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Free Map Repositories? 14

Posted by Cliff from the digital-ortho-quad dept.
mapless asks: "I have recently begun working on a car-based computer for music and other tasks. I thought that it would be a good idea to include mapping software. The problem is that I do not want to be tied to specific commercial packages (which are mostly Windows based), and I don't want to be tied to a specific OS (this will start out as a Windows machine and migrate into a Linux system when I learn more). I thought about just downloading a LOAD of images from Yahoo or Mapquest, but that would be pointless and redundant. Is there a map database that one can freely access, possibly with sample code on how to manipulate the map? I think this is valid for Web sites, not just a car computer, as well, since all maps on the Net are from propietary databases."
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Free Map Repositories? More

Free Map Repositories?

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  • The TIGER database is also available, along with a mailing list talking about it, courtesy of Bruce Perens, who sprang a few hundred (thousand?) bucks to buy the CD-ROMs and put them on the net. It's more of a research project than a product, however. You can start looking at his Free software website [perens.com]; it's the top item in the list.

  • AFAIK there isn't a lot of open-source GIS code available

    Actually, there is a substantial GIS known as GRASS [baylor.edu] that is open source. fink

  • TIGER is the starting point from which most other mapping databases are derived, but it has a lot of limitations. It was developed by the Census Bureau to aid in their assigned tasks. But since it was really the only nationwide streets database out there, it quickly became the basis for all sorts of electronic maps.

    Problems with TIGER include positional accuracy, missing road segments, etc. Census would love to make corrections, enhancements, and improvements to the basic TIGER data, but Congress won't allocate the funds, since making navigational databases isn't part of the Census Bureau's job...
  • I believe ESRI is one of the standard formats, but you should also look into GeoTIFF, coming out of JPL.
  • Have you considered buying yourself an Empeg - http://www.empeg.com - and possibly linking it to a Palm - http://geek.empeg.com/developer/projects.html
    -- Andrem
  • Check your local University, UKY/kentucky Geological Survey sells maps and GIS data dirt cheap, its really looks like a kickback scheme though.

    Arch Coal (Ashland/Valvoline/You name it in American petrochem industry) ponies up big cash for Mining Engineering program and building, coal liquification projects, etc.

    Kentucky Geological Survey and UK researchers collect and process the data, saves arch/ashland/peabody coal from having to map and process every strip-mine and coal vein in the state.

  • everything the US government has ever released and a whole lot more is at GIS Data Depot [gisdatadepot.com] and links referenced therein
  • Also, you may want some onboard navigational hardware for the short-distance stuff. Something like a microcontroller on the serial port of your linux box talking to a set of acceleromters. This allows your nav machine to know instantaeously your real ground speed, and the exact time and direction of any turns or curves you make. Correlating this with GPS and map inputs can make it much more magical than gps/mapping alone.
  • A good open-source Java program is "OpenMap". It is available at: http://openmap.bbn.com/
  • The US Geological Survey [usgs.gov] might have what you need.
  • I think that in addition to the maps, you are going to need the software to interface with them. Mapquest (et. al.) do a lot of processing when you say, "Get me from pt. A to pt. B". I don't know if you program/etc... But your solution may be to chop up a number of parts and combine. You might even be able to do this with some sort of windows scripting.

    You'll need a few things (if you wanna have something that's cool:
    • A reasonably accurate GPS to give you a longitude/latitude (I believe "Trimble" makes some good ones).
    • Some software that can figure out what street/address you are on/at based on the gps reading.
    • THEN, you need the mapping software to help you get from pt. A to pt. B
    It's potentially a lot of work (but could be a lot of fun to). As a side note: I think that MS Streets isn't all that expensive. I imagine you are spending a little bit in the process of building this "device". You should see what it costs; I've seen it bundled with GPSs before. Streets also has cool functionality like, "Show me all chinese restuarants within 5 miles."

    Just a thought...

    -andy
  • You're looking at GIS, aka geographic information systems. The primal source of a lot of GIS data is the U.S. Geological Survey. Start at mapping.usgs.gov. Those maps you see on Yahoo or Mapblast aren't images per se - or at least there isn't any huge database of image files to download. It's a giant vector database of vectors and points, roads and geographic features and bodies of water and points and what-have-you, built into an image on the fly.

    GIS is a really neat topic, but not a simple one. You have a significant learning curve ahead of you... AFAIK there isn't a lot of open-source GIS code available. A few national laboratories and other similar places have some code available. But not much. Most of the coding seems to be done by closed-source shops like ESRI.

    --
    Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
  • If you only want US map data, the Census Bureau has public domain map data files at, for example, http://www.census.gov/geo/tigerline/tl_1998.html [census.gov]. There may be newer versions available elsewhere on their site. They have documentation on the database fields, etc., and I think even some example code. It's all nice and free.
  • Hey,

    You'll need a few things (if you wanna have something that's cool: A reasonably accurate GPS to give you a longitude/latitude.

    Onve you start getting your GPS and your computer and your software and everything, the price would be getting pretty high... You could just get yourself a Garmin GPS III Plus [garmin.com] with it's own built-in maps and screen, or something similar. It'll probably be cheaper and easier all round.

    Michael

    ...another comment from Michael Tandy.

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