I'm a geeky guy who's always been into mapping. My first GPS was the Garmin GPS 38 (a single channel receiver that could track up to 8 satellites but took forever to get a lock). But right from the beginning, I was hooked - I even used it in 1999 to do a "Study of the Accuracy of Averaged Non-Differential GPS Measurements" (http://www.syz.com/gps/gpsaveraging.html) when selective availability was still turned on. From there, I always experimented in ways of coaxing more and more accuracy out of GPS receivers, culminating with putting together 3 Motorola Oncore VP boards and writing my own software to do carrier phase positioning. I got down to sub-centimeter accuracy with that.
But how I got more specifically into OSM - as a software developer, I wanted to make a worldwide topographical map app for the iPhone, that didn't require a live data connection to use it (unlike Google Maps), since a lot of those who need topographical maps are often backcountry folk out of range of a cell tower. I source the elevation data from a variety of sources elsewhere, but as far as the main mapping data goes, OSM was a natural fit that I stumbled upon quickly when I started to do my research on the project. The result was something I call Mapster (http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/mapster/id409304946?mt=8) Since OSM works so well for me in that sense, I enjoy being able to contribute back, so I remain reasonably active adding data to places I'm familiar with. I've also done (and continue to do) a lot of Canvec importing in areas otherwise lacking data. That's been something of a challenge in itself, as I learn of the various "gotchas" in the Canvec data set, but I'm getting better all the time. The recent Bing update added some high resolution photos of areas familiar to me, so I've been playing around with that somewhat as well. Dan -- Syzygy Research & Technology Box 83, Legal, AB T0G 1L0 Canada Phone: 780-961-2213 _______________________________________________ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
