tele atlas digital maps
Do you have any idea how much effort it takes to create all those digital maps on Google, on your mobile phone, or on any kind of GPS navigation system? A lot! However there are mainly two companies who create these maps. Tele Atlas (Dutch) and Navteq (Finnish). We did talk about the map making process from Navteq’s point of view back in October and today we’ll look into how Tele Atlas does it.
Popsci has a nice article about it but we’ll summarize it for you below since we know about your attention span problems you’ve been having lately.
Shooting
Photos captured by more than 300 drivers, who drove 350000 miles last year. They’ve got 50 minivans, each with about 6-10 1.3MP still cameras mounted on the roof to provide a 360-degree view. (they just added stereo cameras to provide 3D images. They take pictures every 10 feet. Computer checks image details, highly accurate GPS receivers and other sensors keep updating van’s position.
Processing
Each van has two HDDs. One gets sent to New Hampshire to evaluate image quality and the other to a facility in Poland. Employees use software to stitch photos. Software can also pick out road signs, traffic light or other important stuff. Then someone categorizes the object and records its exact location in the database so you know what’s the speed limit or it’s a one way road, etc.
Updating
Every area changes about 10 to 15 percent every year. Tele Atlas delivers new maps every 90 days, so they constantly update. Apparently they even utilize resources such as aerial imagery, engineering surveys, and even UPS branches, pizza-delivery joints and regular GPS users.
Brought to you by your GPS navigation site NaviGadget.