| Malta gaining speed on OpenStreetMap
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| Written by HiVoltage |
Thursday, 06 December 2007
Up till a few years ago, you simply couldn't get a good GPS road map
for Malta. Then came along Medcomms and Datatrak who compiled a
complete street map for the Maltese islands. While this was a very
positive step in the right direction, the Garmin software they are
selling complete with the Maltese maps will cost you Lm89, and that
will only work on a selection of Windows Mobile and Symbian
smartphones. Even if that price is acceptable for you, it would still be nice to have a number of options to choose from. Now, a new solution is brewing.
Unless you've been living under a rock for the last half decade or so, you know about Wikipedia. Like almost any other website, it started as a small operation, and it grew up to become one of the top 10 most visited website, and the single most complete encyclopedia ever written. The trick? Let the general public do it on voluntary basis!
OpenStreetMap takes the idea from Wikipedia, but this time, instead of an encyclopedia, it's a street map - of the whole planet. The project has started around 3 years ago, but it's only recently that it is gaining a boost in popularity. Unlike Wikipedia, the project is nowhere near completion, however, work is actively being done, especially in Europe and the US. In Malta, up till 3 weeks ago, you could see almost nothing but an outline - today, although the roads aren't even 10% done yet, the rate in which they are increasing is nothing short of being impessive. The current map (at the time of writing) can be seen below.
For those of you who are curious, OpenStreetMap contributors work by first taking a GPS receiver with them wherever they go and record their tracks. Once at home, the tracks can then copied on the map and traced (manually or automatically) in order to create streets. The idea is to have a map of the whole planet that is free for everyone to use. Also, although at the moment most of the software that can make use of the free maps is very basic - it just shows the map, the whole project is built with the plan to support turn-by-turn routing in the future, and some route generators are already in place.
So, apparently in a few months' time, we will have a good Maltese map which anyone can use for reference, and GPS mapping and routing, especially if more Maltese contributors join in. Therefore, if you already own GPS hardware, you may start recording your tracks and contribute to the project. Also, if you happen to own a common mobile phone that supports J2ME applications and Bluetooth, all you need is a Bluetooth GPS receiver that can be bought for less than Lm20, and a J2ME application that can be downloaded for free.
You can see the current status by visiting this link.
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 06 December 2007 ) |
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