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

**Fiberoptic** · 06-25-2009, 11:14 AM

There has been a lot of discussion about community generated maps. Cloudmade and openstreetmap have made immense progress, but their big drawback is that it required active user input to have the data be routable or reliable. Teleatlas has jumpstarted community generated maps by releasing a paid passively generated database that has been created and augmented by free passive user inputs. (teleatlas press release )

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic2DHQ0WIY0[/media]
In this Youtube interview Rik Temmink boasts 7 million reports in 18 months which have generated 1 trillion gps measurements on the road network. He describes the beauty of passive user inputs.
The big drawback here is that Teletlas is now charging for these maps generated by their users. Why can't we hack our PDAs, phones, and other devices to create free maps? Most people don't think about the super high costs of map data. Hopefully the community can unite:

Collecting and sharing GPS data
Writing an algorithm to process this data into routable and usable information
Cleaning up open source algorithms to use this new data
Make the data free and globally available

There are a lot of business and innovation blocks created when you have a monopoly of map data providers(Teleatlas/Navteq). How do we fix this?

**captcol** · 06-27-2009, 06:16 AM

There are those of us that live in areas that gps maps are hard or very expensive to find, being able to create my own data from routes I have already travelled would be useful, and to be able to combine that info with others in my area and neighbouring provinces would be fantastic. I have no suggestions about how to make this happen but I am sure that a community such as this could create a solution

**Bugbyte** · 06-27-2009, 10:58 AM

This is an ideal community to come up with a solution to this problem. Most of us have GPS in our car anyhow. Passively collecting the tracks and uploading them to an open street mapping source is right in tune with our hacking tendencies.

If regular people can build a wikipedia or a dictionary, they can certainly build a street map. While I don't live in an area without good mapping coverage, I still like the idea of building a map that contains better, more up to date, and FREE information.

I'd also like to use data like this to figure out things like traffic flow times. For example, how long does it take to get from point A to point B at certain times of day? I'm sure that once data like that gets collected, it can be used to help calculate trip times.

Altitude data could be used to plan for mileage or to help your computer assist you in maximizing mileage - hypermiling. The more people who contribute, the more powerful the map will be.

Real time data would be even better. Maybe in the future information like this could be used to report real time delay or speed information.

Surely with the real-time tracking data that we collect, we ought to be able to help with a solution?

**jpinkerton** · 06-27-2009, 02:19 PM

So what's stopping the MP3Car community from starting something like Teleatlas did?

Like Bugbyte said most have GPS in the car, just need to have some program in the background passively logging coordinates - and even time of day or even speed then make it easy (Touchscreen friendly) to upload to a database.

You could even give an option for registration so that you can put in your signature, "X miles of GPS data uploaded to GPSProject".

**captcol** · 06-27-2009, 05:25 PM

One of the first steps would be to create a standardised format for submission of data, and I guess this would be generated from the database system that will be used. Someone with more experience with the raw data that a gps unit delivers to a pc would need to step in here to work with those that have the database knowledge, to minimise the size of these databases maybe we should look at implementing seperate databases for countries and in the case of the US, states maybe more appropriate, this would mean that people could just download the data packs for their own areas.

For those of us without mobile internet a application on our home network that will annalyze the data recovered and only send on new data, or updated data to the central repositries.

**Bugbyte** · 06-27-2009, 06:07 PM

Originally Posted by jpinkerton

You could even give an option for registration so that you can put in your signature, "X miles of GPS data uploaded to GPSProject".

I like that one!

**malcom2073** · 06-27-2009, 06:58 PM

I am thinking something really simple and easy to use. Eg it logs in the background full time and you can plug in a usb memory stick and with one button press it will copy logs off. Plug the stick into your desktop and again hit one button and the program will upload it for you. It not hard to do, I already have a module for carpal to do thisand I think plugins for the popular frontends would be a plays to ease saving data for those of us without the internet. For size you can compact the information you need into a binary format again not difficult. I can post an example of what I mean if you all want.

**Fiberoptic** · 06-28-2009, 10:31 PM

Originally Posted by SLASHDOT.ORG

"I'm in the market for a new, in-car GPS/sat nav. I am preferably looking for one that has live, up-to-date traffic information and route planning that doesn't make you want to cry. I'm not quite dumb enough to drive off a cliff, but something that doesn't even try and lead me to watery doom is preferable. The only thing I absolutely must have is the ability to hack it. It would be preferable if it ran GNU/Linux, but given a convincing argument, I would be swayed to another OS. Without wanting the Moon on a stick, what is the best device that would offer a decent modding community and a good feature set?"

This Slashdot article inspired me to write more on the topic in the slashdot forums.

Hacking your navigation device will be HOT after the community develops three things.
1.Passively user generated map data (not to be confused with actively generated map data from openstreetmap.org) (see blog entry comparing active vs. passive maps)
2.Open source navigation routing algorithms to use the above map data.
3.Devices anonymously reporting data to improve the above.
If that happens I could see a “ddwrt” type of pack being developed.
Right not there isn’t a lot of incentive to hack GPS or PDA devices.
1.Map data is expensive. Free data is mostly unusable for routing.
2.Quality navigation routing algorithms are expensive and/or unavailable.
3.Open source routing isn’t as usable as paid options.
One that is done and a certain mass of users are using the above data and algorithms; maps would become dynamic information sources constantly updated with road changes and maybe even real time road closures, road speed data, one way street information and other valuable tidbits. More advanced devices with accelerometers could make that data even clearer for eventual technology like eco routing.
If you have to have a hackable linux navigation solution now get a cheap umpc or netbook running igo 8 or another nav engine on wine.

PS, their forums are a pain in the tail and require html code. I thought bbcode was annoying. grr.

**Bugbyte** · 06-29-2009, 09:17 AM

Originally Posted by malcom2073

I am thinking something really simple and easy to use. Eg it logs in the background full time and you can plug in a usb memory stick and with one button press it will copy logs off. Plug the stick into your desktop and again hit one button and the program will upload it for you. It not hard to do, I already have a module for carpal to do thisand I think plugins for the popular frontends would be a plays to ease saving data for those of us without the internet. For size you can compact the information you need into a binary format again not difficult. I can post an example of what I mean if you all want.

This is great, malcom. Maybe mp3car would be willing to host a server that counts uploads so we could get the number in our signature? I think it would be kind of cool to have a map on one of the tabs that shows where users have been according to the tracks they've uploaded. Anonymously, of course! I'll ask them if they have an interest in this.

I downloaded an app for the iPhone (OSMTracks) that allows you to record and keep your tracks and then upload them to Openstreemap.org over Edge/3G/WiFi.

It's cool, does what it says it will do (although I'm having trouble getting it to log into my account, but that's probably user error), but you have to run it each time you want to record it.

I'm thinking a GPS with the Sheeva plug, GPSD, and a daemon that saves tracks automatically would be really cool. I'd like it to happen in the background and then upload when I arrive home and I 'see' my WiFi.

**malcom2073** · 06-29-2009, 09:55 AM

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?