Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by c0nsumer 11 days ago
Three that have been really beneficial, and all support/build on a hobby / volunteer effort of mapping mountain bike trails:

This one generates maps from OpenStreetMap data + some custom curated info in YAML: https://github.com/c0nsumer/trailmaps.app-map-generator

This one converts a basic chunk of OpenStreetMap data to an SVG so I can mark it up (by hand) in Adobe Illustrator to make specifically-styled print/PDF maps, such as what get installed at trailheads: https://github.com/c0nsumer/osm_to_ai

This one takes GPS recorded rides and builds custom/personal heatmaps serving up the map tiles so I can use them in map editing software: https://github.com/c0nsumer/local-heatmap-tile-server

And all of this has been put together to make the custom, local, specific-use-case maps that are at https://trailmaps.app (which, via local curation, are overall better mobile/online maps than many of the bigger auto-generated systems such as Trailforks, Gaia, RideWithGPS, etc, for visualizing local systems).

It's neat stuff where I understand all the inputs, outputs, and how most of it works, but AI tooling (Claude, mostly) has allowed me to bolt it together much faster than I would have writing it myself.

1 comments

Ooh the heatmap to tiles idea is cool!
Thanks!

The idea came from using the Strava heatmap in JOSM to trace the proper location of mountain bike trails. I'm trying to use Strava less, and usually have ridden the trails enough myself before mapping them that I could use my own routes... So I figured why not have my own heatmap tile server?

It's also cool to just look at.

I could take it a lot further with time boxing what's displayed and whatnot, but generating the tiles is computationally expensive, so I just stuck with what I have for now. It meets the need.