Happy Birthday, OpenStreetMap(tomtom.com) |
Happy Birthday, OpenStreetMap(tomtom.com) |
Congrats for your courage Tomtom! If I ever plan to buy a GPS or navigation device, I'll certainly consider your history.
Very likely they use OpenStreetMaps to enrich their data and it's nice to see that they contribute back.
Happy to answer any questions...
- provide OSM as a second option in their map products
- gradually switch over from proprietary data to OSM
- switch to OSM but only in select countries
- do something else entirely?
There is also a layer named OSM202106 (the default is OSM202103) with even less coverage (e.g. not France), but covering all of the Netherlands rather than just a part of it and covering the USA east coast.
- The resolution is so low, it's really hard to tell if there might be missing roads/routes or if this concerns water/rail.
- There are so many water/rail mistakes, there is red everywhere also in areas where I know every road in existence is on there. You have to evaluate each tile manually for all of the covered landmass.
- Just taking out air/rail/water might not solve the problem. Looking in residential areas with no water or rail nearby, there are still yellow tiles popping up at random with no indication as to why. Having the offending trace(s) would be really helpful here, but those are of course not shareable for privacy reasons. Perhaps short cutouts could be shared that are between 25 and 75% of the route (so not near the source or destination)? That would make it very clear if the person is on a bus (that obviously won't follow the shortest path in most cases) because the trace would go past the bus stops and often linger there, or if it was a cyclist for example.
As a frequent OSM contributor I love such initiatives and I'm very happy to see TomTom getting more involved. TomTom's map quality is so far behind OSM (globally), I was wondering who'd even still considering buying from them so it makes a lot of sense to combine forces instead. User data is the main advantage Google has over OSM, for both live traffic and purposes like these, so I'm very happy to see innovation here! I'll definitely be checking out updates to the site.
I guess there's lots of useful information for improving routing algorithms in the raw data. I too am skeptical about its usefulness for mapping.
HN certainly has a side that loves open-source data, but it also has a privacy-loving side. Focusing on the privacy aspects, has TomTom given any consideration to how it respects the privacy of its users/does it allow for opt-out of storing and analyzing its users' GPS traces?
I think you can find the apk at oruxmaps.com
> to OpenStreeMaps
Can I suggest you also try DerStefan's OpenTopoMap, at opentopomap.org .
Also, through the GitHub based instructions from DerStefan, you can build your own maps (tiles). It is an job requiring equipment and time, but it can lead to amazing results (well above the maps you can find around).
...but then newer devices only work with newer versions of the service, for which you haven't got a lifetime subscription. Eventually, your old TomTom stops working and your subscription is now worthless so you have to buy a new one.
Data quality can be a problem, where the company data source does not match reality (anymore). Or it's difficult for the community to verify your data and be convinced your quality is good, especially if there are other concerns about your edits.
OpenStreetMap operates on soft consensus and can have multiple acceptable ways of doing a thing. Mass-editing that converts one form to other is frowned upon unless wide agreement that one way is deprecated has been sought. Often related to the first point, when company tooling prefers one style or employees only have been taught about one method, but in an area the other mapping style is widely used.
Similarly, communication to resolve conflicts can be lacking: if another editor challenges what you are doing (because they think you made a mistake or are overstepping norms), you need to react and fairly consider their point. OSM has clear expectations that if you are doing coordinated edits you clearly identify and announce your work and respect feedback.
Data sources/licenses can be a concern: what you find acceptable to import into your company database might not be acceptable to include into OpenStreetMap, and how does the community tell that your data is good and won't get the project in trouble later?
Or making mass edits / imports without discussing with local community beforehand.
Or as in the first point, but with "AI" as FB did.