Not working in Caltopo as a Custom Layer

[zimmertr]

First of all I apologize for filing this as an issue as it is likely your extension is working properly. I am just unable to find a different method to contact you. And if I were to ask on /r/strava or something people probably wouldn't have any idea what I'm talking about. This is a last resort sorta thing ;).

I've successfully generated a heatmap URL using both your extension as well as retrieving the cookies from my browser after signing into Strava as per the instructions here.

The resultant URL looks like this: tms[3,15]:https://heatmap-external-{switch:a,b,c}.strava.com/tiles-auth/all/hot/{zoom}/{X}/{Y}.png?Key-Pair-Id=REDACTED&Policy=REDACTED&Signature=REDACTED

In Caltopo, if I Add -> Custom Source and set the following options:

Type: TMS
URL Template: tms[3,15]:https://heatmap-external-{switch:a,b,c}.strava.com/tiles-auth/all/hot/{zoom}/{X}/{Y}.png?Key-Pair-Id=REDACTED&Policy=REDACTED&Signature=REDACTED
Max Zoom: 18
Overlay?: Yes

It returns "Template URL is invalid" when I click save. If I then update the URL and replace {switch:a,b,c} with a, b, or c, it will successfully save. However, when I enable the Custom Layer, no data is shown.

It works perfectly with OpenStreetMap. For example, if I use your extension to generate a URL and click Open in iD, a new tab opens and I can successfully see OpenStreetMap showing Strava Heatmap data as a Custom Background.

Do you know why this is? Is Strava's API rejecting the request from Caltopo for the data or something?

[dericke]

I was able to get it to work by doing the following:

1. When using the extension, select the "no prefix" option. The tms[3,15]: bit is specific to JOSM, so you don't want anything in your URL before https://
2. As you had already done, replace the {switch:a,b,c} part with a, b, or c
3. Replace {zoom} in the URL with {z}

[zimmertr]

My hero :)

You have no idea how life changing this is going to be for route planning.

Well, actually, if anyone does it's probably you and Zeke.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!

[zimmertr]

Have ya'll had any luck using this with GaiaGPS? Looks like they have a 250 character limit for the URL field... My full heatmap URL with my authentication tokens is 708 characters.

[zekefarwell]

Can't say I have. I've only ever tried using it for JOSM and iD. Should work in any application that can deal with a TMS server (and that doesn't have a character limit), though.

[jleedev]

You could proxy it to omit the parameters from the URL.

~¶ cat Caddyfile 
http://:8080 {
    rewrite * /tiles-auth{uri}?Key-Pair-Id=…&Policy=…&Signature=…
    reverse_proxy https://heatmap-external-c.strava.com {
        header_up Host {upstream_hostport}
    }
}
~¶ caddy run

Then configure http://localhost:8080/all/hot/{z}/{x}/{y}.png

[zimmertr]

That is a good idea. I tried using a URL shortener but Gaia rejected it because it failed a regular expression looking for {z}/{x}/{y}. I'll try that next. In the interim, I've sent an email to their support team asking them about it. Maybe they'll boost the limit.

One last question and then I promise I'll stop bothering you people. Do you know why the resolution is so much lower when imported on Caltopo as opposed to being shown natively on Strava? I assume Caltopo is just not capable of displaying the data at the same resolution?

[martintvl]

I found that I also had to set it to Type: Tile in the Custom Map Source dialog box.

[zimmertr]

Adding ?px=256& appears to solve the resolution issue.

[zimmertr]

Also here is a Python program to generate the URL for Caltopo using the StravaCookies package.

https://github.com/zimmertr/StravaHeatmapStringBuilder