One of the biggest challenges in preparing this site has been how to quickly and best to gather and display maps. The easiest way is to create a google map and embed that, it is so easy to do. To embed the topo maps from http://www.atlsoft.de/gps-track-hoehenprofil/#tabs1-engl was done as easily by copying the url of the map you zoomed to and using the iframe tool in Google sites.
But what I also really wanted was an elevation profile and preferably one that is linked to the map. This is not so easy to obtain.
A few tools I looked at came close:
- A wordpress plugin that seems to have some limitations: http://www.atlsoft.de/gps-track-hoehenprofil/#tabs1-engl
- A github project that does exactly what I want and I could do it given my level of technical expertise but there's a bit of work involved and I'm not so sure I want to do it now: https://github.com/gagarych/elevation-profile Demo: http://gaziga.com/himalayan-trails/
- http://utrack.crempa.net Will generate also a very nice report of the elevations, the map is not linked to the profile though: http://utrack.crempa.net/ I'd have to upload my gpx and then copy the report into the website.
- ViaMichelin looks ok too
- OpenLayers and OpenStreetMap was another option but I did not look at this very far.
- This tool almost had it at the start but didn't work reliably: http://www.geocontext.org/publ/2010/04/profiler/en/?import=kmz#!track_path=2&trk_num=2
- Google Earth does it easily, you have to take a screenshot and import as a static image, easy but not the nicest...maybe good enough for this purpose.
- http://www.nearby.org.uk/elevation-kml.php Very limited!
- Strava -
- Plotaroute does it like below and could be the winner. Sadly the Google gadget doesn't work for the elevation profile view since it sets confusing request headers and the plotaroute server denies the request. So we do it via the embed code they provide and edit the HTML of the Google Sites plugin. Note also that my routes are currently taken from https://www.activityworkshop.net/, for some reason plotaroute didn't like the KML files so I converted to GPX and then uploaded to plotaroute and it then works fine! Sites will then allow you to edit the iframe gadget to set scrollbars and width and then its good.
Tip: Select Menu and then Hills to get the elevation profile view, this can't yet be set by default.