the 1km square the feature name falls within'. You can also pan the map by entering a WGS84 Latitude and Longitude (decimal) or an OS Grid Reference
(a grid letter and an even number of digits) into the text box. Checking for Grid Reference syntax is done before Post Code syntax. SO16 for example, will be treated as a grid reference.
Searching for an OS Grid Reference
or Post Code will add a small green waypoint marker to both maps. OS waypoint
markers will include Watsonian Vice County code(s) in their pop up text (for
Biological recorders). To remove all the waypoints click the 
button. To remove
them one at a time, press the 
button and then click on the waypoint markers.
Press the 
button to stop deleteing the markers.
Use the 25K button to open a Streetmap 1:25K map window at the next map location clicked.
To draw (or append to) a
Route, press the 
button and then click route nodes on either map.
Press the 
button to stop adding nodes. To remove the node at the end of the route, right-click on either map. Press the
button to enable node dragging, delete and insert and to show the distance along the route. To insert a node at the trace marker position, simply click on the map.
To delete an existing node, click on it. The start and end node can not be deleted. Press the button to stop editing.
Press the button to clear the route. When not editing, click on a route node to add/edit a Comment
and see its distance along the route and to/from its neighbours. Intermediate nodes with Comments are shown like this 
.
For automatic road routing, click route nodes on the Google Map and for automatic bike routing click on the OSM Cycle map. Turn directions will be added as Comments. If you move such a node, you may want to delete its Comment.
For automatic public right of way routing (where available), press the 
button, click it again to disable the facility. If starting a route with a path, click near the end of the path you want
to start at.
Double click zoom is disabled whilst adding or editing route nodes. To change the
distance display units between km+metres or miles+feet, double
click in the distance box (or add ?miles=1 to the url). You can also select
between the display of hike time, ascent+descent or perimeter and area in
hectares by the same means. The Print page will use
the same units as you select here.
The links between route nodes are coloured according to maximum Gradient using 90m resolution SRTM
terrain data. If the link has more ascent then descent, then the link is coloured thus: <1:10
█, <1:6 █, <1:3 █,
>1:3 █. If the link has more descent then ascent, then the link is coloured thus:
<1:10 █, <1:6 █, <1:3 █,
>1:3 █. If the link has equal ascent, descent and gradients or is horizontal it is coloured
█. If the gradient of the link has not been determined, then it is coloured █.
To see a profile of the complete route, press the 
button.
You can drag the profile display around the screen so that you can see your route and its profile. As you move the mouse over the profile,
the mouse location will be indicated on your route by a cross mark and the altitude will be displayed in the grid reference panel.
If gradient has been determined, then from and to distances shown by clicking route node markers, include Naismith hiking times as hours:minutes (with descent corrections). NB Naismith hiking time estimates are for for fit hikers on good paths in good weather. If you are riding or driving then the hiking times may be usefull if you have a breakdown!
The Start date and time of your route may be set by clicking the green circle start marker. Arrival times (hiking time + start time) and Sunset times can be displayed by clicking on the remaining route markers. For daylight arrival, time to sunset is shown with a yellow background, after dark arrival has a black background and shows time since sunset. For complete route timing, ensure that all route segments are gradient coloured.
To export (as GPX or KML) your Route press the 
button.
Check Description to add a GPX/KML desc field (grid, from, to, ascent, descent, Naismith etc.) for each node and
Comment to add a GPX/KML cmt field (from a node's Comment). Enter a name for your Route, select a destination of Screen (KML or GPX),
File (local, KML, GPX) or Garmin (GPS device) and press the Export button.
If you want to export your Route as a Track (a simple multi-segment line without comments or descriptions), check the Route > Track check box.
If you have a Garmin GPS device, and you have installed the Garmin Communicator Plugin, then you can download your Route
(or Track) directly to a Garmin device attached to your PC by pressing the blue Garmin Save button.
The Garmin Browser Plugin should work from Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3 and Chrome.
For more details look here.
You can test your GPX file using GPS Visualizer.
To import a GPX Track, Route or Waypoint, press the button then select input from Screen, File or Garmin.
For Screen input, paste an http: URL to a GPX file or GPX data into the GPX text area then press Import (be patient with big track logs).
For File input, select a local file then press Import, very large track logs may fail to load.
For Garmin input, select a Route, Track or Waypoint and press one of the blue Garmin Import buttons.
Imported Tracks will be reduced to 500 nodes, and Routes to 100 nodes or less before display
(using Douglas-Peucker) unless Don't Thin is checked. Disabling thinning may
cause your browser to render complex Tracks or Routes very slowly, possibly reporting an unresponsive script. An imported Track is plotted in Magenta on the OS map and Yellow on the Google map.
Use the Track > Route check box to create a Route from a Track at Import time (GPX / Garmin only).
If imported Routes,
including those created from a Track, have lots of nodes, individual leg
requests to the terrain server will be trickled (at 50ms + an extra 50ms for
each 50 legs).
This is to protect the server from overload and share its capability fairly
amongst all users. Use the Waypoints checkbox to plot waypoints in the GPX file with small green markers (for Garmin, import each Waypoint individually).
You may import a Track or Route at page load time using a URL parameter of
gpx=http://mygpxurl like this.
Make the gpx parameter be the last parameter so that it can contain parameters of its own if you need. Use a URL parameter of wpt=1 before the gpx parameter,
to plot GPX waypoints.
To Print your loaded Track or Route, route press the 
button - a new window will open with your maps ready to print and take outdoors.
Printing is optimised for Shrink-To-Fit on A4. A Track prints as a set of full page maps, portrait or landscape according to the aspect ratio of the Track.
A Route prints as pages of portrait maps with waypoint tables. The same map zoom/scale as used by this page is used for the printed maps.
The printed maps will not be accurately scaled. A 10% border with no track or route points is placed around each map.
For Landscape printouts, you may need to use your browser's page setup to turn off headers and footers and set page margins to 0.
To show bus stops press the 
button and then click on either map. The ten nearest stops to your click will be
plotted. Click
on a stop icon to see service and departure details. The tooltip for a bus stop
marker is its NAPTAN code. Press the
button to clear the stops.
A small diagram (4 x exagerated) shows the relationship between Grid, Magnetic and True North at the mouspointer's location.The tool-tips for the angles show their decimal values. The World Magnetic Model is used to calculate the Grid to Magnetic North angle for the current date.
Use the 
button to save a URL link to a view (requires that you browser allows script prompts).
Add &wpt=YourName to the end of a link to have a green waypoint marker positioned at the centre of the views. YourName is the text for the waypoint's name which is shown when it is clicked.
Press the button to clear the waypoint.
The Ordnance Survey OpenSpace API requires the use of 'HTTP referrers'. If you get 'HTTP referrer' errors you may have to 'allow referrers' in your browser / internet security software.
Please send any feedback to bill.chadwick2@gmail.com Or use this Guestbook
© Bill Chadwick 2008, 2009, 2010
If you enjoy WTP and would like to contribute to its hosting and development then you can donate using PayPal.
Below is the attribution of the Watsonian Vice County data that the National Biodiversity Network request be shown.
Digitised Watsonian Vice-County Boundary data© All rights reserved. National Biodiversity Network Trust and Crown Copyright 2003, comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This product is available for not-for-profit use to support biological recording activities strictly under licence with the NBN Trust. |
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IMPORTANT:
Installation and use of the Digitised Watsonian Vice-County Boundary data is
permitted under licence with the National Biodiversity Network Trust.
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"Many local councils have released under licence, their data about rights of way. Please lobby for further releases, or a national release, here http://data.gov.uk/data-requests/datasets-about-public-rights-of-way
A council's Definitive Map is the authoritative source of the council's rights of way. The details of the public rights of way network contained in a council's data are for information only, and are an interpretation of the Definitive Map, not the Definitive Map itself, and should not be relied on for determining the position or alignment of any public right of way. For legal purposes, a council's data does not replace their Definitive Map. And changes may have been made to the Definitive Map that are not included in their data. A council's data contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2012. Attempting to view this data with more detail than 1:10000 may produce an inaccurate rendering of the route of a public right of way. "
Path data for other areas is taken from the OpenStreet Map project under its Open Data Commons Open Database License and is © OpenStreetMap contributors. See this copyright page for more information.