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<p class="MsoNormal">Hi Guys,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I am a researcher at Microsoft and I am currently working on the road detector.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I joined a bit late and can’t post answers in the existing road detector thread, but I might be able to provide some additional info regarding the road detector.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is *<b>FAR</b>* from being perfect, but in our experiments it may produce a lot of value (== save time) if you use it correctly. When use it correctly means don’t expect too much, so here are some practical tips:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2"><![if !supportLists]><span style="mso-list:Ignore">1.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span><![endif]><span dir="LTR"></span>It is currently uses the two end points as example and tries to find a path that is similar to those examples, so it is recommended to use the tool at a zoom level that will let you make sure you click on a road
and not near a road (we will probably loosen that restriction in the future).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2"><![if !supportLists]><span style="mso-list:Ignore">2.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span><![endif]><span dir="LTR"></span>Don’t try to challenge the detector too much, it will probably fail, instead if you have a very complicated winding road break it into a few sections and let it detect shorter legs (it will still save you most
of the clicks…)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2"><![if !supportLists]><span style="mso-list:Ignore">3.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span><![endif]><span dir="LTR"></span>One of the main features used is color, so if the road changes its color a lot, break it again into shorter legs.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2"><![if !supportLists]><span style="mso-list:Ignore">4.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span><![endif]><span dir="LTR"></span>We currently only compute one path (road) between the points and cannot provide a meaningful score for that path. Defining a score is a difficult problem (but we are open to ideas…).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2"><![if !supportLists]><span style="mso-list:Ignore">5.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span><![endif]><span dir="LTR"></span>To speed things up, we are using a bounding box that is in many cases smaller than the bounding box provided by the client (we take constant margins around the bounding box defined by the two end points). This
means that if you click on the two end points of a U shaped road we might truncate the lower part of the U and find a “shortcut “ through buildings, fields, etc. And again you’ll need to break the query into shorter legs… (I am currently working on speeding
things up and I hope to get rid of this limitation in a week)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2"><![if !supportLists]><span style="mso-list:Ignore">6.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span><![endif]><span dir="LTR"></span>The algorithm is currently ignoring junctions, but I should be able to add them very soon (early next week)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That is for road detection. The other mode we will provide is road exploration which will enable finding all the roads in a certain bounding box (well, you’ll probably need to click once or twice…) I am not sure if there is an exposed version
of this service (I hope not, since so far it is really a bunch of experiments…) but we should have it really soon (a week or two). For the road exploration we will probably have some kind of certainty level for each road segment.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I will be very happy to hear of any complaints/requests/places where you think the detector should work but it fails/any other feedback.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thanks,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ido<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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