Scales and/or distance measurement tool

[openstreetmap-trac]

Reporter: axelboldt[at]yahoo.com
[Submitted to the original trac issue database at 7.26pm, Monday, 4th January 2010]

I think one central use for maps is the estimation of distances, but currently the maps displayed at OSM don't really allow to do that.

It would be nice if the maps contained a small scale so that distances could be estimated. I'm not sure if distortion at high/low latitudes is big enough to warrant two scales, one vertical and one horizontal. For the largest zooms it would probably make more sense to provide a tool allowing the user to measure the distance between two points.

[openstreetmap-trac]

Author: tom[at]compton.nu
[Added to the original trac issue at 12.04am, Tuesday, 5th January 2010]

We've been over and over this. It's not going to happen until there is an OpenLayers control that gets the scale right.

[openstreetmap-trac]

Author: tom[at]compton.nu
[Added to the original trac issue at 12.10am, Tuesday, 5th January 2010]

Just, to add, the history (if you're not aware of it) can be found in case #1704 and case #2437.

[openstreetmap-trac]

Author: HB9DTX
[Added to the original trac issue at 8.25pm, Monday, 16th August 2010]

I am not a specialist, but as far as I've understood, the

• OpenLayers.Control.ScaleLine ( http://dev.openlayers.org/releases/OpenLayers-2.7/doc/apidocs/files/OpenLayers/Control/ScaleLine-js.html )and
• OpenLayers.Control.Scale ( http://dev.openlayers.org/releases/OpenLayers-2.7/doc/apidocs/files/OpenLayers/Control/Scale-js.html#OpenLayers.Control.Scale )
  could do the job, isn't it?

A scale line is THE missing feature on OSM website to my opinion. It makes it hard to estimate distance if you are new to OSM in an unknown region, or on unusual zoom levels.

[openstreetmap-trac]

Author: TomH
[Added to the original trac issue at 8.45pm, Monday, 16th August 2010]

No, it really is not that simple. This has been gone over time and time again as the tickets I mentioned will make clear if you read them.

I repeat what I said before, nothing is going to happen until there is a control which gets the scale RIGHT.

Now please stop reopening old tickets without reading all the history.

[openstreetmap-trac]

Author: jekhor[at]gmail.com
[Added to the original trac issue at 1.24pm, Wednesday, 26th March 2014]

I want to support this feature request absence of distance measurement tool is most annoying thing for me (after inadequate render style for hamlet names, of course :)).

[openstreetmap-trac]

Author: Andy Allan
[Added to the original trac issue at 1.33pm, Wednesday, 16th October 2019]

We have a scale bar on the website now, using Leaflet. For the distance measuring tool, we don't have any plans to implement that feature request.