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Help!: Does the distance take into account elevation?

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    • CommentAuthorFree Memberrich99
    • CommentTimeAug 6th 2007
     
    rich99

    Hi,

    Simple question - when calculating distances on this site, does it take into account elevation?  By that I mean that in a simple top-down view, a hill will appear to have shorter distance than it does in reality.  Does mapmyrun give you the distance it appears to have in a top-down view, or the real distance?  (Or alternatively are google maps skewed to show the real distances of hill roads?).

    • CommentAuthorPremium Member!jeff@mmf
    • CommentTimeAug 6th 2007
     
    jeff@mmf
    The quick answer is no, we don't take elevation into account when giving your route distance.  For a vast majority of "real-world" routes, elevation changes have little measurable effect on total distance.  Also, due to the inherit limitations in the quality of worldwide elevation datasets, we feel that adding this data into the distance equation could more than likely decrease the accuracy of the distance calculations rather than increase it.
    • CommentAuthorFree Memberrich99
    • CommentTimeAug 6th 2007
     
    rich99
    Fair enough, just wondered!  Thanks for the reply.
    • CommentAuthorFree Memberryancor
    • CommentTimeAug 6th 2007
     
    ryancor
    I wondered why all my runs appeared shoter compared with other mapping systems I've used. I live on the coast and run up and down a lot of hills!! Thanks for bringing this up. I feel a bit better about the pace calculations now! Laughing
    • CommentAuthorPremium Member!jeff@mmf
    • CommentTimeAug 6th 2007
     
    jeff@mmf

    Ryan-

    It is highly unlikely that other mapping systems you've used have taken the elevation into account.  Due to the reasons I stated above, I don't know of a single fitness mapping system that does take this into account.

     More likely, the distance difference is to due the route itself.  Are you import the exact same data between systems or manually mapping?  When manually mapping, you need to be sure that you're marking all the turns, zoomed in to a high level, etc.. to have accurate results.

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