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How Satnav Maps Are Made

Posted by timothy on from the when-a-satellite-and-a-car-love-each-very-much dept.

Barence writes "PC Pro has a feature revealing how the world's biggest satnav firms create their maps. Nokia's Navteq, for example, has a huge database of almost 24 million miles of road across the globe. For each mile of road there are multiple data points, and for each of those positions, more than 280 road attributes. The maps are generated from public data and driver feedback, not to mention its own fleet of cars with 360-degree cameras on the top. There's an IMU (inertial measurement unit) for monitoring the pitch of the road, and the very latest in 3D surface-scanning technology too. This light detection and ranging (LIDAR) detector captures 1.3 million three-dimensional data points every second, mapping the world around Navteq's field vehicles in true 3D. The feature also investigates whether commercial mapping firms will be replaced by open-source maps." That last line makes me think of the difference between conventionally published encyclopedias and Wikipedia; "replaced by" is an odd standard in a big marketplace of ideas.

5 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. um... sure... by Tastecicles · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...let me just warm up my 360 degree camera and my LIDAR gear, like we all have one, and go take mapping data for my neighbourhood...

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    Operation Guillotine is in effect.
    1. Re:um... sure... by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Funny

      . LIDAR gear, like we all have one, and go take mapping data for my neighbourhood...

      From Wikipedia,

      LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging, also LADAR) is an optical remote sensing technology that can measure the distance to, or other properties of a target by illuminating the target with light, often using pulses from a laser.

      The next time you are driving, look at the car behind you in the rear view mirror. If a shark is driving the car, the chances are, that he has a LIDAR on the roof!

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      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:um... sure... by milkmage · · Score: 4, Insightful

      GPS is fine for the mundane point A to point B navigation, but if you're exploring (road trip) - gas stations and places to eat and sleep are handy.. GPS alone is no good for that - you have to have POIs

      streetview and flyover are useful if you want to get an idea of what's around. once in a while I'll get a restaurant recommendation from someone and if I'm not sure if I've been there (I don't remember names of places very well) I'll drive down the street courtesy of google.

      the monocle feature in the yelp app uses POIs - useful if you're in a city you don't know. I was coming up from the underground in DC and was supposed to meet someone.. I had no idea what direction to walk... yelp told me which way to go. (easier than getting directions since I didn't need to enter an address and GPS w/o POIs makes the address useless anyway)

      we had a gathering in a huge park last week.. the people not familiar with the city used google earth to find the meadow where we were supposed to meet. kind of hard to find a big open space 300 yards away when you're surrounded by trees. (park here, go 300 yards south) some people have a really hard time navigating with maps. aerial photos are easier to relate too.

  2. In my day by silas_moeckel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Way back I worked at a DOT they were buying the sat maps from the Russians very good positional accuracy but no data to go with them. We would take the census maps that are useless for positions but have all the road names house numbers etc. The feds had sat maps as well but refused to sell them of give them to the states. We also merged it with data from a fleet of vans primarily with a gps and camera's (going to laser disk no less). A whole crew of people would spend all day matching things by hand and merging the data.

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    No sir I dont like it.
  3. Navteq? Really? by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Informative

    They have the WORST maps available. Most of it is wrong, very low detail in any town that is smaller than 300,000 people. And they charge anal rape prices for their map updates.

    I had one of the first in car nav systems, the Clarion Auto PC and the navteq maps were borderline worthless. the maps were missing most roads, no data about most one way streets, etc..

    In fact 10 years later in 2009 I had the unfortunate experience of using Navteq data in a Jeep Grand Cherokee Nav system and once again crap maps, and it even had roads in locations that have not existed for decades, so their data set is still out of whack so bad it's not funny.

    No thanks. I avoid all products that say "Navteq map database" on them.

    Garmin uses Navteq but then uses teleatlas to correct the mess that is Navteq. Their maps are a hybrid of 4 different map database sources ran through their servers to correct them. So far I have had OK luck with Garmin's source database. I stopped using Megallan as they switched to the Navteq low quality database.

    Want good maps in your GPS? teleatlas as the data source.

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    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.