FOSSGIS is a non profit organisation and represents both the local chapter of OSGeo and the german OSM community. This year’s conference takes place in Heidelberg, Germany.

Besides other talks, Christian Vetter and Dennis Luxen, the propellerheads behind MoNav and OSRM respectively, offer a talk about their products.

RoutinoFrontend

I’ve just released Routino Frontend to the world wild web. The current code needs manual installation. A proper installer will be created only in case I see there’s some interest in this application.

Routino Frontend will start the GPS subsystem and allow you to get the current GPS location as departure or destination. Additionally, up to three via points are accepted.

To get the coordinates for via or destination points, go to Mappero, point the map to the desired location, press the left uppermost on-screen button, choose »Show Position« and copy it to the device’s clipboard.

After a route is calculated, the resulting file will be placed in the documents folder of the device, ready to be loaded into Mappero or Maep.

The code is in its early stages and needs refactoring. Please note that the current frontend will invoke routino in blocking mode. As soon as you process a route, Routino Frontend will not return before it finished. In case you calculate a long route, this means that Routino will eat all your CPU, memory, swap memory and battery power until it has done its job (which means that you probably need to remove the battery to quit it).

If you are more familiar with Python (and especially its subprocess module) as I am and you can help to add a nice cancel button which reliably kills Routino please drop me a line.

Waypointcatcher on Maemo 5 (aka Fremantle)

As the location API has changed in Fremantle from libgpsbt to liblocation, the previously released version of waypointcatcher won’t do the job on the N900.

I’ve thus updated the python code, which despite its C&P nature just »works for me«. I’ll share the application on request, until I find the time to do the necessary cleanup and to offer a proper point and click installation link.

Its main purpose is to collect waypoints for openstreetmap, as Mapper does not record marks reliably ATM.

A couple of days back, I converted the SRTM dataset into tiles containing OSM contour lines. Meanwhile the tiles are available online. This service is provided by the Stuttgart University of applied Sciences, thanks to the support of Dr. Franz-Josef Behr.

I hope the data is useful for some community work, e.g. tile rendering for slippy maps or rendering contour lines into viewports of mobile devices. If you create publicy available stuff from the data, please drop me a line.

Gebabbel Logo

The current issue 12/2009 of the german »Linux Magazin« features several GPS related articles. On page 40 there’s one about Openstreetmap on mobile devices, especially the N810.

Though I have written some papers for various conferences, it was a completely new experience to prepare a manuscript for a magazine and to read the printed transmogrification afterwards. Frankly, I learned a lot. It’s always great to write about things you think you are savvy about, as it closes gaps in your knowledge and forces you to go even more into detail.

I needed to test the latest versions of the software I’ve written about. Many things had changed, so it was essential to try out all commands and listings provided in the article to avoid misinformation.

All in all, a great experience, joy and pleasure. I will happily write another one in case I was asked.

Satellite (by user ivak of openclipart.org, public domain)

Since today, EGNOS is officially up and running. I’m pretty curious whether this will improve the accuracy of positioning data received by my GPS toys.

Andreas Schneider, who also seems to be an GPS enthusiast, just told me that Gebabbel is available for openSuse. The application’s page still does not exist but shoud materialize within a couple of days.

I still find it surprising that its stretch is not as straightforward as usually assumed, especially as there does not seem to be any topological need for the deviations. Maybe they have used existing trails, but if so, I wonder why they followed them without any need. Building a roman highway was expensive, both in terms of money and labour.

Based on a description of a local Wiki, I have added the Landgraben to the openstreetmap database. It’s an old ditch, started back in 1588. Nowadays it’s completely covered in the inner city and part of Karlsruhe’s sewer system. It still gives some places and streets their unique look and (often triangular) shape, like the Lidell- and Ludwigsplatz or the Sophienstraße.

If you want to embed maps in your posts, you might be interested in this plugin.