This application lets you browse Ordnance Survey maps and:
But even if you've not got a GPS it's also just a great way of looking at these maps.
You can scroll around the map by dragging it with your mouse. Alternatively use the relevant parts of the grey cross in the corner of the map. You can zoom and in and out using your mouse wheel or the plus and minus buttons.
To go to a particular location enter a postcode, a place name (which can be just about any name on a 1:50,000 map, not just a town name e.g. 'Ben Nevis' or 'Blackrock Cottage'), or the Ordnance Survey grid reference, including the two letter grid square code, into the box and press Enter.
If your browser supports it you can also enter 'here' and it will attempt to centre the map on your current location. The accuracy of this will vary from very good to fairly dismal depending on the geolocation data available.
If you click on a location on the map it will add a waypoint there. You will see its location shown in the "Your Route" box on the left hand side which appears once you start adding waypoints. Add more waypoints and they will joined by a blue line and the total distance will be shown at the bottom of the "Your Route" box.
You can move a waypoint you've already placed by dragging it.
You can insert a new waypoint between two existing waypoints by clicking marker midway between the two waypoints and dragging it to where you want the new waypoint to be.
You can delete a waypoint by clicking on the relevant "Delete" link in the waypoint list. So you can be sure you're deleting the right waypoint it changes colour when you hover over the link. Alternatively you can right mouse click on the waypoint and it will be deleted.
Similarly to name a waypoint enter its name in the waypoint list. Again so you can be sure you're naming the right waypoint it changes colour when you hover over the input box.
When you're ready to save your route then give it a name and then click on the "Download GPX file" link and the route will be sent to you as a GPX file. Most modern route planning software and GPSs understand GPX files.
Once you have two or more waypoints our server starts calculating statistics about your proposed route:
one hour for every five kilometres forward,which, expressed in metric units, is pretty close to William Naismith's original definition.
plus one minute for every ten metres of ascent
In addition we can display the height profile of your route if you click on the 'profile' link which will appear once you have entered two or more waypoints. This should give you so feel for the shape of the route you're creating. Remember that because the axes are scaled to fit the box the gradients are not to scale i.e. what may look like a gentle slope could be steep incline or vice versa. The gradients are only to scale relative to each other.
You can load a route from a GPX file using the "Load GPX file" option and you can then edit it.
You can load tracks from your GPS into the software to see where you've been so long as it's in GPX format. Use the "Load GPX file" option.
If there's more than one track in the GPX file the software will let you choose which sections you want to display. By default the tracks you chose are joined together into one combined track but you can disasble this by unchecking the appropriate box.
Once the track(s) are displayed you will see two options:
In addition, just like a route, you can look at your track's height profile by clicking on the 'profile' link only here the real heights from the GPX file are used rather than relying on Ordnance Survey data.
If you have loaded a single track (or joined your tracks together to create single track - see above) then you can edit the track by clicking on 'edit'.
Use the mouse wheel to scroll through the track, the right mouse button to delete the current point, and the left if you make a mistake and want to undo the last delete. The 'Home' and 'End' keys will take you to the start and end of the track.
When you are done press the 'GPX' link to download the modified track back to your PC.
Although this is an application using Ordnance Survey data the latitude and longitude shown for the mouse use the WGS 84 datum not the OSGB 36 datum. There's an explanation of this difference on Wikipedia but the practical upshot is that the latitude and longitude can appear to be wrong compared to the latitude and longitude crosses shown on the 1:50,000 OS map but will be correct on your GPS (which will use WGS 84).
If you need help using the application then feel free to email us.
This software was written by The Hug using the OSGB Web Map Tools API. The software is not Open Source and may not be copied without permission.
This software uses Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2013 and Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2013.
Please note that under the terms of our licence from Ordnance Survey you can print a maximum of ten paper copies, each no larger than A4 in size, of each of the maps shown and you can only create, store, download and use routes which you generate for your own personal, non-commercial, use on a single device.
This site contain Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right, 2011, and footpath data © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA, 2011.
These maps are available for reuse under the Creative Commons Share Alike licence. Attribution is requested (with links) to Walkhighlands, who did the work to make this tile set happen, OpenStreetMap contributors, and Ordnance Survey data under their OS OpenData programme.
Please note that, to enable the mapping to remain available to all users, any bulk or automated downloading of mapping tiles is strictly prohibited.
IMPORTANT NOTE: footpath data on these maps is crowd-sourced by OpenStreetMap; the indication of a path on these maps may not always exist on the ground, and is not evidence that there is any right of way. We accept no responsibility for any inaccuracies.
