OpenStreetMap logo OpenStreetMap

Lots of GPS traces!

Posted by Sam Wilson on 22 October 2010 in English.

I have recently been given permission from the company that I work for to upload the GPS traces from our fleet of vehicles. These are twenty or so trucks and 4WDs that travel the length and breadth of the south-west of Western Australia, often along small roads and farm tracks, etc. They each have a GPS tracker taking readings at 30s intervals and sending these (when possible; there's a delay when out of range) back to a central server via the GSM network.

I get hold of these traces as week-by-week NMEA files (containing all vehicles' data), and convert them to GPX with this gpsbabel command. Then I upload them. They're about 15000-20000 points each.

I'm going to try to get the sampling frequency increased, because there's lots of areas for which these points are too far apart. Although, I guess as the density of points increases (i.e. from multiple trips along the same roads) the topography will become clearer.

Now, the tracing begins! :-) If anyone wants to help....

ځای: West End, Fremantle, City of Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia
Email icon Bluesky Icon Facebook Icon LinkedIn Icon Mastodon Icon Telegram Icon X Icon

Discussion

په 22 October 2010 په 10:51 باندې د lebsanbe تبصره

Great! keep up the good work!

په 22 October 2010 په 15:12 باندې د PurpleMustang تبصره

What type of highway classification would you prefer?

په 22 October 2010 په 16:07 باندې د Sam Wilson تبصره

@PurpleMustang: I've just been doing highway=road, because really I haven't got any more of an idea of what the roads are like out there. What other options do you think would be appropriate?

په 22 October 2010 په 20:04 باندې د malenki تبصره

A link to the account on which you upload the traces or a link to the traces itself would be helpful. So one would know where to start mapping.

په 22 October 2010 په 23:54 باندې د dle0 تبصره

Many thanks to your company for letting you do this!
I see only a handful of traces at osm.org/user/Sam%20Wilson/traces
Is this the right place to look?

په 23 October 2010 په 00:57 باندې د WarrenP تبصره

Sam, I am happy to help. I also live in Perth (Sawyers Valley). I know the south west very well. I am new to OSM but it looks not that difficult.

په 23 October 2010 په 01:29 باندې د Sam Wilson تبصره

@malenki, @David Leonard: Yes, I'm uploading them under this username. However, the ones I've done so far I did as private, but of course that's really not going to work is it? I've modified the timestamps, and removed a massive chunk of the Perth metro area (I figured on uploading as private before I'd sorted out how to do these things), so I'll change them to public (later; "The GPX file upload system is currently unavailable").

@WarrenP: Welcome! OSM is certainly not that difficult; it's local knowledge that makes all the difference, I think. Lots of the traces I'll be uploading will be for areas about which I know nothing, so your help will be great. What editor are you using? (May I recommend Merkaartor?)

په 23 October 2010 په 05:18 باندې د WarrenP تبصره

I added a couple of roads in my area just using the online editor, seems fine but I can see a bit restricted. I have now downloaded Meraartor, seems fairly intuitive. It is certainly an advantage not having to upload the .gpx files. Especialy since there seems to be a problem at the moment, I just get a 404 error.
I am happy to help when I can, just need access to your .gpx data.

ننوتل to leave a comment