The Open Street Map project is working to create a freely distributable map dataset for the world, generated by volunteer effort. Much of the data is derived from publicly-available government data, GPS tracks, and manual tracing over aerial imagery. The Walking Papers project offers an alternative method of recording and adding data to the Open Street Map, more suited to ground-based observation and recording. Zoom in to an area, download a PDF of the map, and print it out; you have options to download simple or complex road maps, cycling-oriented maps, even topographical maps. Take it into the field, and write notes or draw geographical features directly on it; here’s a sample road map from France:
The square in the lower right has coded information about the location and scale of the map, and I’m guessing the squares help calibrate the map image. When you’re done annotating the map, scan it and upload it back to the Walking Papers website. You can then open up an OSM editor with the scanned map in the background, georeferenced so that it lines up with the existing data:
Use the editor to trace over the hand-drawn data, adding it to the OSM database.
Over a year ago, I posted about GISVM, a Linux GIS workstation in a virtual package that could be run in free VM software like VMWare Player or Virtual Box. You can now try out a more recent release of this package (christened Arramagong, and distributed at the 2009 FOSS4G conference in Australia) in a Java-based virtual machine viewer at the click2try website. You need to register (for free) to save data and settings, but you can try it out without registration. You’ll definitely need a broadband connection to run it, and there’s a connection test to make sure your network link is up to it. Once running, display refresh speed is adequate enough to load up apps and try them out. Wouldn’t want to run the apps full-time on this service, but that’s certainly not the intention for this package – it’s just to show off what’s available in the distribution. If you like it, you can always download the 1 GB+ full distribution and a free virtual machine environment, and run it at acceptable speed on your own computer.
In addition to the apps you see listed above, it also has qGIS, uDig, RGeo, openJump, and MapTiler
For many Garmin GPS units, including most handheld models, the only mapsets that currently supports turn-by-turn routing are the City Navigator products, like the $75 City Navigator North America. These are available in two formats, both of which tie the maps to a single GPS unit. In the microSD card format, you install the card into the GPS unit, which means you can only use it in one unit at a time, and you can’t use it in conjunction with other mapsets; in fact, if you upload more maps to the card, you’ll erase the City Navigator maps! In DVD format, you can upload the City Navigator maps along with those from other mapsets, but the DVD maps are tied to a single GPS unit based on its serial number and a registration code – you can’t use them on any other unit, nor can you transfer them to a new unit you might buy to replace the old one.
mkgmap is a program that converts Open Street Map (OSM) data into Garmin-compatible maps, and it has recently added support for turn-by-turn routing. The Free routable maps website offers a convenient way to obtain these routable maps in several different formats.
Continue reading ‘Free Routable Street Maps For Compatible Garmin GPS Units’
The Atlas Obscura describes itself as “A Compendium Of The World’s Wonders, Curiosities And Esoterica”. That’s probably overstating its geographical coverage a bit, since the largest number of entries by far are for the US, with Western Europe a distant second. Still, you’ll find lots of interesting and odd destinations, grouped geographically by continent, and also categorically. These categories aren’t typical ones found in guidebooks; for example, under “Wonders Of Salt” you’ll find 15 entries like the Salt Men Of Iran, and the Blood Falls of Antarctica. Other categories include “Bioluminescent Spots”, “Small Worlds And Model Towns”, and “Astounding Timepieces”. There’s a scrollable pictorial category index on the home page, but it’s a bit clumsy to use; better to jump right to the Categories page. Finally, if you know of an interesting or odd site that would fit in, you can submit it for inclusion in the Atlas.
Geostatistical mapping can be defined as analytical production of maps by using field observations, auxiliary information and a computer program that generates predictions. The purpose of this guide is to assist you in producing quality maps by using fully-operational open source software packages: R+gstat/geoR and SAGA GIS. Materials presented in this book have been used for the five-day advanced training course "GEOSTAT: spatio-temporal data analysis with R+SAGA+Google Earth" that is periodically organized by the author and collaborators. This is an open access publication!
In addition to a free downloadable PDF copy of the book, you can:
Via Slashgeo.
Topics covered:
- Geospatial analysis concepts
- Core components of geospatial analysis, including distance and directional analysis, geometrical processing, map algebra, and grid models
- Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) and spatial statistics, including spatial autocorrelation and spatial regression
- Surface analysis, including surface form analysis, gridding and interpolation methods
- Network and locational analysis, including shortest path calculation, travelling salesman problems, facility location and arc routing
- Geocomputational methods, including agent-based modeling, artificial neural networks and evolutionary computing
Full text is available online, including diagrams; text is organized by chapter, searchable, and includes Google Translate buttons in 10 different languages. A free PDF is available with purchase of the book.
I’ve just released version 1.6 of G-Raster (alternate link if that one doesn’t work), my utility for creating raster KMZ overlays for use in some Garmin handheld GPS units (the Colorado, Oregon and Dakota series). Previous versions only worked with georeferenced imagery, like GeoTiffs,BSB, MRSID and raster imagery with worldfiles. For scanned maps without georeferencing, it’s possible to use free georeferencing software, but some might find that too technical. Starting with the latest version of G-Raster, you can use a scanned map that’s been georeferenced using Google Earth, a less complicated procedure:
- Load the map image into Google Earth (Add => Image Overlay)
- Use the map controls to move, stretch and rotate the map image until it lines up with the underlying imagery
- Save it as a KMZ file
- Load this KMZ file into G-Raster, which tiles the image and creates a Garmin-compatible KMZ file
Last week, I posted about the new Natural Earth datasets, free medium-scale vector data for the earth to go along with the previously-available Natural Earth physiographic raster data. The Google Earth Library now has a KML network link that lets you view much of this data in Google Earth as layers, like here with lakes and rivers:
Obviously, most of these features will be visible in Google Earth as soon as you zoom in, but these datasets let you view features with names at lower zoom levels, and more distinct colors. Plus, this offers a quick preview of the data available from Natural Earth, so you can see whether it meets your needs for use in a GIS or mapping program in shapefile format. There’s also an overlay with the raster physiographic imagery:
All of the data is in KML network links in subfolders of the main link, and some datasets will take a while to load. It’s also probably a good idea to not check the box next to the main network link, as this will load all the data into Google Earth, which will take a while.
Last year, I posted about using the free command-line utility mkgmap to convert Open Street Map (.osm) data into the .img format used by Garmin GPS units, with a later post trying it out with US OSM data based on TIGER data. If you need to access any of the command-line options, you’ll need to use it in its original command-line format, but in many cases you’ll only need to tell mkgmap which osm file you want to convert, a fairly simple command. I created a simple GUI to simplify this for the command-line-allergic like me, but there’s now a better one available from Activity Workshop. It’s open-source (written in Java), checks to make sure you’re not overwriting another file (which mine doesn’t), and also lets you combine multiple .img files into a single file:
Hopefully some of the command-line options will be added to a future version.
Also available from Activity Workshop is a program called osmwrangler. OSM files often contain not just road data, but also locations for amenities like restaurants, parks, doctors, theaters, prisons, etc.; a full list is available here. These will be converted by mkgmap into points on the Garmin map, regardless of whether you want them or not. osmwrangler gives you the option of removing whichever amenity types you don’t want in your map, and generating a new OSM file without them that you can then run through mkgmap. Oddly enough, it’s only currently available in command-line format.
