Thanks ! For the moment the feature is interesting only for the Yankees, as well as the FR team and the "Visegrad" team. Let's hope we'll find more of these maps ! :)
In many parts of the world, the "trk" of GPX files is understood to mean "track".
These solutions are very attractive, but I wonder what happens when one or more of the cooperative sites and services changes domain, policies, or simply goes out of business? Summitpost went through a similar paroxysm a while back when a formerly free map service started charging.
As I was typing this, I got an error message from the server trying to contact mapsupport.
You point out the space advantage of this approach "instead of posting huge JPEG files". You rightfully point out the copyright issues for the European maps. But are the original map graphics files much larger than the photographs many people upload to SP? This image stored as a gif is 0.65 MB. Many of the original photos, stored at the same server, are over 2 MB.
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, you are right, everything can change from one day to another, we need to keep an eye on it to keep this page up-to-date. For the mapsupport issue, I suggest asking Jelf as he is the man for the US maps.
For the rest of your remarks, I would just suggest that everyone is free to use it or not. Some people are curious and may feel like digging into this, some prefer posting routes and peaks the simpliest way and I fully understand them too...
You make very good points and I have seen the same thoughts expressed elsewhere. Your valid concerns are one reason why I designed my map viewer so that you do not have to upload your GPS data to my site. If my site goes away, your data does not go away with it.
I have a strong desire to keep my site up and 100% free for a good many years and at some point to pass it on into capable hands. As I think about all the people that have helped me over the years in various ways, some of them strangers that I will never see again, I view the gmap4 service as a small way to honor those people and “pay it forward” by doing something that I am good at - helping people place their GPS data on a nice online topographic map.
With respect to the hiccup you saw on my server today, my site is hosted by Bluehost. In the years that I have been with them, I have only experienced one server outage and it happened when I was online. By the time I logged into my Bluehost control panel they had already posted a notice stating they were aware of the outage and had sent a technician to investigate. The site was down for about 20 minutes.
Also, I updated the production code a couple times this morning. During that process there would have been a 2-3 second window when gmap4 was unavailable.
Finally, I am pleased to report that gmap4 now supports reading GPX files. I will update the North America section above to reflect this new feature.
peterbud - Dec 1, 2009 5:57 am - Voted 10/10
Useful articleNow it's time to exchange jpg-s for embedded maps on all SP pages, where this feature is available :)
visentin - Dec 1, 2009 7:17 am - Hasn't voted
Re: Useful articleThanks ! For the moment the feature is interesting only for the Yankees, as well as the FR team and the "Visegrad" team. Let's hope we'll find more of these maps ! :)
yatsek - Dec 1, 2009 8:51 am - Voted 10/10
Seems extremely usefulHaven't studied it yet, but this article looks like just what I needed to finally stop sticking to hand-made sketch maps only. Thanks!
MoapaPk - Dec 5, 2009 12:17 pm - Voted 10/10
treks or tracks? And thoughts.In many parts of the world, the "trk" of GPX files is understood to mean "track".
These solutions are very attractive, but I wonder what happens when one or more of the cooperative sites and services changes domain, policies, or simply goes out of business? Summitpost went through a similar paroxysm a while back when a formerly free map service started charging.
As I was typing this, I got an error message from the server trying to contact mapsupport.
You point out the space advantage of this approach "instead of posting huge JPEG files". You rightfully point out the copyright issues for the European maps. But are the original map graphics files much larger than the photographs many people upload to SP? This image stored as a gif is 0.65 MB. Many of the original photos, stored at the same server, are over 2 MB.
visentin - Dec 5, 2009 1:33 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: treks or tracks? And thoughts.Thanks for the feedback. Yes, you are right, everything can change from one day to another, we need to keep an eye on it to keep this page up-to-date. For the mapsupport issue, I suggest asking Jelf as he is the man for the US maps.
For the rest of your remarks, I would just suggest that everyone is free to use it or not. Some people are curious and may feel like digging into this, some prefer posting routes and peaks the simpliest way and I fully understand them too...
Jelf - Dec 5, 2009 8:45 pm - Hasn't voted
gmap4 is here to stayMoapaPk,
You make very good points and I have seen the same thoughts expressed elsewhere. Your valid concerns are one reason why I designed my map viewer so that you do not have to upload your GPS data to my site. If my site goes away, your data does not go away with it.
I have a strong desire to keep my site up and 100% free for a good many years and at some point to pass it on into capable hands. As I think about all the people that have helped me over the years in various ways, some of them strangers that I will never see again, I view the gmap4 service as a small way to honor those people and “pay it forward” by doing something that I am good at - helping people place their GPS data on a nice online topographic map.
With respect to the hiccup you saw on my server today, my site is hosted by Bluehost. In the years that I have been with them, I have only experienced one server outage and it happened when I was online. By the time I logged into my Bluehost control panel they had already posted a notice stating they were aware of the outage and had sent a technician to investigate. The site was down for about 20 minutes.
Also, I updated the production code a couple times this morning. During that process there would have been a 2-3 second window when gmap4 was unavailable.
Finally, I am pleased to report that gmap4 now supports reading GPX files. I will update the North America section above to reflect this new feature.
gulo - Dec 14, 2009 1:45 am - Hasn't voted
Colorado Springs Trail MapsHi
I am running a website www.cospringstrails.com which has local trails for Colorado Springs area in both GPX and KMZ format
Ze - Dec 17, 2009 8:28 pm - Hasn't voted
everytrail.comis a decent site to use to upload gps files, and subsequently create embedded maps