This is a website project which allows users to edit and share an openstreetmap map by sending an sms / email or embeding the map on their website or blog.
Features :
- Ability to specify a target - a single-location with the ability to get directions
- Ability to mark additional places, edit their description and set their icon
- Ability to draw lines and polygons on the map and set their coloring
The initial plan of the project was focused on embeding a map: the plan was to provide wordpress and drupal plugins. The final version only provides a basic wordpress plugin.
Instead, I decided to switch focus to sharing the map on smartphones. As smartphones become more ubiquitous, the availability of easy-to-share maps that don't require any external applications to be shown or shared (just a modern browser) seems more important than ever.
Hopefully this project might just be able to bring a change in the way people explain the location of places to eachother. No more confusing references to other potentially unknown places: instead, a plain hyperlink to a map providing turn by turn voice directions can be sent with just 3 simple clicks.
This project was possible thanks to OpenStreetMap, MapQuest OpenDirections, Leaflet, google-maps-icons and Bitly
Some notes:
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The app works without a backend server. All maps are encoded within the URL. In this sense Bitly also acts a database. This should also help with privacy concerns (your location isn't really stored anywhere)
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Voice directions sounds are pre-made with espeak and played back using HTML5 audio. A builder script is included in the audio dir. Though an espeak port to JS is also included, it doesn't work on smartphones and its not presently in use.
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Usability could be improved by adding more guidance (for example explaining the availability of advanced rightclick/longpress actions to the recipient of the map)
Check out the demonstration
Or check out the page on the openstreetmap wiki