The War of the Maps

Sponge Bob

Lets see.

1. Standalone GPS units now heading for 10% of the market.
2. Best maps ( of Ireland) now belong to NOKIA who seem to be in rapid and terminal decline.
3. Openstreetmap growing strongly.
4. Bing about to release very high res aerial which will allow for accelerated completion of OSM in Europe ( you can trace off them in OSM) and the imagery is due this month.

And Now.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18348674

Reports suggest Apple may abandon Google Maps next week at its annual developer conference.
They suggest Apple may announce its own mapping application to replace Google Maps on its smartphones and tablets.

I suspect Apple will go with Navteq/Nokia or with OSM...we'll know soon.

DublinDilbert

I find osm very good both for on road and off road, trails etc. I can only see osm getting better and better as time goes on.

I'm running nav-free on the iPhone and it works quite well. Haven't used the garmin in a few years.

IrlJidel

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Lets see.

3. Openstreetmap growing strongly.
4. Bing about to release very high res aerial which will allow for accelerated completion of OSM in Europe ( you can trace off them in OSM) and the imagery is due this month.

Some of the Bing/Digital Globe Precison Aeriel imagery is already released:

See if you can notice where the imagery ends on the OSM map ;-)
http://osm.org/go/etjKcR

damo86

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0607/breaking12.html

Google maps going offline as well, futures looking bright!

Alun

IrlJidel wrote: »

Some of the Bing/Digital Globe Precison Aeriel imagery is already released:

That looks quite impressive, although some of the the imagery I looked at around Lugnaquilla and Glenmalure appears to have been taken with the sun quite low in the sky which results in some long shadows. Not a big problem on flat ground, although up on the hills a lot of landscape detail is obscured by shadow.

BTW are there no copyright issues with tracing aerial imagery data for OSM like this?

IrlJidel

Alun wrote: »

That looks quite impressive, although some of the the imagery I looked at around Lugnaquilla and Glenmalure appears to have been taken with the sun quite low in the sky which results in some long shadows. Not a big problem on flat ground, although up on the hills a lot of landscape detail is obscured by shadow.

The imagery available so far was gathered on 6/7 November 2011. There was a thread in Wexford forum where we sleuthed the date until I could confirm the exact date from some bing imagery metadata:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=76247600

Alun wrote: »

TBTW are there no copyright issues with tracing aerial imagery data for OSM like this?

Bing have given OSM permission to use their imagery for tracing. The imagery is available as a background in the Potlatch2 (P2) online editor and the Josm java desktop editor.

Once all of Ireland is covered this will be a game changer for expanding OSM coverage here.

We also have a one-inch War Office GSGS4136 map available in P2 and JOSM. I (badly) rectified it for NLS (National Libray of Scotland). While it is not good enough to trace geometry, in combination with bing imagery we can armchair map and name most rivers, streams etc and some locality names.

Sponge Bob

No idea whose map base Apple are using but Apple Maps were launched yesterday

Alun wrote: »

BTW are there no copyright issues with tracing aerial imagery data for OSM like this?

If the new imagery shows up in the OSM Potlatch editor you are entirely free to trace features off it. It was incorrectly registered in the past...Galway imagery was shifted a few meters off true to the N and E so hopefully they fixed that.

Take a few accurate fixes on street corners and check them for the area you are mapping.

Mr Simpson

Sponge Bob wrote: »

No idea whose map base Apple are using but Apple Maps were launched yesterday

Apple are using tomtom as their map provider

source

KoolKid

And Google are moving away from Tele Atlas (Tom Tom)