Is There Linux Trip-Planning Software?

Spiral Man writes: "There has been a lot of talk lately about Linux on handheld and embeded device. One interest of particular interest to me is in-dash computers for cars. Probably the most important app for one of these (aside from the CD player) would be a navigation and trip planing package such as DeLorme's Street Atlas, and Microsoft's Streets USA. My question is: Are there any apps, or even plans to write apps like this for Linux. Preferably these would use a commercial, or at least well updated, street database, and would have to be able to track you current location with a GPS." Especially considering the coming flood of GNU/Linux-based handhelds and dashboard computers, this question will be one of the toughies for folks who want to use Free software wherever possible, but who also want the capabilities in applications like Streets USA. Are there any competitors out there in the Free world?

Comments

What kind of trip?

[human bean]

There are some good organic molecular modeling programs out there. Oh, sorry, wrong kind of trip...;)

The problem is not so much the programming, as there are several good public-licensed Geographic Information Systems softwares out there that could be cut down to do the job. The problems is where are you going to get the mapping database?

The owners of the database need to have a huge number of copies sold in order to cover their considerable cost in labor for cleaning up raw data. Maybe what is needed is for the software publishers to piggyback a linux program on to their existing Windoze package.

Re:What kind of trip?

[Bruce Perens]

Note that the GNOME project "gmap" will compress and render this data.

Bruce

Re:What kind of trip?

[SEWilco]

Oh, no, the mapping database (ie "TIGER") for the USA is easily available. It was discussed here on Slashdot some time ago.

A GIS is only enough to help display endpoints. The routing task is the part which I haven't noticed where it is available.

Re:What kind of trip?

[Bryan Andersen]

Where, TIGER Line Data, but first look at Bruce's free software page. The map data is 2.6GBytes at 90% compression. Download the manual first, then and only if you are really going to do mapping software get the data. Better yet only get the data for one state and work with it first. I've been working with a small subset and using a 30GByte scratch space that feels a bit tight. My goal is to reduce it to CD-ROM size but still have a useable data set. Unfortunately I stalled out awhile back on it. I do have a mostly correct set of DB file table and appendix data entered. The errors are easy to spot, I just forgot where they were so the files aren't corrected. Once my life becomes stable again I plan on working on the size reduction again. Disk space was one of the factors that stalled me out.

Easy

[IMZombie]

Use Yahoo Maps. Not platform dependant, easy to use, huge map database. Click "maps" from http://www.yahoo.com

routeplanner

[Spock the Vulcan]

This was added to woody just yesterday - looks very decent. It doesn't do street-to-street routing, but looks pretty good for city-to-city stuff. Has CLI, newt, and gtk interfaces. Grab the source here.

The problem is, Yahoo! Maps sucks

[barzok]

At first glance, it looks good. But start comparing some of its routes to other mapping programs (Rand McNally, for example) and you'll see Yahoo! tends to miss a lot of details and makes you change roads unneccessarily. I've done better than both Yahoo! and PC-based programs just looking at a plain old paper map. A relatively small nitpick about Yahoo! - it figures your time based on a 55MPH average. If you're driving long highway miles, you're going to average a lot better than that.

I just checked 2 routes on Yahoo! Maps, one trip that I've personally driven completely and another that I've done about halfway. One was from my home to Arlington, VA. Where's it take you? Across most of the major highways in southern Pennsylvania, then right down the Baltimore-DC corridor. And then (get this) right through DC and down Pennsylvania Avenue! Get comfy - you'll be sitting still for a while there. I plotted my own route which was faster, shorter, and had much less traffic.

The second route was Boston to Seattle. Still a lot of excess road-switching, and oddly, it didn't route through Ontario between Buffalo, NY and Detroit, MI, which is my preferred route. You miss a number of cities going that way. Also, it keeps you off of I-90 for the majority of the trip, which just about the most direct route.

I'll be sticking with paper maps for a while. If you've got someone riding with you, let them read. And whether you're solo or driving with someone, a stop every few hours along the way to get out and stretch your legs is good for you anyway.

Re:The problem is, Yahoo! Maps sucks

[puppet10]

Yes this is particularly annoying in the west.

The "mapping" programs often choose the state routes because the distances are a bit shorter, but the highways out here often have speed limits of 75mph (compared to 55 or 65 on the state routes).

Also the point about local traffic is well taken, it would be really cool if these planners took into account the time of day you left, the local traffic conditions, and planned alternate routes if you hit certain waypoints in your trip (near high traffic areas) at bad times (ie DC down Pennsylvania or rush hour route 128) where its almost always quicker to go around the traffic even with the lower speed limits and stop lights. Of course this would require a much better database, but would be significantly more useful. I'm surprised someone isn't working/charging for this already (or maybe they are, NDA interviews anyone ;) ).

Re:The problem is, Yahoo! Maps sucks

[SEWilco]

When the mapping programs can't find the address which you gave they are likely to tell you they're routing you to the "city center", which usually is the official coordinates of the city -- City Hall.

Perhaps you didn't notice a city-center message on the screen, and it routed you to the "center" of D.C. (although why it chose D.C. for a Virginia address is interesting).

WINE?

[cheeserd00d]

you could always run one of the windows only trip planning software programs with WINE, though i don't know if they would run at all or if they would be too stable

just an idea

Try this

[GMontag]

From the Netpliance I-Opener hacking board: Great GPS implementation has both Win and Linux stuff in it.

This may be more to the point: GPS for Linux on the same board. Mentions Mayko, which is what I will be trying on my vehicle-mounted I-Opener, but on FreeBSD. Not exactly trip planning software, but covers the navigation portion of your question.

Visit DC2600

Crown Copyright Issues

[shippo]

In the UK most if not all road atlas publishers license their mapping infomation off the Ordanance Survey, a government body who publishes maps on various scales of the whole country. This ensures that they get up-to-date details, as road layout are always changing, and road numbers have a habit of being changed as well (such as the M1 around Leeds).

There would be a legal mine-field getting hold of this infomation for free. The money put into these surveys needs to be re-couped somehow.

Re:Crown Copyright Issues

[SEWilco]

The availability of the info depends upon your country and its laws. Some countries require government-produced information to be made public, as the taxpayers were already forced to pay for it once. Sometimes such info is sold, in an attempt to enhance tax budgets with income from people to whom the information has value.

Re:WINE? Try Delorme Street Atlas

[Elias Israel]

Back in my WABI days, we found that Delorme Street Atlas was so well-coded and clean that it ran with extraordinarily few problems on WABI.

I've never tried it on WINE, but I suspect that it would have a pretty good shot there, too, depending on the current status of the WINE implementation.

The reason we liked Delorme so much was that most of the applications we tried to run on WABI turned up at least a handful of compatibility issues that we had to deal with. Many MS applications took months of analysis (black box analysis, of course) to get them to work.

Delorme Street Atlas worked right out of the box.

Of course, YMMV, this was 5+ years ago.

Tiger line files and reality...

[human bean]

There is not much comparison. I have had to clean up a great number of TIGER files, in an effort to match them to Sat IR data and Photogrammetry. During this process, I have noticed:

1. Things are not where they are supposed to be. In the files for Alaska, points were often plus or minus five percent. The town of Bethel was off by about eight miles.

2. Numerous duplications. We found one subdvision in Anchorage was duplicated three times, in slightly different spots.

3. Don't know where they got the base maps, but I figure it was a historical archive. The towns of Whitney and Spenard havn't existed for thirty years or more...

I sure hope they get better with practice.

Read my post again

[barzok]

I plotted a route to Arlington, VA, not Washington, DC. There was no message about "city-center" in any case.

Trip Planning?

[FPhlyer]

How hard can it be to plan a trip? I just kind of get on the road and head toward my destination. I can get to practically any location in the Continental US in 32hours or less. Sometimes I do use a road atlas (hard copy). I find that this method is more efficient than any of the software packages that I have seen or used.