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
Kommentti käyttäjältä kubth 4. October 2010 klo 02.19
Nice idea, my phone mount should let me film the road ahead without obscuring the lens!
Kommentti käyttäjältä geografa 4. October 2010 klo 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.
Kommentti käyttäjältä Sanderd17 4. October 2010 klo 15.27
What program/plugin do you use to sync the gpx track and the video file?
Kommentti käyttäjältä dle0 5. October 2010 klo 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.