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If you ever used Google or Apple Maps to create a route for a trip through a state or to wherever ... you can add stop after stop after stop. In doing so both

If you ever used Google or Apple Maps to create a route for a trip through a state or to wherever ... you can add stop after stop after stop. In doing so both maps show you the distance between stops, but again you have to enter each stop. With both map apps and after you created your route you can take a screenshot and share the route with your travel friends during or pre-trip when planning. Instead of doing all that work in either maps apps GPT should be able to do that and create an image fairly quickly that I share with friends. This is similar idea to sharing the Icelandic menu GPT converted into a US Menu in USD via an image that I then shared with friends. Overall GPT is able now to create quick nice looking visually rich (with info) images that I can share with friends or whomever for whatever topic at hand. Unfortunately and atm not anything to do with maps, but im sure it will in time and then no need to use Apple or Google maps! When asking GPT to create such map with routes (an image of such) with each destination I ensured to affix New Mexico to each NM location I want to go. Albeit, we aren't going as a lightbulb went off in our head last night saying wait White Sand dunes in June and go hot soaking in Truth or Consequences in June is a dumb (Sept or Oct seems better).

eesmith 1y ago
I can understand what you want, but I don't see why. My observation is that the same information is on a 1950s paper map. If you took a picture of it and listed the places on your trip, then your travel friends could figure things out. Why do you need more? The three limitations are 1) the distances are listed piecemeal, rather than the total distance per segment; 2) the major stops on your itinerary are not listed on the map; and 3) the specific route isn't highlighted on the map. If this were a paper map you could mark up the map directly, or put a clear plastic or glass sheet on top of the map and write the annotations on that, or use those paper tab stickers people use to mark places in books. Or I could draw a paper sketch of the distances and locations, to the same scale as the map, and place them side-by-side with the image of the original map. These would handle all cases #1 and #2, and sometimes #3 (I used to use a highlighter to record which distinct routes I traveled on) - except that most people aren't so analog, and getting good paper maps is pretty hard these days. In a digital world, I would take the screenshot, bring it into a graphics package (I use OmniGraffle) and highlight things. That would get #1 and #2, but yes, tracing the route with a mouse is tedious. Then again, for the places you listed there really is only one obvious route. Better would be to use a tablet and stylus which are designed for sketching. A few circles, some lines, and some numbers - done! But you want something different. Why do your travel friends need distances? Why isn't a photo of a sketch good enough? Or is it that you want to do everything on your phone, and can't sketch well using it? I first did that section of New Mexico back in 1993 with a 50-state paper road atlas, so I'm also finding it hard to understand what else you need for your planning. Going back to the affordances lost by the transition from paper maps to digital - it's really easy to affix little arrow stickers to a paper map, to record the places you want to visit. And modern digital maps don't show segment distances like the old ones did, because they assume you'll have the mapping tool figure out the whole distance for you. In October (the third Saturday in October to be precise) you can visit the Trinity Test site. I did that once, but to be honest I didn't find it all that interesting. You could do a trip up north - there's the Bandera Volcano Ice Cave, and the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary in the west, then up to Chaco Canyon, over to Jemez Springs, or go further north through Abiquiú to soak at Ojo Caliente, then over to Taos, and down, or further east through Cimarron Canyon State Park, which I thought was very pretty.
- paul7986 1y ago
  Thanks for the reply and the suggestions!! Paper maps I would actually have to do some work or effort. GPT (once it does maps) can do this automagically in a few seconds and boom it’s done/easily shareable.
  - eesmith 1y ago
    Yes, I understand the appeal of automagical. I just don't understand why it's useful or why your friends would care. Like, do you want the specific route highlighted, and if so, why? Or do you want longer labeled line segments or curves, like an Indiana Jones movie? Because you can do that in a couple of minutes with a good drawing program. Do you care if the distances cover items on the map? Do you care about the level of detail on the map? Like, if you visit Cloudcroft do you want the map to have that name on it? Since you won't get that from doing a screenshot from most digital maps which include both ABQ and El Paso, in my testing.
    - paul7986 1y ago
      It's for trip planning & discussion ... showing my friends how far each route is from each other to then discuss and plan each travel day. Also, you mentioned using a drawing program ... i use GPT for everything and can just type to ask it to create this or these types of images (when it finally does maps) why would I use anything else to create these images automagically without any work or effort on my part minus typing the request for it into a text box? I am lazy along with billions of other people are the same and why they use and will continue to latch onto GPT.
      - eesmith 1y ago
        You have very high faith that automagic will do the right thing, but you can't explain to me what it is you want even when I ask direct questions about presentation alternatives. How then do you expect any AI system to do what you want?
        1y ago

eesmith 1y ago

I can understand what you want, but I don't see why. My observation is that the same information is on a 1950s paper map. If you took a picture of it and listed the places on your trip, then your travel friends could figure things out. Why do you need more? The three limitations are 1) the distances are listed piecemeal, rather than the total distance per segment; 2) the major stops on your itinerary are not listed on the map; and 3) the specific route isn't highlighted on the map. If this were a paper map you could mark up the map directly, or put a clear plastic or glass sheet on top of the map and write the annotations on that, or use those paper tab stickers people use to mark places in books. Or I could draw a paper sketch of the distances and locations, to the same scale as the map, and place them side-by-side with the image of the original map. These would handle all cases #1 and #2, and sometimes #3 (I used to use a highlighter to record which distinct routes I traveled on) - except that most people aren't so analog, and getting good paper maps is pretty hard these days. In a digital world, I would take the screenshot, bring it into a graphics package (I use OmniGraffle) and highlight things. That would get #1 and #2, but yes, tracing the route with a mouse is tedious. Then again, for the places you listed there really is only one obvious route. Better would be to use a tablet and stylus which are designed for sketching. A few circles, some lines, and some numbers - done! But you want something different. Why do your travel friends need distances? Why isn't a photo of a sketch good enough? Or is it that you want to do everything on your phone, and can't sketch well using it? I first did that section of New Mexico back in 1993 with a 50-state paper road atlas, so I'm also finding it hard to understand what else you need for your planning. Going back to the affordances lost by the transition from paper maps to digital - it's really easy to affix little arrow stickers to a paper map, to record the places you want to visit. And modern digital maps don't show segment distances like the old ones did, because they assume you'll have the mapping tool figure out the whole distance for you. In October (the third Saturday in October to be precise) you can visit the Trinity Test site. I did that once, but to be honest I didn't find it all that interesting. You could do a trip up north - there's the Bandera Volcano Ice Cave, and the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary in the west, then up to Chaco Canyon, over to Jemez Springs, or go further north through Abiquiú to soak at Ojo Caliente, then over to Taos, and down, or further east through Cimarron Canyon State Park, which I thought was very pretty.

paul7986 1y ago
Thanks for the reply and the suggestions!! Paper maps I would actually have to do some work or effort. GPT (once it does maps) can do this automagically in a few seconds and boom it’s done/easily shareable.
- eesmith 1y ago
  Yes, I understand the appeal of automagical. I just don't understand why it's useful or why your friends would care. Like, do you want the specific route highlighted, and if so, why? Or do you want longer labeled line segments or curves, like an Indiana Jones movie? Because you can do that in a couple of minutes with a good drawing program. Do you care if the distances cover items on the map? Do you care about the level of detail on the map? Like, if you visit Cloudcroft do you want the map to have that name on it? Since you won't get that from doing a screenshot from most digital maps which include both ABQ and El Paso, in my testing.
  - paul7986 1y ago
    It's for trip planning & discussion ... showing my friends how far each route is from each other to then discuss and plan each travel day. Also, you mentioned using a drawing program ... i use GPT for everything and can just type to ask it to create this or these types of images (when it finally does maps) why would I use anything else to create these images automagically without any work or effort on my part minus typing the request for it into a text box? I am lazy along with billions of other people are the same and why they use and will continue to latch onto GPT.
    - eesmith 1y ago
      You have very high faith that automagic will do the right thing, but you can't explain to me what it is you want even when I ask direct questions about presentation alternatives. How then do you expect any AI system to do what you want?
      - 1y ago