joggle's Journal: Map project

This is a starting point of discussion for a map project that I'm in the early stages of development. It would consist of a GUI client that would be distributed to users who would, in turn, provide updates for the central map database. One technique of update would be for them to receive aerial photos over which they would trace roads, deliniating speed limits, road type, intersections, etc.

If aerial photos aren't available or are out of date, perhaps users could provide new information for their local area using track information from their GPS. The GUI would facilitate this by uploading the NMEA from the GPS and plotting it over the existing map, where the user would make any necessary corrections (with tools to shift the track left or right so that it lies in the center of the road, smoothing the track, etc.).

I think this will be a fun project and anyone who is interested should post a note here. Once the GUI is somewhat stable, I plan on posting it to sourceforge. If transmitting the aerial photos breaks copyright, we might have to rely on the user to get the photos themselves or rely on them using their GPS.

Another way of getting info into the central database would be to provide a tool to trace over scanned photos. This would be identical to the aerial photos, except that it would need to be oriented correctly first using a couple of guide points on the map. This would be a handy way to get trails onto the maps which aren't visible from aerial shots and generally aren't already in the public domain (at least not in a vector format as far as I can tell).

A tricky issue is choosing the language and toolkit for the GUI. I love QT, but it isn't free in Windows (except for an ancient version which I suppose may work). I'm currently leaning towards C#, giving me an excellent chance to learn it :). Until mono is done, this would restrict the program to running in Windows. By leaving as much code as possible in a library, hopefully this won't pose too much of a problem.