Lambertus wrote: 
Interesting information. Can I ask how you know that Garmin learned from 
OSM how to make cyclemaps?
Well the latest (I think it came out 4-5 weeks ago) update for the onroute cycle map suddenly provided much better routing than anything Garmin / Garmin subsidiaries had produced before. Analysing the road_class ( road_speed they set equal more or less for all roads) they used the same principles as Thilo and me when it comes to prefer cycleroutes.
Also they did leave out routing information for motorways (noticing as we did that the restrictions don't work 100%). So in effect just like Thilo's and my maps, the onroute fietskart has best autorouting when used with car/motorcycle setting.

This seems to be a bit of a coincidence why this happens now once that once good outdoor autorouting appears they for the first time in over 10 years of Garmin topographic maps come out with topo maps that actually do have usable autorouting. Up to now it was good enough to use it over a distance of say max 5 junctions to the next waypoint, so having the only advantage of being quicker to create autourouted routes over tracks.

Of course this approach will only work in the netherlands, and in other countries they will have big problems getting to the same standards, as 1. there exist fewer cycleways and 2. they don't have good enough attributes available so in the end we at OSM will continue to be able to provide maps that get the same standards without using OSM data (which luckily they are not allowed to mix with proprietary map data).



Garmin must be well aware off the OSM scene by now. On openmtbmap.org I have daily around 500 people downloading maps (Germany alone 100-200 downloads a day). Computerteddy's maps probabely lead the pack being the first ones to be available for any region in Europe. Others also get many downloads. On mtb-news.de (the biggest mtb forum worldwide) in the GPS section the topic about openmtbmaps has after not yet 5month around 58.000 hits and 862 comments (compared to 18.000 hits on the topic about the Garmin Topo Deutschland v3 which is 2 much older).

I don't have a clue how often the Topo Deutschland v3 is actually sold, but I bet that if you exclude users who bought it with their device, and exclude users who used a keygen/garmin unlocker to access this map, there are more users of OSM Germany maps already.


Of course important decisions at Garmin are taken in the States where OSM community is still unimportant, but I am sure that in the course of the next year Garmin will react somehow on OSM.
Some things I learned about the Garmin way of doing business:
I was on the sideline watching when the Dutch OSM chapter was talking 
with Waypoint about joining forces and make e.g. cyclemaps using OSM 
data (they sell more devices and free maps, we get a bigger userbase). 
But I guess Garmin pulled a string because OSM was suddenly not a 
possibility anymore.
Yeah I know that many people at Garmin flirted with the idea of dropping map creation alltogether because of too many people using keygens to crack their maps and too high effort to produce maps. This stopped abruptly around 2 month ago.
I also learned from the owner of my default bikeshop that when he 
started selling Garmin devices, he was pushed heavily to also sell 
certain amounts of Garmin maps. The shop owner wanted to be able to 
advice independently so he stopped selling the devices.

Felix Hartmann wrote:
  
It's nothing special. They are using standard garmin tools AFAICanTell. 
They learned from our maps that proper bicycle/topo maps will only 
provide good routing if preference is given in general for bicycleroutes.

The autorouting is pretty good for cyclists, however because of 2 reasons:
1. their map data quality is very good for normal standards
2. Abundance of cycle routes exist in the netherlands.

Making maps for the netherlands is easy, you just put heavy preference 
for cycleways and you get great routing. These maps are the first 
proprietary maps by Garmin that have good outdoor autorouting. (our 
efforts pay off in Garmin working harder/copying from us)

Our main problem is as allways with OSM data unconnected streets (though 
much less than some month ago as after months of complaints potlatch got 
better in this regard), and too sharp turns (this would need to be 
solved by preprocessing of osm data befote compiling with mkgmap) .
Garmin seems to straighten curvy sections (I know that they do this for 
the topo Swiss, which frequently on very curvy small mountain trails 
shows too short distance, in my eyes done on purpose so that such routes 
are chosen even though garmin gps penalise any curve/corner. This 
straightened data is only used in the NOD sections. the ways themselves 
as they show on the map are longer than the underlying routing data. I 
don't know whether onroute maps have bin built using the same principle, 
but this could be well possible.

Felix

2009/8/29 Valentijn Sessink <valentyn@blub.net <mailto:valentyn@blub.net>>

    Paul Johnson schreef:
     > On Sat, 2009-08-29 at 07:29 +0200, Valentijn Sessink wrote:
     >> Paul Johnson schreef:
     >>> Routing involving cycleways (by bicycle or by car) makes me
    wonder why
     >>> nobody's bothered getting Garmin's SDK and create new software
    for those
     >>> units...
     >> http://onroute.nl/
     >
     > What is it?

    Sorry for the confusion. I know them for their bicycle map - they have a
    motorbike and walking map, too, it seems.

    Here's the Babelfish-translation of http://www.onroute.nl/fiets/112,
    edited by me to have one meaning. (I didn't fix the computer translation
    at all, I just made the meaning of the text clear, it's stil computer
    generated English).

    "By who were the OnRoute bicycle map developed?

    The OnRoute bicycle card were developed by a shop named WayPoint.
    WayPoint a shop is, specialised in leisure navigation. Started from the
    hobby, but nowadays we have three shops. Beside the main shop in Twentse
    Notter, there are two in Moordrecht (Gouda) and Vessem (Eindhoven).

    Waypoint sells GPS devices for a lot of years especially for walk and
    bicycles. But observed thereby that these devices for many people are
    too technical. This is what Waypoint has wanted to change with their
    OnRoute bicycle map.

    The map was made in association with the Belgian company RouteYou.
    RouteYou introduced especially technical mapping knowledge, which it
    made possible to connect our "beautiful roads network" to the maps of
    TeleAtlas. The conversion to Garmin-kaarten did WayPoint themselves. The
    "beautiful roads network" work came about on the basis of several
    sources, especially on the basis of the collected tracks of people who
    themselves cycled a certain route. Thus the site www.gpstracks.nl
    <http://www.gpstracks.nl> have
    for example made an important contribution. "

    Valentijn
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