Ski Nav – new routing app

A snowHead

Glad to hear it @Dougie. Thanks for reporting the missing piste. Ski Nav was misinterpreting the "abandoned=no" key that had been set in the OSM data and hiding it, so you will have helped fix any other pistes like this.

You should see the fix next time I push an update to the server (within a week probably).

A snowHead

Speaking of missing pistes, it appears there is a small red missing from Crans, its labelled number 21 on the resorts map and goes from Plaine Morte to Tubang. No great loss as it doesn't go anywhere really and you do have the short drag that takes you back up.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

This one is missing in OpenStreetMap itself. I'm not sure how best to handle these cases at the moment. Short connecting pistes can be manually added within Ski Nav itself, especially if it affects how two large areas connect together. I'm going to leave this for now until I have a better strategy in place.

For now, if you can see the piste on opensnowmap.org or openskimap.org but not in Ski Nav, please report it.

Note I am aware of some missing routes in Portes du Soleil currently that have been mapped in a different style and are not picked up by Ski Nav just yet.

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No sign of one of the biggest areas in Switzerland, the Jungfrau Region?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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I had a quick play and I see an issue where your app is telling me the name of the run rather than what is marked on the official piste map.

e.g. in Saalbach - ( an area unfamiliar to me but am heading there at Christmas).

Your app says "Jausernabfahrt" (quite a mouthful) but on the official Saalbach piste map - this is marked as 2a (much easier to remember).

I do not yet know what the piste signposts will say...

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

A button to reverse start and end points for a route would be convenient.
1) for when U want to go back to the place from which U came.
2) for when U muck up and put them in the wrong way round.

@sheffskibod @tatmanstours yes good point. This data exists in OSM for most pistes, so I will bring it into Ski Nav.

Do you think this should be done for all maps with piste numbers? Will the signposts in Saalbach say just "2a" or "2a Jausernabfahrt"? Do you know of resorts that show numbers on the piste map but just names on the signposts? If so I will just enable piste numbers on a per-resort basis. When piste numbers are enabled, I think I will include both, eg "2a Jausernabfahrt". Expect this update the next time the server is updated, within a week or so.

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@telford_mike Grindelwald/Wengen should be there with the next update (within a week or so). It is interesting to note the official map is very distorted on this one in order to show both the First side and the Schilthorn side with the Jungfrau behind. The smaller maps and Meiringen-Hasliberg will be out sometime later.

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@jancellor, your level of participation here alone justifies that we all look at this app. So I did, and it's really great.

I *LOVE* that it's in the same orientation as the published piste maps, that's a huge issue that's often overlooked. I also love that it distinguishes between different lift types and piste grades. With a bit of visual polish, I'd definitely pay a bit for the app, just because it looks like it would be fun to use.

I also looked at 4 Riders, the website is very French-oriented (which is ok) and the app isn't available on the US App Store (which is not ok), so that's a non-starter for me.

I'm sure lots of people have "blue sky" suggestions for you, features which would require immense amounts of time and appeal to a small part of your target market. But I'll make another one: turn-by-turn voice guidance. I have headphones in my helmet and it would be great to hear which pistes and lift to turn onto as I'm skiing along. I have no idea if that is linked to the Apple Watch notification system, but conceptually they are quite similar ideas.

Thanks for sharing this with us, I'm looking forward to giving it a whirl in Tignes.

You know it makes sense.

@admin noted. @diaphon you may want to check out Skadi if you haven't already, which has voice navigation and some good looking maps traced from the official ones. It's £1 per day for the basic routing. Ha, yes, lots of ideas but always glad to hear them.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@jancellor, Skadi looks great but it doesn’t seem to be on either the UK or US app stores! Which countries can download it?

A snowHead

Ah, not sure, the iOS link is broken on their website (www.skadi.guide) but the Google one works, at least for me.

A snowHead

@Jancelor, forgot to add compliments on your OSM diary entry, considerate it done! The simple point of view looks very practical, good idea!
However, how will you manage to add a more complete set of ressorts? By hand? Maybe a good idea to crowd-source the maps point of views. I also guess some places will be best served with several views.

For Opensnowmap I made a DEM that extends further north, contact me in MP so that I can make it available to you.
Keep up the good work,
Yves - opensnowmap.org

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@Yves, ah, glad to hear from you. For now, I have a list of resorts with lat/lon coordinates and I have limited the list to those resorts of a certain size. The viewing angle and area of the resort is automatically calculated but can be overriden. I manually added extra views for 3 Valleys, PdS, Paradiski, based on the official maps, for example. Some kind of crowd sourcing is a good idea. It's a "long tail" in that there are lots of smaller resorts, though I suspect routing/navigation isn't really relevant below a certain size.

Thanks, this DEM would be fantastic.

I am not sure I fully understand how to use opensnowmap. I read it uses the pyrouter(?) routing engine and someone was suggesting adding in OSRM a while ago but I don't see how to do routing. What do you feel the main use of opensnowmap is? I know there is the mobile-specific view. Do you feel many people use this "live" on the mountain?

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Routing on opensnowmap is done here:https://github.com/yvecai/opensnowmap.org/blob/master/www.opensnowmap.org/cgi/routing.py
Would not say it's a paramount of efficiency, but just works Happy

I don't think people use a lot opensnowmap on the slopes, and probably not for routing that is not mobile-friendly at all. It's more a planning tool, I think.
I'm a cross-country skier and essentially use Osmand, I saw that Osmand propose ski routing on the last version maybe I'll try it but either I know the pistes I run, either I map them !
Yves

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Great app, already downloaded and playing with routes. With daughter in ski school for 3 hours this is great for me and my other half to calculate some routes within our time limit.

Watch integration would be good, but not essential at the moment.

The best future feature for me is the seeing other friends on the mountain.

Good job, look forward to the updates.

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Hello - nice app.

Heading to Alta Badia in Dolomites tomorrow and have been planning. Found an issue when routing from Colfosco to Armentarola.

Getting off the Borest (34) into Corvara it routes me direct to Col Alto (1). From memory this is the other side of the village and requires another lift - Costes da l’ega (29) - and then ski down and across to Col Alto (1).

Planning a few day trips while there to Marmolada and Val Gardena as well. If I get to do them and remember to make a note I’ll let you know how accurate the routes and timings are.

So far prefer the Ski Nav interface to the Dolomiti app routing.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

I used the app recently in Tigers, as it was my first time there. It was really useful - when friends said to meet at a certain restaurant or a certain lift, I could get there easily instead of having to study the piste map and getting lost. Very glad to have it.

After all it is free

@skipig thanks for pointing this one out. I've seen a few similar examples and will fix it soon. What is happening is that there is a cafe/restaurant in the middle of the village that is "close enough" for Ski Nav to consider that you can go straight from the bottom of the Borest lift to the cafe, and then from the cafe to the Col Alto lift. These short "hop" connections (not displayed) are essential to join stuff together that are not explicitly joined, but it's too aggresive here. I will make sure it doesn't use the artificial hop via cafes.

Sorry I didn't/won't fix in time for your trip. Very glad to hear any more real-world feedback from your time there. The Alta Badia and Val Gardena maps are huge and seemed a bit tricky to me to get them looking okay.

@Wylie66, @diaphon glad to hear it Smile

The Alta Badia area is no easier to understand when you're there, to be honest.

We call the area around Corvara "the Corvortex" as you enter it, thinking that 'after last year' you know where you're going, realise you don't, loop/lap until you're disorientated and eventually get 'spat out', hopefully roughly in the direction you intended.

I've spent days 'getting the hang of it' only to come back the following year and find it seems completely unfamiliar as if it has reconfigured like Hogwarts staircases.

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Having just come back from the PdS, I can see that there are a couple of new lifts that are missing (between Linderets and Grande Conche over to Les Crosets) and one lift (Linderets to Brochaux) that has been decommissioned

These are new so it isn't meant as a criticism, more a query on how you keep up to date with lift and piste changes?

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@Whitters The great people who contribute to OpenStreetMap do a good job of updating it quickly as far as I've seen. It's dependent on the people/resort of course. The lifts you mention have already been added/removed and it's just me who needs to re-run the map-generation process on Ski Nav. I can do this in batch for all maps (or a list of specific maps) but I haven't set it up to run automatically on a schedule.

I have just run the updates for the PdS maps so they should be there in a day or two (won't immediately update due to some caching). Running it on my machine I see the new lifts TSD Mosettes and TSD Cases and the old one gone (Brochaux - Mosettes was it?).

(Incidentally PdS is still missing some pistes that have been mapped in a slightly different way in OSM and I haven't gotten around to adding them yet.)

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"The covortex" sounds about right. Took me a long time to work out which way was north and compare to other maps to just find Armentarola before checking the routing to it. This just highlights the need for a search bar as previously requested.

You know it makes sense.

@Riccardo unfortunately not. I don't think it's likely I would ever get this information.

Currently, the travel times for each lift is taken from the raw OSM data if anyone has added it (some big resorts have this for more than 50% of lifts). Otherwise the travel time is estimated based on the length and type of the lift (and number of seats or detachable/nondetachable status if that is known) including a fixed time to navigate the queue/gates assuming it's not very busy.

If I add the ability to mark a lift as closed in lieu of having the live open/closed status, I could also add the option to mark it as busy. If you like that idea, tell me, because I hadn't thought of it before. (Obviously it's a bit of a pain to have to do this manually.)

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@jancellor, good to know

The new lifts are Linderets to a bit above Brochaux, and then a second one from a bit above Brochaux to the top of Grande Conche

The removed lift is from Linderets to Brochaux itself

A snowHead

Gave it a try when in Crans, but the map would not load when I didn't have an internet connection. So it was fine when sitting in a restaurant, less so when on the slopes. Was I supposed to download it some how to prevent this issue?

Also I am not sure if this has been mentioned above but it doesn't include an unpisted run (shown as yellow on the resort piste map) at the top of the Toula lift.

I can see how this would be great in one of the mega resorts especially one you were not familiar with however in a small resort it would not take long to understand its layout. But gift and horse come to mind.

A snowHead

@ster This should be improved in the app. Currently, Ski Nav wants to check if the downloaded map is the latest version every 24 hours. So it doesn't actually redownload the map and the data usage is very low but yes it is a problem if you have no reception at all on the slopes. Best thing to do currently would be open the app in the morning or in a restaurant and it should be happy for the next day. But yes this should be better.

The route you can see in Crans is listed as "freeride" in OpenStreetMap. I am hiding these so as to avoid encouraging people down dangerous pistes. In some other resorts, the "freeride" pistes are not on the official map so I'm just erring on the side of caution. This could be updated on a resort by resort basis in future.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Didnt know that. Perhaps prompt the user if they want to check for an update and if not then present the previously downloaded one?

Its odd when you see the top of that lift with no run off it and at the moment it says there is no way down when you start there. It really shouldnt be your issue what people choose to ski down. But if it is I thought you have the option to avoid certain types of pistes in settings, so users could choose if they want these to show or not.

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Used Ski Nav in the 3 Valleys last week. Overall it was very helpful, and I found the time estimates between any two points useful and reasonably accurate. I sometimes found it difficult to locate myself exactly on the Ski Nav map, because while you are in the midst of a trip you cannot clock any other map features for their names. So if I saw a piste name sign on the mountain, I was unable to locate that piste name in the app unless it was part of my route.

I also found it frustrating that I could not search for restaurants, pistes or lifts by name.

But these are small problems with an otherwise excellent app which I hope has a bright future.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Love the UI.

Small issue, it's missing Troncs for Les Gets. That lift is not that new, and also missing in opensnowmap etc.

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I assume the source is the same (OpenStreetMap) as I find other outdated pistes/lifts but always aligned with OpenSnowmap. Not sure how we can contribute and correct.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@ster Good point, I should put a setting for it.

@diaphon Appreciate the feedback. A search box is high up on the list of features.

@patrick! Yes, the source is OpenStreetMap. I don't currently know how to best suggest contributing new pistes/lifts. I fix mistakes in existing features by going to https://www.openstreetmap.org and clicking Edit (needs an account).

After all it is free

I'm looking for testers in another thread. Just want to mention it here in case it helps find any of you who have previously posted.

just added this to my phone, will try it out when I'm in France next month

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Oops, forgot to mention here last week that the location sharing functionality is now live for anyone with a trip at the end of the season. See your friends on the map. (Manually update the app from the store if this doesn't happen automatically for you.)

You can also search for lifts and pistes by name. These have been added as part of the "Pro" in-app purchase.

Help!!

Ski Nav – new routing app

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