OpenOrienteeringMap

OpenOrienteeringMap is an orienteering map of the whole of the UK almost the whole world, based on OpenStreetMap data. There are two formats – “Street-O” and “Pseud-O”.

The Street-O map contains the level of detail equivalent to the Street-O maps used for informal orienteering races around the streets of London and other urban areas in the UK and around the world. The Pseud-O map is a less serious map (as the level of detail in OSM is not sufficient for “proper” orienteering maps) but attempts to emulate the look and feel of standard orienteering maps.

Both maps make (loose) use of the ISOM and ISSOM orienteering mapping specifications, particularly the colours and the styling. Measurements are less likely to be within spec, due to artistic considerations and limits of standard screen resolutions.

When first accessing the website, you start zoomed in to SW London, You can zoom out to see the OpenStreetMap map of cities and countries. Pan to your area of interest, then zoom back in a few times until you start seeing the orienteering map. Alternatively you can jump to a latitude/longitude, if known, by typing it in, or to a UK postcode.

Because the maps are based on the “Tile Mapping Service” standard, they are viewable only at fixed scales. The current scale is displayed on the bottom right of the map. The most relevant scales for orienteering are 1:7000 and 1:14000 – these are the scales you will see for the third and fourth-most zoomed in levels (16 and 15), assuming a 72dpi screen.

Large areas of the UK and the world are still missing much detail. You can help build the free map of everything in the world by contributing to the OpenStreetMap project, by surveying your local area and adding the roads, land types and other data into the project. The data is then pulled into OpenOrienteeringMap on an approxmiately monthly basis. The current data is from the beginning of January 2010.

Known bugs in the Pseud-O Map:

  • At river mouths, there is generally a black line drawn across the “border” between river and the sea – in some cases (e.g. the Mersey), this line protrudes far out into the sea.
  • Brown road ends are not crossed off with a black border-line.
  • Several layering assumptions are made. For example, it is assumed that water is always underneath roads and railways.
  • No north lines or arrow – and the map is orientated to true north rather than magnetic north.
  • No contours – yet.
  • The background maps (OSM/Aerial) do not work in Internet Explorer 6, as the Street-O map tiles’ transparency does not work on this browser.

Other things to bear in mind:

  • Performance in Internet Explorer is quite slow (although it does just about work.) Use of Firefox, Safari or other modern standards-compliant web browsers is strongly recommended for this and other websites.
  • The website delivers multiple layers of full-colour PNG graphics, so you’ll need a fast broadband connection (at least 8Mbps) and a fast computer to be able to pan around the maps in real-time.
  • The maps are created on-the-fly but are cached, so subsequent visits to an area should be faster to view. The server can only support a few people using the site at once, so if it’s running slow, be patient or come back later.
  • Only the UK is covered at the moment but the map could very easily be extended to cover the whole world – it’s just a case of getting the data in the database.

If you have any comments or suggestions for improvements in the clarity, styling and colouring, please send an email to mail (at) oliverobrien.co.uk. Note that I cannot help fix the data – this should be done with the editing tools in OpenStreetMap – however if you have made a significant improvement to an area and would like it reflected in OOM before the next data refresh, by all means let me know.

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