maptool/TODO.adoc

TODO — implementation ideas

Ideas for offline use in a camper van. Implement incrementally, grouped by topic.

The local server has access to both the vehicle’s hardware and offline data — the vision is to grow it into a complete offline control center: resources, data, and independence from connectivity.

Offline data and cartography

• ❏ Offline vector tiles (PMTiles/MBTiles) for Europe/world via Planetiler or MapTiler

• ✓ Shaded relief / DEM layer — hillshade toggle in the sidebar, sourced from public Terrarium tiles online; reads data/terrain.pmtiles for offline if one’s been generated (see docs/development.adoc), otherwise the toggle is online-only for now

  • ❏ Terrain slope readout for parking (numeric, not just visual shading)

• ❏ Contour lines from OSM for hikes and mountain passes

• ✓ Overpass/OSM scripts to extract POIs (drinking water, dump stations, LPG, public toilets, laundromats, shops, springs) — rake overpass:pois, see docs/development.adoc; writes a .geojson to drop in data/gpx/ or upload, not called by the running app itself

• ❏ Import Park4Night / iOverlander / Freecampsites data

• ❏ Kiwix/ZIM offline Wikipedia linked to POI GPS coordinates

• ✓ Cache weather forecast when temporarily connected — Open-Meteo 3-day forecast in the Radar flyout, last successful fetch cached in localStorage as a fallback when offline

  • ✓ Cache the radar tile images too — public/sw.js, network-falling-back-to-cache for RainViewer tile requests, registered from layout.erb

NPS visual style

• ❏ Map Park4Night/OSM place types to NPS pictograms (campground, primitive camp, drinking water, dump station, viewpoint, picnic table) for instant recognition without reading text

• ❏ Restyle popovers, side panels, and point detail views after the NPS Unigrid layout system (Massimo Vignelli) with Frutiger/Rawlinson Roadside-style typography

  • ✓ Top black banner (full width): "MAPTOOL" on the left, live map-center coordinates in the center, offline-data status dot on the right, white sans-serif type — DEM elevation and a hamburger menu skipped (no DEM layer yet; sidebar isn’t mobile-collapsed, so nothing for a hamburger to reveal)

  • ❏ Point detail/sidepanel: black header banner with white location name and an NPS pictogram in the corner; amenities (water, waste, power, slope) shown as a pictogram grid, no extra text; action buttons for "route here" (Valhalla), "start leveling", "save offline"

  • ✓ Filter panel as a "Unigrid Matrix" — an icon grid to toggle categories on/off, styled like the legend on an official NPS paper map, instead of plain dropdowns

• ❏ Custom vector style (MVT/MapLibre) using the NPS color palette — muted natural tones for forests, water, and contours — so POIs and routes stand out at high zoom

  • ❏ Landuse & protections: distinct styling for national parks, nature reserves (translucent green/gray-green), military zones, and private land (important for wild camping)

  • ✓ Elevation-tinted terrain — a color-relief layer (hypsometric tint, this app’s own green→brown→gray palette) under the hillshade layer, same "Terrain shading" toggle

  • ✓ Road hierarchy: clearly distinguish paved roads from unpaved/gravel/track — critical for knowing if the camper can get there

Main menu reorganization (4 modules)

• ❏ Explorer: place filters (Park4Night + OSM layers: water, waste, LPG, showers); map layers (contours, hillshade, satellite cache)

• ❏ Navigation & route: offline router (Valhalla) with vehicle dimensions (height, weight, width); route elevation profile and isochrones

• ❏ Offline hub: manager for downloaded PMTiles (country vector maps); downloaded Wikipedia archives; cached radar and weather

• ❏ Camper & HW: level gauge (wheel-chock leveling); solar calculator (sun path on the map); telemetry (Victron / Home Assistant)

Custom layers & data

• ✓ GPX/GeoJSON drag-and-drop import (Wikiloc, Komoot, own GPX tracks — also FIT), auto-styled by category with a generated elevation profile — KML not supported (only GPX/FIT/GeoJSON/.zip)

• ✓ User overlay: offline drawing of custom points with notes (e.g. "turning space for a long vehicle", "narrow gate", "good swimming spot") — one click on the map, pick or name a .geojson layer, saved into the same GpxStore the Tracks panel already reads (so visibility/popup come for free)

  • ✓ Save a distance/area shape as a note too — Measure already draws these by hand, so a "Save" button there (not a second click-to-draw UI in the notes tool) reuses that instead of duplicating it; both share one NoteSaveForm (notes.js). gpx.js’s `_addLayers now renders Polygon and note-flagged LineString features (fill/outline, dashed line), not just points

  • ✓ Edit/delete individual notes from their popup (logged-in only) — targets a feature by a client-generated properties.id (GpxStore#update_feature/#delete_feature), not array position

  • ❏ The Unigrid Matrix category filter only re-slices the points source (_applyCategoryFilter) — toggling the "Note" category off hides point notes but not polygon/line ones sharing that category

• ❏ Offline satellite tile caching (e.g. ESRI) for a selected route area — key for judging surface quality and obstacles when wild camping

Nice to have (later)

Deprioritized for now — revisit after the sections above land.

Vanlife features

• ❏ Offline routing (Valhalla/OSRM) with vehicle parameters (height, weight, width)

• ❏ Solar calculator — sun path for location/date, shadows from surroundings, camper orientation

HW integration

• ❏ Level gauge from IMU (ESP32/RPi) — camper tilt, wheel-chock leveling calculation

• ❏ Victron/Home Assistant via MQTT or WebSocket — battery SoC, tank levels, temperatures

• ❏ Plot GPS track with historical battery/speed data