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Fred Hiking Monday 15 Feb 2021 07:42:45
That is not good news. I'm disappointed.
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Laurent LARUAZ Monday 15 Feb 2021 07:40:59
Hello
Let me speak frankly about this news : you spoilt my day ! Although I understand the reasons about this, I fear it will make plotting a route a little bit less of a pleasure . By the way I think you realize that adding new maps is of no use for those of your users outside of the US.
However I keep being sure about the fact that plotaroute.com will stil be the best tool around ; I only will have to change some habits (and perhaps to open Google Maps in another window on my desktop). Adding access to Street View in the Map Inspector is great.
Out of curiosity and not being a specialist of what stands behind the scenes, I would like to ask you what you mean by "maintaining two route planners" ?
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plotaroute admin Monday 15 Feb 2021 05:07:35
Following a review of our mapping providers, we have reluctantly had to take the decision to discontinue using Google's maps, which were previously available to Premium members using the desktop version of our route planner. We understand this will be disappointing for those of you who like Google's maps, but sadly Google's licensing restrictions prevent us from offering services that we want to provide. It has also become clear over time that maintaining two route planners with different technologies is not sustainable and limits the development of new features.
We know that a number of you like to use Google Street View when researching new routes and will miss this feature in particular, so we've amended our Map Inspector tool to give you direct access to Google Street View on the Google Maps website. You can use this to quickly check Google Street View for any road on the map.
While this change closes one door, the good news is that it also opens up others - the first of these we are pleased to announce today.
New Premium Maps
Adding Ordnance Survey® maps to the website has been one of the most voted for requests on our Feature Requests list, but we have previously been unable to make these available due to incompatibilties between Ordnance Survey and Google contract terms. Following today's changes we are very pleased to say that this is now something we can offer and that Ordnance Survey's iconic leisure maps will now be available to Premium members in the desktop route planner.
In addition, we can also announce that we've added AccuTerra™ maps to the desktop route planner for Premium members in the US. These are regarded by some as the best recreational maps available for the US, combining data from the nation’s national parks, national forests, federal lands, state parks, local parks, and high-use recreation areas, alongside data from the OpenStreetMap community.
Both of these new premium maps have been introduced on a trial basis while we evaluate them, but subject to trial results we hope to also make available through our mobile app in due course.
New Standard Maps
We're also pleased to announce that we've added USGS Topo maps to the desktop route planner for all our users in the US. These maps are a signature product of the US Geological Survey and show many detailed features that help with planning recreational routes.
Lastly, as part of these changes, we've upgraded our Trails Map (previously named "Paths Map"), Cycle Map and Transport Map to use higher resolution map images where applicable, making them pin-sharp on devices with high pixel density screens, like retina displays.
In total there are now up to 11 different types of map to choose from when plotting a route on plotaroute.com.
While we're sorry to lose Google maps from our website, we're excited about the new opportunities this opens up and look forward to announcing more new features in the coming months.
