A way to include slope (elevation change) changes in colorizing scheme

[meder1]

Saw this great code some time ago and now has a thread in ADVRider for beneficial routing uses. (thanks to OP nateberkopek)
http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=970443

Not a programmer but was wondering if slope changes could also be added into the selection and colorizing scheme? Curvatures including slope (elevation change) offer some of the most interesting routes and riding. Flat curvy roads would stay on the red/orange end of the spectrum, straight roads with slope or more rapid elevation changes would tend more to the bluer/violet end of the spectrum with a combined entry into green as increase in both axis occurs.

Similar to applying matrix colormaps here:
http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/visualize/coloring-mesh-and-surface-plots.html

just a thought, thanks for listening.

[nateberkopec]

Hm. I'm not sure. It would depend on elevation data in OpenStreetMap, which I think is spotty.

There is not much height data available from OSM, due to the poor vertical accuracy of GPS units compared to both their horizontal accuracy and the better height data available from other sources. Accurate spot heights, for example mountain summits, are often available from other sources, but wide-scale height data sufficient for making profiles of mountains are simply infeasible to gather by volunteers wandering around! For such data, existing OSM projects normally rely on SRTM data, a near-globally available height dataset from NASA that has been released into the public domain.

[tpchuckles]

I am actually working on a fork of this to find steepest roads (for use in cycling or longboarding) instead of curvature. it will be using SRTM data.