Community Generated Map Data - Passive Vs. Active / Teleatlas Vs. Openstreetmaps

**colin** · 06-29-2009, 09:05 AM

This seems great to me! My area is brand new and I always appear to be in the middle of a grassy field according to GPS

**Sonicxtacy02** · 06-29-2009, 10:31 AM

Originally Posted by malcom2073

The auto-upload could be a per-frontend thing, but the logging thing would be easy on linux with GPSD or windows with xport. Just have it output logs to a dedicated folder, and then part of your frontend's autoupdate feature have it copy that folder to the desktop and clear it out each time. I'll work on a simple example program for the logging to a binary file. We're just looking for lat, lon, speed, heading, altitude, and time right?

this is what i was thinking.. Most everyone running windows is using xport.. what not see if C will incorporate it into that

**Bugbyte** · 06-29-2009, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by malcom2073

The auto-upload could be a per-frontend thing, but the logging thing would be easy on linux with GPSD or windows with xport. Just have it output logs to a dedicated folder, and then part of your frontend's autoupdate feature have it copy that folder to the desktop and clear it out each time. I'll work on a simple example program for the logging to a binary file. We're just looking for lat, lon, speed, heading, altitude, and time right?

eh...I'm not sure. Here's the devel link to openstreetmaps: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Develop

I suspect there is code in there that can be used or the definitions for datatypes are in there.

[Edit] - You use the openstreemap api to upload gps traces and it looks like it expects them in gpx format. More info on it here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/O...ol_Version_0.6

**malcom2073** · 06-29-2009, 11:07 AM

Right, but the idea is not to upload tracks to openstreetmaps but to collect them to allow automated generation of mapping data which THEN can be uploaded to openstreetmaps right? Similar to what Teleatlas did with its data, except the bastards didn't help out openstreetmaps with their information.

Let me know if I misunderstood the intention here. There are already passive data collection programs for openstreetmaps,

**Fiberoptic** · 06-29-2009, 11:43 AM

We are thinking about creating a “user generated maps section of the forums” so that not only can OpenStreetMap work with out data, but we can and get some forum members to work on algorithms to make passive data collection a reality.

Our goal would be to encourage and possibly invest in the creation and development of a cross platform routing algorithm that would use the above data.

We are planning to keep everything open source and duplicate the results of our efforts to other locations including openstreetmaps.

We would like to put this database on our SQL server to allow for future international load. Ideally we could even get some larger user pools to start contributing like xgps users.

If there is enough interest on this, perhaps we should kick off some discussions about the server infrastructure and the clients to transmit the data.

“We're just looking for lat, lon, speed, heading, altitude, and time right?” In my opinion we need to get all the raw NEMA data to give future algorithms the best chance of success. Let’s talk about that as part of an architecture plan.

**Fiberoptic** · 06-29-2009, 12:01 PM

I would also like to add that we have been speaking with OpenStreetMap about a collaboration for two months now and the August’s meet is to discuss our collaboration and possibly even show off some concepts if we can get them done in time.

Openstreetmaps has asked us to collect the data and then submit them in large batches.

mp3Car would like not only Malcolm but all other front end developers to write code that allows users of the front end to voluntarily submit GPS tracks to mp3Car.

All data will be publicly available and mp3Car will create a forum where algorithm development can get started right away.

We are also working on some other projects where mp3car users could get free location based services and data in in exchange for the right to use mp3Car crowdsourced map data.

**chunkyks** · 06-29-2009, 12:49 PM

*raises hand*

I would be interested in this. For all the unix users out there enjoying gpsd, a small program to log travelled paths is trivial; I will gladly write such a thing myself [although gpsd may already provide that in some manner]. For that matter, depending on needs and requirements, obdgpslogger already does log gps data to an sqlite database, although it lacks a lot of stuff - things I will gladly add to the logging if that would be legitimately useful.

In my opinion we need to get all the raw NEMA data to give future algorithms the best chance of success. Let’s talk about that as part of an architecture plan.

*shudder*. The following make for good reading:
Why GPSes suck, and what to do about it
Towards a Better GPS Protocol

Of course, nothing's stopping you from logging NMEA, but I'm inclined to point out that's not as good an idea as some like to think - also, gpsd will upgrade many receivers from NMEA to their own binary protocol [which is much preferable to NMEA, but would mean NMEA sentences simply wouldn't exist to be logged].

My general feeling is it'd be better to standardise on 7-or-14-tuple TPV. But that's probably a topic for a dedicated forum [does such a thing exist yet?]. Alternatively, a shopping list of things that would be conceivably useful to log are in gps_data_t, declared here: http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/gpsd/trunk/gps.h

I actually have a soft spot in my heart for OSM - I had the idea for obdgpslogger a long time ago, but it wasn't until I went to an OSM meetup that I was galvanised into writing code; OSM provided me a conceptual answer to the problem of what to do with the data once I'd logged it. The problem being that I still haven't actually written an OSM output module for obdgpslogger, since I couldn't figure out a good, reliable, way to do it.

Perhaps an OSM subforum on these forums would be good, with a specific subforum dedicated to discussing the topics [logging for OSM] presented thus far. I would like a place on these forums to investigate ways of writing my OSM output module. obd2osm has been lurking in my TODO list with some thoughts since obdgpslogger began life.

Holy thread derailment, batman.

Gary (-;

PS Oh, yeah, one other thing... It'd be awesome if mp3car were willing to host an SCM repo for code. How exactly projects are started, or how people gain write access, would be another topic for the same OSM subforum?

**jpinkerton** · 06-29-2009, 03:03 PM

Count me in on this project, I don't really do software development but would be more than willing to test this out and contribute in any way I can.

**meddler** · 06-30-2009, 01:40 AM

maybe Necrolyte could help out, he was working on a gps tracking system.

Sounds like a good idea. I would get involved even if it was just to collect gps data

**Bugbyte** · 06-30-2009, 08:00 AM

Originally Posted by chunkyks

*raises hand*

I would be interested in this. For all the unix users out there enjoying gpsd, a small program to log travelled paths is trivial; I will gladly write such a thing myself [although gpsd may already provide that in some manner]. For that matter, depending on needs and requirements, obdgpslogger already does log gps data to an sqlite database, although it lacks a lot of stuff - things I will gladly add to the logging if that would be legitimately useful.

*shudder*. The following make for good reading:
Why GPSes suck, and what to do about it
Towards a Better GPS Protocol

Of course, nothing's stopping you from logging NMEA, but I'm inclined to point out that's not as good an idea as some like to think - also, gpsd will upgrade many receivers from NMEA to their own binary protocol [which is much preferable to NMEA, but would mean NMEA sentences simply wouldn't exist to be logged].

My general feeling is it'd be better to standardise on 7-or-14-tuple TPV. But that's probably a topic for a dedicated forum [does such a thing exist yet?]. Alternatively, a shopping list of things that would be conceivably useful to log are in gps_data_t, declared here: http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/gpsd/trunk/gps.h

I actually have a soft spot in my heart for OSM - I had the idea for obdgpslogger a long time ago, but it wasn't until I went to an OSM meetup that I was galvanised into writing code; OSM provided me a conceptual answer to the problem of what to do with the data once I'd logged it. The problem being that I still haven't actually written an OSM output module for obdgpslogger, since I couldn't figure out a good, reliable, way to do it.

Perhaps an OSM subforum on these forums would be good, with a specific subforum dedicated to discussing the topics [logging for OSM] presented thus far. I would like a place on these forums to investigate ways of writing my OSM output module. obd2osm has been lurking in my TODO list with some thoughts since obdgpslogger began life.

Holy thread derailment, batman.

Gary (-;

PS Oh, yeah, one other thing... It'd be awesome if mp3car were willing to host an SCM repo for code. How exactly projects are started, or how people gain write access, would be another topic for the same OSM subforum?

Does it make sense to integrate the solution into LinuxICE?

I think that whatever the 'solution' to passive mapping is, it ought to be fairly simple to implement on the most popular front ends. Maybe as simple as install and almost forget. Upload based on your mp3car user I.D. and so forth.

I'll see what we can do to get the new forum setup so we can start a thread simply to agree what this project is, how it might work, what sort of help mp3car can give, etc. I know they're pretty excited about being able to help the community do something like this.