Real-Time Collaborative Mapmaking

savetz writes "Throughout October and November, citizens of Amsterdam were invited to wear a GPS tracker as they went about their lives. Their whereabouts were forwarded to a server which created a map of the city in real-time, based on "the sheer movements of real people." The site includes aggregate maps, and those created by individuals, including a subway driver, cyclist, and marathon trainer."

Re:Subway driver?

[inteller]

actually GPS in it's purest form could never map the subway, just places where it went above ground. TO map underground they'd need some sort of OnStar type system that relied on more than just a GPS signal.

Re:Subway driver?

[CrazyJoel]

The a lot of the "subway" in Amsterdam is above ground.

Re:reminds me of the half a car joke

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, except traffic counters dont count in .5 cars. If one axle somehow did not trip the air tube, it would show up as one full car short (depending on tube and machine setup).

Re:How can I do this?

[faeryman]

It's not too hard! I'm interested in this sort of thing too.

You'll need some software to gather your paths from the GPS, and some digital maps to overlay them on.

Some of the popular software is EasyGPS for the PC, and GPSy [gpsy.com] and MacGPS [macgpspro.com] Pro for the Mac. You can download a free version of each.

The maps are a little harder to come by though. Here is a list to get you started. [gpsy.com] Some are free, some cost up to about $100 depending on size, scale, and detail. You can scan in your paper maps and calibrate them in some software too.

I think this is really cool - I'd like to have a map of North America and see where all I've been :)

Re:uh, hello?

[faeryman]

I know this is halfjoking, but ...GPS units like the ones used in this example do not transmit your position, only triangulate it and store it locally. Someone has to download all the routes off of it to track you.

Some systems (like the vehicle locator systems) use a satellite uplink though to transmit the position given off by the GPS though. This is totally different than Big Brother stalking you just because you bought an eTrex :) But it is possible for it to happen given the proper combos of technology.

Re:Who do you trust?

[nairnr]

If you want to see something of interest that does this check out Houston Live Traffic [tamu.edu] They use toll-booth transponders with sensors every 1-5 miles. This then gives them a live map of average traffic flow. They also have web cams at various spots.
Overall this is an excellent demonstration of this kind of technology.

Re:Excellent!

[RackinFrackin]

What mapmaking (GIS) software do you use?

I'm not the original poster, but I've been doing a similar thing for a while. Whenever I go on a trip, I map it out with my etrex, then upload the data into my computer using gpstrans (google should turn it up.) and a homemade cable.

Gpstrans can download tracks and waypoints. They are downloaded and stored as a tab-delimited ascii file. A really simple perl script turns then data into two columns of (x,y) coordinates that GnuPlot can display. You can even get GnuPlot to plot the tracks as pixel-sized points, and the waypoints as larger points on the graph.

Gpstrans and Gnuplot are both really simple, open source, and work great. I've had a lot of fun using this setup, and I've mapped a lot of highways in the southeast US.