Mapping Mawson Lakes
From MawsonLakes.Org
Contents |
[edit] Introduction
There are maps available for Mawson Lakes from the Delfin Sales and Information Office, and there is also maps available from Google and WhereIs.
Due to the rapid development of Mawson Lakes, this information is currently incomplete, lacks sufficient details or, due to other reasons (notably copyright licenses) is unsuitable for community use.
This project aims to fill in the gap, and you are more than welcome to participate.
The current map of Mawson Lakes
[edit] The aims of this project
- Build a complete streetmap of Mawson Lakes, available under a community friendly license.
- Encourage participation in the project by community members, in whatever why they choose.
- Learn about mapping and mapping information, including GPS; and
- Provide a resource that can be used in other community projects.
[edit] How is the mapping done?
[edit] The GPS Receiver
It is possible to pick up a reasonable Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver (like the one shown) from Ebay for approximately AU$50. This GPS device plugs into an ordinary USB port on a computer and allows data points to be collected automatically (usually once per second) about the location and speed of the device.
This trace can be saved and used to create maps.
[edit] Software Tools
The image shown is the first GPS trace that I captured using a USB GPS 'mouse' device, a Laptop running Ubuntu, and the programs gpsd, gpxlogger and gpsdrive.
It shows the car trip, from Grand Junction Road to Gepps Cross, up Main North Road and into Mawson Lakes. In Mawson Lakes I follow a couple of the roads around, just to see what the trace would record.
It has been uploaded to OpenStreetMap.
[edit] Update
With help from Joel, I have been able get the XO laptop to log traces from the USB Dongle as well. This is really cool as the XO is a lot more robust than the other laptops that I have access too.
[edit] Resources
The OpenStreetMaps has a lot of useful information on other ways to get started and is worth checking out.
[edit] My Equipment
The following is the equipment I use
- Laptop running Ubuntu
- USB GPS Receiver - UT-41 NMEA-0183 GPS RECEIVER
- Under Linux, comes up as: [067b:2303] Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port
- USB interface
- 12 channel GPS receiver
- Standard NMEA-0183 V3.01 GPS protocol
- Onboard patch antenna
- 4100 simultaneous time-frequency search bins
- SBAS (WAAS, EGNOS) support
- -140dBm acquisition sensitivity
- -150dBm tracking sensitivity
- <10 second hot start
- <50 second cold start
- 5m CEP accuracy
- Low power consumption: 90mA
- 6-foot USB cord
- Software
- gpsd, gpxlogger (come as Ubuntu packages)
- merkaartor - A GPL'ed Qt Application, needed to be compiled.
- Software (on XO laptop)
- gpsd, gpspipe and xgps (gpsd and gpsd-clients packages).
