Navteq was bought -was- Re: [Xastir] Feature idea for Xastir

[Richard Polivka, N6NKO]

Nokia bought Navteq for $6.8B US, either this week or last week.

Now the fun begins....

73 from 807,

Richard, N6NKO
Tom Russo wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 05, 2007 at 10:53:12PM -0500, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <gerry.creager at tamu.edu> flavor, containing:
>   
>>  Google and Mapquest get their basemaps, if memory serves, from Navtech.  No 
>>  one seriously uses Tiger anymore for "real" applications.  After USGS 
>>  migrated to SDTS format Tiger was the only decent alternative, for some low 
>>  value of decent.  It was based on the original USGS maps, regardless of what 
>>  Census told you.  However, Census munges them for their purposes (census 
>>  work, interestingly enough) and effectively renders them less than adequate 
>>  for "real" mapping.
>>
>>  In other words, "These maps should come with a consumer product safety 
>>  warning."
>>     
>
> And this is the last year that TIGER/Line data will be released in that format.
> According to their web site, they will start releasing the Census maps in
> shapefile format --- but from the looks of it, these shapefiles will NOT be
> very useful for the purpose of drawing road maps.  The dbf fields they plan
> to include are very clearly designed solely for census purposes, and they
> will be missing a lot of the data that we rely on for rendering.
>
>   
>>  Lee Bengston wrote:
>>     
>>> On 10/5/07, Jason Winningham <jdw at eng.uah.edu> wrote:
>>>       
>>>> On Oct 5, 2007, at 8:48 AM, I wrote:
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>>> http://roadnav.sourceforge.net/
>>>>>>             
>>>>> Ah, this is more like it.  At a glance: maps - so what? looks a lot
>>>>> like xastir (maybe they do a bit better job rendering labels).
>>>>> Keep looking: vector maps, rendered by the app, included routing,
>>>>> vector maps based on TIGER data.
>>>>>           
>>>> Looks good, but I couldn't get enough data downloaded/converted to
>>>> try anything interested - got tired of it continuously bombing on the
>>>> mac.  Oh well, another one bites the dust.
>>>>         
>>> I wasn't able to get the roadnav deb package to install in andLinux, but I
>>> was able to compile it from source after installing wxwidgets from the
>>> ubuntu respository.  Not a bad program - with the Tiger maps, they are
>>> labeling the highways better, and I like they way they display the minor
>>> streets at high zoom levels.
>>> However, it's the same old TigerMap problem at intermediate zoom levels -
>>> either no street labels at all or labels in a very tiny hard to read font
>>> depending on the exact zoom.  The same view in Google, Mapquest, etc. shows
>>> the street names clearly.  I don't care about looking really slick like
>>> Google does, but street labels that I can read are important.
>>> But the above is in the context of XASTIR and seeing APRS stations in
>>> certain views.  Using Roadnav on a trip should be fine - can zoom in or out
>>> as needed - only need to track one vehicle.  Overall I would say it's a
>>> pretty nice package.
>>> Lee-K5DAT
>>> Murphy, TX
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Xastir mailing list
>>> Xastir at xastir.org
>>> http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
>>>       
>>  -- 
>>  Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
>>  Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University	
>>  Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.458.4020 FAX: 979.862.3983
>>  Office: 1700 Research Parkway Ste 160, TAMU, College Station, TX 77843
>>  _______________________________________________
>>  Xastir mailing list
>>  Xastir at xastir.org
>>  http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
>>     
>
>