The route builder

What Stamio uses

• The OpenStreetMap data Stamio already hosts for your watch: every street, path, bike trail and hiking trail, with its type, plus the water, parks and woods around it.
• Worldwide elevation data, accurate to about 40 ft.
• Your usual start and the elevation of your recent runs, read from Health on your iPhone, to set the default terrain.
• Your plan's workout, when you build the loop from it: its distance and its type.

How it's calculated

1. 1

   A network rebuilt for running

   Stamio stitches the map's paths into a network for runners: loose ends joined, intersections restored, and never a bridge mistaken for a crossing. Highways, expressways, bus lanes and private roads aren't part of it.

2. 2

   Every path has a price

   A busy road costs far more than a path, a bike trail or a quiet street; the waterfront, a park or the woods cost less. Crossing a busy road counts too, even at an intersection, and turning back has a price.

3. 3

   Dozens of tries, three picks

   For a loop, Stamio tries dozens of shapes around your start, in parallel across your iPhone's cores, fits each one to the right distance and keeps the best three, each heading a different way.

4. 4

   No hooks

   Nobody runs "up 200 yards, then back down the next street over." Those hooks are spotted and removed, and a loop that still has one only shows up as a last resort.

5. 5

   Elevation, path by path

   Elevation is sampled every 50 ft along every path, so the engine knows what climbs and in which direction. "Flattest" charges for every percent of grade; "Custom…" aims for a max elevation gain you set, and tells you straight up when the terrain won't allow it.

6. 6

   Built for your workout

   Intervals or a tempo run: as flat and straight as possible, with as few crossings as possible, so nothing cuts a rep short. Hill repeats: a loop that climbs. A long run: the nicest one, with the elevation of your usual runs.

7. 7

   Wherever you want to go

   Pick a direction or drop a flag on the map: the three suggestions become three different ways to get there.

What you see before you go

• Distance, elevation gain and profile, calculated exactly the way your watch does.
• How much is trail, quiet street, minor road and busy road, and how much runs along the water.
• Any stretch along a busy road and every crossing, in red on the map; your watch calls each one out about 650 ft ahead.

What can throw it off

• The map doesn't know everything: lighting, sidewalks (unless they're mapped separately), or the real condition of a trail or farm track. Check the summary, and report any spot to skip: Stamio won't send you there again.
• Stamio doesn't know where other people run: it goes by the type of each path, not by popularity.
• Elevation gain comes from elevation data accurate to about 40 ft, so it can differ from a watch with a barometer, which reacts to wind and weather.

What you can set

• Distance, surface (Mixed, Mostly trails, Mostly pavement) and elevation (Any, Mostly flat, Flattest, Hilly, Custom…).
• Your start (usual start, a place you search for or a spot you tap on the map) and the direction.
• Loop, out-and-back, sketch or waypoints.
• The spots you've reported, kept on your iPhone.

Questions