[pgrouting-users] [SoC] Google SoC participation

[Daniel Kastl]

Hi Nestor,

I'm glad to see that you're interested in some routing project.
As Anton mentioned, such a tool already exists, but there is room for a
couple of improvements.
For example:

    * Import large OSM XML files
    * Make sure that the right attributes are imported. For example
      enable users to select which attributes to import.
    * How can care about OSM data updates?
    * Currently it's command line tool and only has been compiled under
      Linux. There are many windows users out there, who are happy about
      windows binaries and/or GUI.
    * I like OSM data from the "open source" point of view, but being
      able to have such a import tool for other data such as Navteq or
      Teleatlas would be a nice project as well. I think Steve agrees here.

> 3) That as part of your project we define an open abstract schema that 
> can support all the data needed for routing. And we then import OSM to 
> this schema and we write specific loaders from our schema to pgRouting 
> and any other routes that we develop like the work Ashraf is planning. I 
> think this could be done initially in postgres/postgis but there might 
> be other formats we should consider.
>   
I agree here, Steve. I think having import tools for several data
sources makes it easier to get started with an open source router. It's
and important part even if some might say that you can do it by hand, too.
My experience with schemes is that they often just don't work well
outside North America. They might still work in Europe, but here in
Japan I'm always having troubles with schemes such as OpenLS for example.

For SoC I would not start with an abstract schema of an "open router",
which isn't available yet. I think for students it's better to start
with something that already exists. I think that pgRouting is a good
place to learn for students as well as for the people interested in a
new code base. It shouldn't be too difficult to port then an import tool
to the new router.

> Questions to the list:
>
> What is anything has been done regarding OSM and pgRouting imports?
>   
http://pgrouting.postlbs.org/wiki/tools/osm2pgrouting
The timing of this contribution was perfect for the FOSS4G2008 workshop.
It worked well for that workshop and I think it increased the number of
people using pgRouting. But it's far away from being stable.

Daniel
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