Microsoft GPS

Sun Jan 11 02:12:26 UTC 2009

On 1/10/09, ted leslie <tleslie-RBVUpeUoHUc at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> nice example of why this project may be preferable to the googlemaps, and
> such,
>
> this year my father got my wife and I a GPS for
> a present, i said TOMTOM, he was kinda   "why?"
> i said, its linux, thats all i need to say,
> i didn't know if it was a good one or what,
> i just said, its the one i gotta have.
> So he got me a 920 (which i think was top of the line one at the
> time, except without any hookup to get traffic reports),
> then i told him that garmin is turning to linux for there top of the line
> stuff.
> He did research for a few months and got a TOMTOM 930 at boxing day.
> He smokes the Steve Jobs tobacco pretty heavy,
> so this actaully was surprizing, but he researched the hell
> out of the stuff an concluded (cause he has basically no budget issue),
> that the TOMTOM 930 rules.
> Anyways, i moved up to Thornbury, 15 km west of Bluemountain,
> and I was out for my first real exploring with my snowmobile today.
> I sort of got lost, and figure I gotta keep my 920 with me,
> when i go out.
> So now i mix this , with your hobby here, the updating of the open street
> project,
> and the talk of GPS's and such, and I conclude that here is what woule be
> nice:
>
> I cant very well have a laptop cracked open on my sled,
> and the TOMTOM is linux, and the kernel is available
> and appearently one can "hobby" with it.
>
> So is it not possible, or perhaps a good idea for someone to write,
> a peice of software that gets the linux GPS unit (in this case the TOMTOM
> series),
> to just work as the plugged in portable? i mean why do i want another
> machine tied to it?
> surely the unit itself can do everything?
> i got a 4GB flash card expansion, and about 3GB free on the built in flash.

Well, off hand I don't know about the Tomtom GPS units, but I have
(long story), the long term loan of a Garmin Vista HCx GPS. This
Garmin model can record GPS tracks on to a flash memory card, which
can then be downloaded on to your PC (USB port on the unit). The unit
will run for quite a few hours off of 2 AA size batteries. The track
files are readable by the JOSM Open Street Map editing program. So,
for things like tracking the banks of the Tay River in Perth, Ontario
(where the Microsoft GPS ... would not be a lot of use), the Garmin is
great.

Flip side of this, the Microsoft GPS is a LOT cheaper than the Garmin,
so, if you have a car / truck / etc., and want to try mapping the
Microsoft option is great...

> i'd love to be on the sled, and just have it data log , (and i think mine
> has accelerometers in it too),
> and then use it if i get lost and for "info" and when i get home, i can
> x-ref my "trip"
> to one of the other map projects to get the street names and then dump my
> data to the
> open project(s), that would be ideal, heck maybe there is meta data ability
> to specify good snowmobile routes?

Well, on of the central points of OSM is to ONLY ever refer to
non-proprietary data sources. So, walking around collecting names off
street signs is fine, going to one of commercial maps or other
copyright protected sources is UNACCEPTABLE. The OSM people have
permission to use data from Landsat sat. photos and some Yahoo aerial
photos (Landsat offers the whole world in poor detail, Yahoo offers
excellent detail, but only in a limited number of places).

Further, since I have been looking at this sort of thing it is an odd
funny/scary just how many errors I have seen in commercial maps. Word
is that some map companies deliberately add errors in order to catch
people copying... Yes, I have on rare occasion caught errors in OSM,
but at least those errors I could fix.

> i found the link you gave kinda slow, i hope they expand there servers
> suffiencently as this grows,
> hate for the idea to die just because the service isnt "fast".
> also i found when you zoom out, it take a huge amount of time to calculate
> and show you the map -
> oh well, its probably a relatively new project, and I am sure they'll
> improve.

Well, OSM has caught on at different rates in different nations. Have
a look at the level of detail available in Germany at some point.
Holland and the UK are almost as good as Germany. Data from the US
Census Bureau has been added to OSM, which overall is good, but the US
Census people are not interest in roads that don't have people, and in
some areas the Census people were ... sloppy, some roads that are arcs
on the ground got entered as straight lines... In other words in the
US, the issue is, spot errors, spot incomplete areas, add more
detail...

A deal was recently reached between the OSM people and the Canadian
government so there will be at lot of Canadian data being added in the
not to distant future. Mind you if the US example works out here,
there will be a lot of detail still to be added / corrected...

For example, when I was in Perth, ON, in Sept. I saw a small new
housing development being built, but no way to drive down the new road
for this development. When I was down in Perth at Christmas, the road
was open to traffic, and thanks to me :-) , said road is now in OSM.
Not really possible for commercial maps to keep that up to date, but
for OSM, no problem...

> but, yeah if i can just get my tomtom to data log, i will certainly love to
> dump my data to this openstreetmap
> project. Heck for my area, I could put in an insane amount of detail.

Any data you can get from direct observation (be they readings off a
GPS, or reading a street sign) or other non-proprietary sources would
be appreciated.

> -tl
>
> On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 07:54:44 -0500
> "Colin McGregor" <colin.mc151-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
>> On 1/9/09, Evan Leibovitch <evan-ieNeDk6JonTYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> > Merv Curley wrote:
>> >> Hi all
>> >>
>> >> I suppose Google would work but...
>> >>
>> >> My Microsoft Trips 2007/GPS has arrived from Factorydirect.  Now that I
>> >> have
>> >> spent $30, what do I need?  [ Do I curse Hugh or bless him for the $20
>> >> coupon?]
>> >>
>> > The value of having a computer-attached GPS is in the ability it gives
>> > you to help participate in the Open Street Map Project:
>> > http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Main_Page
>> >
>> > This is an attempt to duplicate the global mapping used in systems such
>> > as Google Maps, but without their proprietary mapping data.
>> >
>> >> Never having used a GPS, does it only work in the great outdoors?  It
>> >> comes
>> >> with a little suction cup, I assume this is stuck to a car windshield?
>> >>
>> > Correct. Using the Microsoft software, you could use that unit, plus
>> > your computer, like a very large portable GPS system.
>> > With Linux its value is to help CREATE data rather than just use it. See
>> > http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Beginners'_Guide to find out how.
>>
>> Much of Perth, ON was mapped using a Microsoft GPS, laptop in the
>> passenger front seat of a car, GPS sitting on the front dashboard.
>> Bottom line with GPS units is that you want as clear a view of as much
>> of the sky as possible all the time or you may run into no readings or
>> bad readings. You can have issues with GPSs in canyons, be they ones
>> created by mother nature in the wild, or the concrete canyons of a
>> major city centre...
>>
>> When you have what amounts to a geographic wiki interestingly odd
>> things can happen, like:
>>
>> www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=40.78377&lon=-119.20424&zoom=16&layers=00B0FTF
>>
>> The above is a map of part of the Nevada's Black Rock desert and for
>> 50 weeks each year it is just ... desert. For just over one week each
>> year it is home to the "Burning Man" arts festival (which concludes
>> with the torching of a multi-story tall mannequin). So, people want to
>> to note where things will be within this temporary festival site, with
>> a geographic wiki that isn't an issue... This is the sort of thing
>> that would not happen with the likes of say Google Maps.
>>
>> >> What Linux software is needed for the GPS.  I think Colin has said but
>> >> I
>> >> can't find the post.
>> >>
>> > see
>> > http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Making_Tracks_with_Homebrew-ware#Linux
>> >
>> > The gpsd and associated packages are available as standard Ubuntu
>> > packages, and I imagine they're available pre-packaged for other systems
>> > as well.
>> >
>> >> if someone can just post where to go to find this kind of info, I would
>> >> be
>> >>
>> >> appreciative.  No need to spend time answering my niggling questions.
>> >>
>> > HTH.
>> >
>> > - Evan
>> --
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>
>
> --
> ted leslie <tleslie-RBVUpeUoHUc at public.gmane.org>
>
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