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Access photos during route planning

bricin
Shkhara

Does anyone know how to access photos during route creation? For example I am working on a new trail run route and I can see photo icons on the map. But there doesn't seem to be a way to click the photo to see it. If I click (or cmd click or ctrl click) it adds the photo location to my route.

Seems like I am missing something simple - these photos would help me with navigating the planned route.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Jane
Moderator Moderator
Moderator

Hi @bricin ,

Thanks for posting about this!  It sounds like the icons you're looking at are POIs (points of interest).  Maps on both the Strava mobile app and website will include a Points of Interest map layer to help you find the best spots in your area to start your activity and useful locations throughout your activity.  You won't be able to drill into those icons but you can select them by long pressing on them, and then your route will be adjusted to include that POI.

Detailed information about POIs can be found here and we have a helpful legend here.  

There is an existing discussion about POI and we would welcome your comments!


Jane (she/her)
STRAVA | Community Hub Team

View solution in original post

11 REPLIES 11

aqibbhutta0022
Mt. Kenya

Thanks for bringing up this question! It's great to see that you're utilizing the photo icons on the map to help with your route planning. While it may not be immediately obvious, there is a way to access the photos associated with these icons. To view the photos, try right-clicking (or control-clicking on a Mac) on the photo icon, and then select "View Photo" from the menu that appears. This should allow you to see the photo and use it to help with navigation on your planned route.

Unfortunately that does not work, at least not on Mac + Firefox. It was one of the things I tried early on. There is no event fired for this and no menu during route planning.

And checked on Mac + Chrome - same problem.

aqibbhutta0022
Mt. Kenya

Thanks for bringing up this question! It's great to see that you're utilizing the photo icons on the map to help with your route planning. While it may not be immediately obvious, there is a way to access the photos associated with these icons. To view the photos, try right-clicking (or control-clicking on a Mac) on the photo icon, and then select "View Photo" from the menu that appears. This should allow you to see the photo and use it to help with navigation on your planned route.

Jane
Moderator Moderator
Moderator

Hi @bricin ,

Thanks for posting about this!  It sounds like the icons you're looking at are POIs (points of interest).  Maps on both the Strava mobile app and website will include a Points of Interest map layer to help you find the best spots in your area to start your activity and useful locations throughout your activity.  You won't be able to drill into those icons but you can select them by long pressing on them, and then your route will be adjusted to include that POI.

Detailed information about POIs can be found here and we have a helpful legend here.  

There is an existing discussion about POI and we would welcome your comments!


Jane (she/her)
STRAVA | Community Hub Team

Hi Jane - tried posting a reply before but it disappeared into the ether.

Unfortunately this does not *solve* the issue - showing a POI without any information or visualization is, for my routing needs, worthless. I don't know *why* the person posted the POI. And when I actually get to that spot in the real world I cannot determine anything about it.

How does one get this into the Product team's hands for a true solution? It seems pretty simple to include any given photo associated with the POI as part of the long press / click event.

Hey @bricin -- we just launched photos on routes today and this update is somewhat related to your query so I wanted to make you aware of it. You can learn more about this update HERE.

Thanks for sharing this feature. That said... this isn't particularly useful. It shows me photos from Routes (problem #1) and it doesn't indicate _where_ the photo was taken (problem#2).

The first problem is that Routes aren't particularly useful as 90% of the time I am not going to do an exact Route. Adding a loop, getting to the route, etc. I'd suggest the Product Team takes a hard look at Routes as a planning tool and assess usability.

More importantly though is problem #2 - let's say I see a Route, e.g. Green Mountain. First, there is no indication there are photos for this. Second, the photos, while often lovely, do not show me the Route. So I can tell, at best, that things might not be snow covered. But I cannot use any of these photos for route-finding or waypoints.

Disappointing to see something so close but yet so far. Hopefully this is fixed in future revisions. Sorry to be such a downer...

This is useful feedback, I do appreciate you taking the time to look into it and reply. I'll be passing this on to our product team! I wonder if something like this idea (Integrate Street View into Strava Routes) is more aligned with what you'd find valuable.