@dean.disimone Do you have something that provides turn-by-turn directions while you’re out?
Without that capability, I can’t comprehend how routes like these are feasible without staring at them the entire time. I thought the last one looked like something easily memorized, but then I zoomed in and saw that there are tons of greyed out streets in there that would add confusion.
I’ve been thinking more about generated routes lately, and it seems to me that the generation of the routes is the easy part (even though it isn’t
). How we generate the routes is incredibly nuanced/specific and is where I really need the most feedback. It’s very easy for me to build the wrong route generator.
I really need to hear people’s expected workflow. Take these 4 wildly different processes… if I build one, and everyone expect another then I just wasted my time.
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- Full City Mode that doesn’t care about your legs or your soul
- Click point on map to identify starting position
- Click button to have some number of routes created that will complete the city, from starting position, regardless of individual route distance
- Right Now Mode that aims to get you out the door ASAP and doesn’t care about your city-scale efficiency
- Click point on map to identify starting position
- Specify distance
- Click button to have a route created that will complete as many new streets as possible
- Finish Area Mode that doesn’t know or care how far you’re capable of running
- Draw area on map
- Click point within area to identify starting position
- Click button to have a route created that will complete the area
- Helpful Assistant Mode
- Click point on map to identify starting position
- There’s an auto-updated display of a list of N closest incomplete streets from the last route addition (start point, manual route clicks, and additions from this tool)
- There’s an ‘add’ button for each street in the list that updates your route to complete it
- Manually build a route, while using the ‘add’ buttons to add generated segments
I’ve been at this long enough to know deep in my soul that the answer is “all of them”
but there’s definitely one or two processes that’s going to cover most people.
Right Now Mode & Helpful Assistant Mode (assuming it’s actually helpful) seem like pretty close matches to the comments in this thread. It sounds like @dean.disimone effectively built Finish Area Mode.
I’m sure these few ideas of different “modes” aren’t the only versions of an automatic route generator … If you have other ideas for different workflows, please do share.