Website which calculates route distance, including elevation?

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cwillson

Forager
Jul 14, 2007
136
2
Cotswolds
Hey peeps,

I'm aware of various mapping websites, such as Mapometer, where you can upload a .GPX route and it will work out the distance and show you a side view of the elevation along the route, but can anyone recommend a website which will calculate your total distance taking into account the elevation change?

I've been searching for ages, but all I can find are sites which show both separately. Surely it's not difficult to join these two sets of data and work out the 3d distance.

Help! :)

Cheers,

Chris
 

Quixoticgeek

Full Member
Aug 4, 2013
2,483
23
Europe
Unless I'm being an idiot, that doesn't allow you to add a GPX you already have, but requires you to create it from scratch. Or am I missing something?

J
 

cwillson

Forager
Jul 14, 2007
136
2
Cotswolds
Thanks Bishops, but I found that one too. Sadly Quixoticgeek is right, you can't upload a gpx route to this one.

I seriously can't believe a website doesn't exist though, it's such a simple calculation if you have both sets of data.

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Bowlander

Full Member
Nov 28, 2011
1,353
1
Forest of Bowland
I was on one today - think it's called 'the hug' uses open maps or os backgrounds. Basic, but gave me elevation for fell running routes.

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bearbait

Full Member
It's not a website but some years ago I wrote a bunch of software to analyse GPS tracklogs. It includes reporting on gradients v. base GPS data. It uses the GPS recorded altitude in the calculations. (My GPS units use barometric pressure for the altitude - but for those that don't I'm quite aware that GPS derived altitude not as accurate as a regular altimeter. But I reckon it's better than trying to map positions to SRTM data which is +/-16m altitude at 90m (cell) resolution, or 30m cell in US and a couple of other places - when recording 10m positions, or perhaps each second. I do use the OS DEM/DTM for other stuff but this is 10m contours at 50m resolution - unless I pay for the full monty.) Over the course of a hike I reckon a decent GPS unit will, at least, give a representative feel for the relative altitude, more accurately so if you calibrate from the map at the start.

Anyway - yawn - if you'd like to see what what sort of stats it produces I'd be happy to analyse the odd tracklog for you. Would be a good test of my software as it's only been run against tracklogs from my GPS units.
 
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Quixoticgeek

Full Member
Aug 4, 2013
2,483
23
Europe
I have a trace from my recent trip to Monteserrat I would be curious about. It has heights from Barometric altimeter.

J
 

cwillson

Forager
Jul 14, 2007
136
2
Cotswolds
That sounds pretty cool bearbait! :)

I'm pretty new to using a GPS to be honest. All my past trips have been made using OS maps only, but my dad gave me his pretty basic GPS last year, so I've since used it as a bit of a backup, for when the the mist comes in on the mountains.

I've found we've always fallen a little foul of misjudging the overall distance for a route, including the all important elevation, and therefore overestimated how far we can make in a day, as the distances have always been flat calculated.

I know that it's possible to work out the distance from an os map accounting for elevation change, but it's hugely complicated without software to help.

I use mapometer to aid in route planning, which shows a profile of the route elevation, but I don't think it calculates the distance including the elevation change.

Although I take your point that it may not be entirely accurate, it doesn't seem that difficult to code a setting which will allow you to choose between flat route distance and distance including elevation change. If you could choose between these two different views of a given route it would make planning far easier!

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bearbait

Full Member
In order to do as you suggest the GPS unit would need to have digital elevation model/digital terrain model data on board. I think that some will/can do that, but I don't know if they'll give you the true gradient distance. It's a simple calculation, but would likely be approximated due to the resolution of the DEM/DTM. But better than nothing.

This thread from a couple of weeks ago may help. It discusses ye olde fashioned way(s) of estimating times on legs of a hike.

I tend not to worry about the time on a day hike. Sometimes I bash on with quick stops for water and food. Other times I sit and watch nothing happen for ages. If it's a longish one I'll start early to avoid being unnecessarily inconvenienced by darkness. I guess it depends if you have deadlines such as buses, lifts, etc. to match up with.

I just try to enjoy the time spent on the trail. Some days the best bit has been being back at the car!
 
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cwillson

Forager
Jul 14, 2007
136
2
Cotswolds
Ah yeah, but I tend to do 3/4 night wild camps in the mountains, on a circular route, so being able to plan well enough to not fall behind schedule is key.

I get what you're saying about the inaccuracies of GPS units, and Lord knows my one, probably at the lower end of the range is probably atrocious, but in talking about the fact these mapping websites store elevation data, in order to show the elevation profile, so must be able to figure it out.

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bearbait

Full Member
Whilst it doesn't answer your original question CW, you can calculate the actual distance to be hiked from the info from the site, at least you can from Doogal.

I had a play with the aforementioned Doogal site and created a simple hiking route. Then downloaded it as a CSV. It gave me Lat, Lon, Elevation and cumulative distance for each leg. (A few random checks makes it appear to me that this is the horizontal equivalent distance.)

I loaded this into Excel and added columns to calculate a) the elevation difference for each leg, b) the leg distance in metres and c) the actual distance including the extra due to the gradient (I call it Grade Distance). Then pasted these values down the rest of the rows.

The Excel spreadsheet formula for the Grade Distance is =SQRT((E3^2)+F3^2), which is Pythagorus' Theorem. Cell E3 is from the Elevation Difference column and F3 the Leg Distance column, both in metres.

I did try the Mapometer site but it wanted me to register if I tried to save anything so I went no further with that. But you may be able to do something similar there if you can download the route as a CSV.

You may find the following table of help when planning routes (E&OE!). It shows various stats for a range of 10m elevation changes over 125m horizontal equivalent (HE) on a 1:25K map (5 millimetres in this case.) The Grade Distance is called Slope Distance in this table, the distance you actually hike. Count up how many 10m contours your route crosses in each 5mm and look up how much pain will be caused!

I can generate other scales if necessary. (Nerdy? Me?)

Code:
         Gradients for Height changes in Metres over 5mm on the map          
                         (125M HE at scale 1:25000)                          
Height  Gradient   Gradient Slope    Slope     Increase  Increase 100 metres 
Change  (1 in x)   Percent  Angle   Distance   Over HE   Over HE  paced as HE
 10m      12.5        8%       5°     125m        0.4m       0%      100m    
 20m       6.3       16%       9°     127m        1.6m       1%       99m    
 30m       4.2       24%      13°     129m        3.5m       3%       97m    
 40m       3.1       32%      18°     131m        6.2m       5%       95m    
 50m       2.5       40%      22°     135m        9.6m       8%       93m    
 60m       2.1       48%      26°     139m       13.7m      11%       90m    
 70m       1.8       56%      29°     143m       18.3m      15%       87m    
 80m       1.6       64%      33°     148m       23.4m      19%       84m    
 90m       1.4       72%      36°     154m       29.0m      23%       81m    
100m       1.3       80%      39°     160m       35.1m      28%       78m    
110m       1.1       88%      41°     167m       41.5m      33%       75m    
120m       1.0       96%      44°     173m       48.3m      39%       72m    
130m       1.0      104%      46°     180m       55.3m      44%       69m    
140m       0.9      112%      48°     188m       62.7m      50%       67m    
150m       0.8      120%      50°     195m       70.3m      56%       64m    
160m       0.8      128%      52°     203m       78.0m      62%       62m    
170m       0.7      136%      54°     211m       86.0m      69%       59m    
180m       0.7      144%      55°     219m       94.1m      75%       57m    
190m       0.7      152%      57°     227m      102.4m      82%       55m    
200m       0.6      160%      58°     236m      110.8m      89%       53m    
                                                                             
           For changes over 10mm the gradients are half as severe!
 
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