[Spam?] Re: google earth - [was: Re: Another simple GPS+GPRSidea]

[Richard Franks]

On 11/28/06, Sam Kome <sam.kome at motricity.com> wrote:
> I _love_ the idea of openstreetmap, but truly doubt that it will retain
> enough dedicated participants over time.  Initial capture is not enough;
> eternal vigilance is needed to recapture the data everytime a bulldozer
> appears or a planning committee renumbers the addresses.

I disagree, I'm not a GIS-ologist, but my assumptions is that
OpenStreetmap, or a similar project, will continue to grow slowly
until:
a) GPS devices become ubiquitous, as does the technology to streamline
and facilitate the acquisition and syncronisation of 'tagging' info.
b) Some corporate or governmental agency acquires the rights to place
such streetmap data into the public domain. Likely a result of
widespread GPS adoption (a).

You are right in that if you look at who is creating these uploads, it
is mostly a small subset of devotees.. however for all the towns and
cities I've lived in, the actual street layouts and names don't change
terribly often.

One thing the Neo1973 should be able to do easily, which would
differentiate it somewhat, is that it could time its GPS acquisitions
to fill in the missing datapoints, by comparing existing datapoints -
if a road takes a sharp bend, the extent of which is not picked up by
the first pass:

.------- at ---
|
@
 |

Then the Neo could compare its own vectors, and the timestamps for the
first pass.. and flesh out the missing corner, add a few more passes
and you've boosted your accuracy.

Dedicated participants, as you say, are only required at the
early-adoption stage because they are the ones who end up creating the
mechanisms which the masses end up using?

Richard