Guide · 5 min
How to make an animated route that follows the roads
Draw a road trip, bike ride or walk by clicking a few points and let the line snap to real roads, cycle routes and footpaths from OpenStreetMap.
Updated
In MapAnimate, choose a car, bus, bike or walking transport, make sure Follow roads is on, and click your stops on the map. The line between them follows real roads, cycle routes or footpaths from OpenStreetMap. Drag a point onto another road to change the way, then export.
Step by step
- Open the Route panel and choose a road, bike or foot transport under Draw with.
- Check that Follow roads is switched on.
- Click your start, then each stop: the line follows the road network between them.
- To take another road, add a point on it or drag an existing point onto it.
- Turn Follow roads off for any leg that should stay a straight line.
- Pick a camera and export.
Which transports follow roads
Car, SUV, campervan, bus, overland truck, motorbike, scooter and tuk-tuk legs follow roads. Bike legs follow cycle-friendly routes, and walking, hiking and running legs follow footpaths and trails. Trains, ferries and flights don't snap: they are drawn as smooth lines or great-circle arcs.
Where the routes come from
Routing uses the OSRM servers run by FOSSGIS e.V. on OpenStreetMap data. Only the points of the legs set to follow roads are sent, and the route that comes back is stored in your project, so playback and export work offline and every frame stays the same.
Shaping the line
Routing takes the quickest way, which isn't always the way you went. In high mountains, foot routing can avoid steep passes and take a long way round. Add a point on the road you actually took, or drag a point onto it, and the route updates. For the exact path, import the GPX track from your phone, watch or bike computer instead: see turning a GPX file into a video.
Try it
The Great Ocean Road and North Coast 500 templates follow real roads.
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