I hooked up with TeleAtlas, they have map data for the US, Canada and Western Europe. Who's interested? I have contact information for director there.

Calvin

I am, but basicaly only from an end user point of view. Unless they've got an SDK I could get my hands on and play with a bit, but I have no expereience with raw map data. This is definitly good news though.

Matthew

Well, I also have contacts at NavTech. Anything having to do with these guys will cost $$$$$$. Navtech is the only one that allows several companies to group together to buy the data. Still interested?

Calvin

I hooked up with TeleAtlas, they have map data for the US, Canada and Western Europe. Who's interested? I have contact information for director there.

Which way interested? If you can get the format specification for TeleAtlas CDs that are publicly sold, that would be interesting, but as it's major part of their business, I seriously doubt that.

The other choice would be to get data for people around the area they live in a format to which we have the specification. However, as the quantities according to earlier polls show that without bigger advertisement we're talking about 20-50 people here, the cost for single data set is likely to be very expensive.

Kim

The TeleAtlas guy says that unless it's more than 10,000 units sold, it probably wouldn't be worth it to you.

Calvin

What about auto navigation CDs? I think TeleAtlas provides auto navigation providers like BMW with their data. Is it the data you need or the specification that's most important? I wonder how hard it would be to determine the specification of the TeleAtlas CDs just by examining it?

Greg

What about auto navigation CDs? I think TeleAtlas provides auto navigation providers like BMW with their data. Is it the data you need or the specification that's most important? I wonder how hard it would be to determine the specification of the TeleAtlas CDs just by examining it?

The specification. If you have no clue on the format, it's quite difficult to figure it out .

Kim

Hi, Kim.

I guess you already heard of the open Sdal format, but in case you didn't, would this be of any interest for you?

http://www.gis-management.de/update/sdal.htm

and

http://www.sdalformat.com

or

http://www.navtech.com/sdalformat/index.html

Thank you for your "work" on the matter...

Best regards,

Alberto

Have you seen this site on the specifications of the GDF-file format (used by Teleatlas) yet?

http://www.ertico.com/links/gdf/gdf.htm

That's... very interesting. Thank you.

Hi,

i was just reading again posts about Kim Salo's gps navigation software. I've searched the forum and found this thread as the latest Kim posted something. Does anyone know why he did not post anymore? I mean, he had a complete real time routing solution and now we have the specs for the gdf format with CD's available from Tele Atlas. I've read that some of you e-mailed him and also that some have a copy of the program. Why can't we put the puzzle together?

cheers
Thorsten

Hi!

I heart nothing from Kim and I'm still converting routes configured on the PC to the empeg.

The activities with Tigermap data are also interesting, but they actually do not support any format suitable for Europe. So I have no chance but keep on waiting as I'm not too famous in programming.

Juergen

At one time I know he was pondering the possibility of selling his navigation solution once he had developed it sufficiently. I don't know when or why the idea lost steam. I do know that he never showed any interest in sharing it or open-sourcing it because he planned to sell it later. Now that some years have passed, I would hope he'd consider releasing it.

I don't know how to contact Kim. He doesn't seem to read the forum anymore. The only e-mail adress I've found while reading the old threads was kim@remedy.fi . I didn't write him, though. In one thread I've found that Rob once had a copy of Kim's software. I don't know if he's also got the source code nor if he had to sign a contract or something ;-)
I've tried to find affordable map data in the GDF or Shapefile format, but without sucess. The only maps TeleAtlas offers are in the proprietary format of the navigation system you bought it for. I don't see a way to convert the data on such a CD back into an open standard. I'm alway a bit sad if I think about gps navigation on the empeg, because we have the hardware and software... If only we had map data...

The only thing I found out is that the proprietary navigation systems of the manufacturers all use the same map data, mostly from TeleAtlas. You find map CDs from the manufacturers but can also finf TeleAtlas CDs suitable for many manufacturers.

What I also found out (at least I thought so) is that some of the TeleAtlas CDs use the GDF or Shapefile format and should therefore be useable for this project.

see:
http://exchange.manifold.net/manifold/manuals/5_userman/mfd50Import_Drawing__GDF.htm

or:
http://www.na.teleatlas.com/products/formats.html

or:
http://www.imit.uni-hildesheim.de/Firmenbesuche_SS01/bericht_teleatlas.asp

or:
http://www.megatel.de/down_rtf/teleatlas_geodaten030724.pdf

Has anybody a map CD from TeleAtlas or one of the car manufacturers to compare it with the GDF specification?

It could also be a way to use the source code of the roadmap project ( see http://empeg.comms.net/php/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=hackers_prog&Number=187407&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1 ) and adopt it to the GDF format.

Juergen

As far as I know, the TeleAtlas CD's for navigation systems are not in the GDF format but in a non open, specific format developed by the manufacturer of the navigation system. I think that TeleAtlas has a product called MultiNet, which ist *very* expensive - but in the gdf format.
It might be possible that one nav. sys. manufacturer didn't develop a proprietary format and uses gdf files directly with the system or didn't chage the format much so it is easy to get the data we need.

I am one of the people that had a copy of Kim's software. Like ynot said he didn't want to release it until he was "done" with it. I am not sure if he would have charged for it, or how he would feel about releasing the source now.

After he gave up on the tiger data he was looking into extracting the map data from Garmin's routing CDs. As I understand it he made some significant progress extracting basic data (what road you are on for a give long/lat, etc), but was having more problems deciphering their routing network (data that defined which roads intersected, etc). Anyway, I think he gave up on that due to the questionable legality of releasing any software that reverse engineered their proprietary format.

The last email I got from him was a little over a year ago (from that remedy.fi address posted already). At the time he still sounded interested in the project, but was stumped by the lack of map data.

Has anybody reviewed the tiger2002 data? The tiger data I was using with Kim's software was from 2000 and by far the biggest problem was the lack of data about one-way streets. I am wondering if the '02 data has any additional street info.

-Mike

Slightly off topic, but the last time I saw Kim's name was in the closing credits for Max Payne 2.

It was quite near the top of the list as I recall, so I guess that's what has been keeping him busy for a while!

Have you seen this?

cheers
Thorsten

Now I'm flabbergasted - he already was able to extract the map data from a source available worldwide?
mcomb, do you also have the source code? Since you've allready had e-mail contact with kim, would you mind trying to re-encourage him?

PS: After a quick look at the TIGER web site, I didn't see anything about one-ways.

Now I'm flabbergasted - he allready was able to extract the map data from a source available worldwide?

Well, like I said, only part of it. The road network would be required for accurate routing and as far as I know he never deciphered that. And there is the legal issues, the DMCA in the US and similar laws in parts of Europe make it dangerous to provide information on reverse engineering these formats.

mcomb, do you also have the source code?

Nope, just a build or two he did for me to test the tiger data with, and I promised him I wouldn't give these builds to anyone else.

Since you've allready had e-mail contact with kim, would you mind trying to re-encourage him?

You know, I tried that already more than a year ago. Unless I can point him at a cheap or free map datasource that is more accurate than tiger2000 and has an available, open, specification I don't think we are going to get much from him

-Mike

Tiger 2002 does not have one-way info. This is one of the reasons the Roadmap project has not attempted to make a route-finding feature yet. If and when Roadmap has a route-finding feature GPSApp-Roadmap will (one way or the other).

Hi everyone
I need yor help. I am doing to try out writing a tool to coversion from gdf to shp and reverse but I meet difficulties. Have you got this tool?
Thank you
ps: my email is tonygisphan@gmail.com

Yes, I have seen this site http://www.ertico.com/links/gdf/gdf.htm. I think I can writing program to read a gdf file but I can not convert to shp. Can you help me?
Regards

I am. Can you give me a demo gdf data to test my program?