Standard uploads (PNG / PDF)
No OCAD file? You can still get great results.
Quality matters more than format
High-resolution images work well. If your source is a low-res scan, run it through an upscaler like Upscayl first.
- Use the highest resolution you have — bigger source images route significantly better.
- Make sure colours are clean and faithful to the original (no faded scans, no heavy recolouring).
- Avoid heavily compressed JPEGs — artefacts eat fine map detail.
The in-app editor
After uploading, Routster generates a black-and-white impassability guess that you refine in the editor:
- Black — impassable. The route can't go here.
- White — passable. The route can run through.
Use the brush to seal off fences, walls, and water. Use the eraser to open up gates and underpasses the auto-detection missed.
Crop large images to speed up processing
Upscaled maps with very high pixel counts take significantly longer to process — both for rendering impassable objects and for the actual route generation step. If your map is larger than needed, crop it to just the interesting area. Finding the right balance between high pixel count for good impassability detection and lower pixel count for faster uploads is key. Ten minutes of touching up the impassability in the editor instead of upscaling unnecessarily can save hours of processing time.
Check before you publish
Ten minutes of touch-ups can save your map from sending runners through a building. You can only view generated routes once processing has finished — but if something looks wrong, you can always go back into the in-app editor and continue from where you left off, then reprocess.
See common pitfalls for things to watch out for.