Open Street Maps (OSM) and Ubuntu
I wanted to post an entry about a very good and useful collaboration.
The OpenStreetMap project aims to record geographical information in an open and accessible format, so anyone can find their way and create interesting devices and applications.
In the UK our governmental operated mapping data is owned and controlled, unlike the USA where data is made available in the Public Domain. So the service in the OSM for the UK is very important. I myself updated much of the mapping information for the town I grew up in, little parts that others hadn’t yet touched on.
So now, I’d like to see an Ubuntu application that is able to use OSM data, plug into GPS hardware and fuse the two into an offline mapping and route finding system. That would make netbooks very useful indeed! I’m betting someone somewhere has already taken a stab at such a program; but I’ve yet to be able to find it.
Let me know if you know.
Update: And boy did you guys not let me down… I’m compiling a list of things that people have suggested to me.
- The Nokia Maemo project has a Mapper tool which doesn’t yet work on Ubuntu.
- TangoGPS looks like it does everything, available in the repositories.
- Merkaator is a simple GPS Path recorder also available in the repositories.
- The Nav-IT project can do similar things, but looks a bit config fiddly, they have their own repository.
- If your ok with Java and with German, you might try CacheWolf.
- For the python programmers, we have PyRoute.
One missing piece I notice is route finding, it must be a difficult problem to solve. so I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a dedicated lib that could do it.
the only way i could find to do it was to export the map file as a png (or similar) for either googlemaps or osm, and the size of the file was limited to a maximum area, so not very helpful.
Martin:
The NY State Ubuntu Loco will be sponsoring an OpenStreetMap presentation in April. The event will be in Rochester on April 16th from 7pm to 9pm. If people are interested and near Rochester they should check it out.
What you want is already available: Maemo Mapper, developed by Nokia.
I tried The Maemo Mapper, it neither has any i386 deb targets or the ability to work in Ubuntu without the entire Maemo SDK. Looks like if it’s useful, it’ll need a proper port to the desktop platform.
Have you tried tangogps. I haven’t used it myself, but I have read much praise about it. It is available in jaunty repositories.
TangoGPS. If you plan on contributing to OSM, Merkaator is good to edit your traces (mappings).
Both applications are on the repositories.
Marble has GPS integration and OSM support. No route mapping though.
Yes tangogps is a nice software, debs are available. You can’t use it for navigation but you can easily download an area an use a GPS device with gpsd.
http://www.tangogps.org/gps/cat/About
see you
Try navit (www.navit-project.org). You can load osm maps in a special format into it (explained in the wiki).
over there is a repo with nightly builds: http://navit.latouche.info/ubuntu/
it’s a bit config fiddling etc, but you will manage to run it properly and tweak it to your needs. it’s also possible to record your track for contributing in OSM.
tangogps is nice too, but it doesn’t actually calculate routes.
greetings.
Try CacheWolf (google for it)
Hi,
Brilliant idea! This would make netbooks very useful indeed. There are a host of tools being developed by OSM people. Incluing PyRoute (something I’m going to look at in the future). I may have a stab at knocking something together with that and PyGTK.
I think Eye of Gnome already has a OSM plug-in for geo-tagging pictures. So we’re on the way.
Shameless plug : There is mapping party in West Bromwich (West Midlands, UK) this weekend. As your blog is syndicated on Planet Ubuntu any chance you could give us a plug?? More details http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mappa_Mercia/Black_Country
Navit seems to do exactly what you want: http://www.navit-project.org/
Just a minor point – maemomapper isn’t made by nokia, its affiliation with nokia is that it is designed for the nokia internet tablets.
There is a fork of it called “mapper” (a bit of a pain to google for):
http://mapper.tal.org/
I just tried compiling it on ubuntu intrepid.
$ git clone git://git.tal.org/mapper.git
$ cd mapper
$ sudo apt-get install libgstreamer0.10-dev gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad espeak sqlite3 automake-1.7 libgtk-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libgtkhtml3.8-dev
$ ./autogen.sh
$ ./configure
$ make
Was as far as my attention span lasted (an error there about linking with libsqlite3.a).
osm2go – https://garage.maemo.org/projects/osm2go/. Technically another Maemo one, but like Mapper, it works on plain GTK+ too.
Top work…
Excellent, just gotta recomend this….