[mkgmap-dev] My involvement in mkgmap and the default style

Thu Jul 5 20:45:22 BST 2012

The mkgmap default style has not been changed much ever since the 
current style language was implemented.

I was appointed the maintainer a couple of years ago, after I had 
submitted some patches.

I am sorry for my low level of activity around mkgmap in the past year.  
I started refactoring the default style, but I had to suspend that, 
because I got too busy at my day job. Two weeks ago, I made the deadline 
and started vacation from work, but not from family. :-)

I think I could pick up where I left with regard to splitting the 
default style, some time in August or later.

Long term, I am going to escape the Garmin world. The USB interface on 
my Edge 705 died last October or November, so that I can no longer 
transfer any saved GPS traces to the computer. So, I bought myself a 
SonyEricsson Xperia Active for replacing both my GPS receiver and a 
decade-old dumbphone. There was some initial firmware trouble, but now 
with the SportyPal bike mount and OsmAnd 0.8 I am satisfied. The GPS 
accuracy may be slightly worse than that of the Edge, but the Bing 
aerial image coverage largely compensates for that. Battery life is not 
a problem, thanks to my DIY dynamo-powered USB charger. Also, I like the 
offline vector maps and offline routing that OsmAnd 0.8 supports. The 
bicycle routing might currently be even worse than Garmin's if possible, 
but the map display will not freeze while recalculating, and I get 
spoken turn instructions, even for following a GPX trace.

I wonder if it would make sense to share some front-end code and area 
(boundary) processing code between mkgmap and OsmAndMapCreator. Both 
have been written in Java, after all. I have deliberately tried to avoid 
touching program code too much, because I get enough of that in my day 
job (writing C and C++).

Even if I will likely not be using Garmin maps much, I plan to keep 
updating the map of Finland at http://www.polkupyoraily.net/osm/ (and 
fixing any issues reported by mkgmap) until someone else volunteers.

Best regards,

	Marko