OpenStreetMap
My latest trick is to prop my smartphone up on the dash and have it record video while it also does a track. Then I narrate the streets while I drive. This seems to work for about one hour of driving. The phone also gets pretty hot, which is disturbing.
Audio cut out at about 1 hour 15 so while I had video and a track, I don't know what the roads were at the end. I guess I'll have to redo that section one day.
Discussion
Comment from kubth on 4 October 2010 at 02:19
Nice idea, my phone mount should let me film the road ahead without obscuring the lens!
Comment from geografa on 4 October 2010 at 07:16
May I suggest a used Canon Sureshot loaded with CHDK? That way you can set it for one shot every 5 seconds or what ever you choose and use your phone for narration; avoid heat/battery drain. Of course, you'd need to sync it later but you can always take a picture of your phone's time for that.
Comment from Sanderd17 on 4 October 2010 at 15:27
What program/plugin do you use to sync the gpx track and the video file?
Comment from dle0 on 5 October 2010 at 06:31
Thankyou for all the comments, everyone!
@Sanderd17: No special program. I kind of use osm's animated-gif thing to show me my track, but because i was driving new areas I just followed the blue line in potlach while I played my video in vlc on a separate monitor. I mapped as the video played, pause/rewind/speedup replay words. It's great.
I tried it out again this evening but it was dark, so the video was useless. However I did keep talking, explaining which direction I thought I was driving, and naming street signs as I peered at them driving by. I only had two near-accidents, and had to stop constantly to refer to a printout indicating which areas I wanted to visit, so I think I won't be doing night time mapping again. Maybe lunchtime.
One good thing is that I have solved the problem of the phone falling off the dash (usually during a near-accident). I have some little fabric bags of rice that my wife used to microwave as an alternative to a hot water bottle. If you have a long sock and some uncooked rice anyone could probably make something similar. The phone nestles in it pretty well. I admit a mounting bracket would probably be better though.