[OSM-talk] Finding a particular street on the GPS

[Karl Newman]

> On Dec 20, 2007 12:50 AM, Karl Newman <siliconfiend at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Dec 19, 2007 12:43 AM, Lambertus <osm at na1400.info> wrote:
> > > demuire wrote:
> > > > I've been using OSM on my Garmin eTrex Legend more or less since I
> bought it,
> > > > it's great :)  Would love it more if it was auto routing, but I
> suppose I
> > > > can't get everything I want  Well, not right away anyway...
> > > >
> > > > Anyway, one thing that I'd really really like though, is to be able to
> find
> > > > a street. For example, say I know that I need to go to X street, but I
> have
> > > > no idea where it is. I'd like to be able to use perhaps the Find
> function on
> > > > the GPS to at least tell me where it is, so that I know at least
> roughly how
> > > > to get there...
> > > >
> > > > Is this possible? If not, can I make my maps better in any way to make
> it
> > > > possible? Will using the "is in" tag make it possible?
> > > >
> > > What you're describing here is adding all the streets to the POI list I
> > > guess. While that should be possible, I wonder if it would be workable
> > > with all those streets that are named the same in different cities.
> >
> > If you're talking about maps for a Garmin GPS, I believe there's a
> > special index that is created just for streets. If you look at the
> > various modes and licensing options for cGPSMapper, the ability to
> > search by address or street intersection is one of the premium
> > features.
> >
> > Karl
>
> Thanks for pointing that out Karl.  Wow, USD800!   I wonder how much the
> Shareware (USD25) does, it sounds like it only indexes the cities and POI's
> (I would assume by POI it would mean like tourist attractions, parking
> etc?).  If it at least does suburbs then it could be almost what I'm looking
> for...

Actually, for the full-featured version that does everything with no
restrictions, it's USD2800... However, you can get free access to that
version online if you're willing to share your maps with the world.
It's at mapcenter.cgpsmapper.com The other complicating factor is that
there is currently no path from OSM data to cGPSMapper format. That's
a project I'm planning, but I need to get some key pieces in place
first. I actually rewrote the osmgarminmap XSLT stylesheet to
transform OSM data into routable cGPSMapper format, but xsltproc
chokes on even moderate-sized data (10 MB), so it's not usable.

The other big factor is that there is no agreement on how to do
street/house numbers yet, so there's limited data in OSM anyway. I've
discussing the proposal on the Wiki recently and it's been a bit
frustrating because nobody seems to get my point.

Karl