Hi!
As you know, almost half a year ago a GPX Planet was released
(http://blog.osmfoundation.org/2012/04/01/bulk-gps-point-data/). At the
time I expressed a hope that someone would process that file, making
tile layer and regional extracts. Alas, in those months the file has
only been statistically analyzed (thanks to Pascal Neis and Steven Kay),
but no practical use for that array of data has been found. Well, as
they say, OSM is do-ocracy: if you want something, the only way to get
it is to do it yourself. So, after several weeks of coding and
impatiently waiting for processing to finish, I present to you:
1) A tile layer of GPS points for the whole world down to zoom 11:
http://zverik.osm.rambler.ru/gps/
2) Regional extracts, so you won't have to wait several hours cutting
your country out of the planet dump:
http://zverik.osm.rambler.ru/gps/files/extracts/
3) All tools that were used to build that map and those extracts:
http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/utils/gps-tracks/gpxplanet_tools/
4) A nice poster with GPS points, some statistics and interesting
facts:
http://zverik.osm.rambler.ru/gps/files/world-gps-points-120604-2048.png
What are uses of this? By this time I found two:
a) Now you can adjust your trip plans to collect GPS tracks where there
are none in OpenStreetMap database. Sorry, Germany, it's almost
impossible in your country. But I was surprised to find some untrodden
secondary and even primary roads in hilly regions not far from my city.
b) The redaction bot has removed not only whole objects, but a lot of
nodes from inside highways. Overlaying the OSM layer with GPS points map
makes it very clear where a road deviates from GPS tracks, because the
bot ate some of its nodes, or because it was straightened by road
workers, and the mapper who updated it didn't bother to upload a fresh
track.
And since the GPS tile layer is useful for restoring the road network,
I've made tiles up to zoom 15 for Poland, with green dots for using in
JOSM. Just add
tms[15]:http://zverik.osm.rambler.ru/gps/poland/{zoom}/{x}/{y}.png as a
TMS layer, and you're good.
I hope to see more uses to the GPX Planet, and to see it updated more
often. Also, I'd like to remind Ian and Grant about their unfinished
tool: https://github.com/iandees/planet-gpx-dump/ ;)
Thanks,
IZ
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