Maps of the UK

[Guest]

hey guys, was just wondering if there are any downloadable maps for the uk

[uhtu]

not at the moment, but primarily due to lack of a good datasource for the UK, like we have with the US census TIGER data (which our mappacks are derived from.)

if you know of a source of unrestricted map data for the UK, i know we'd love to have a look!

our clients (JiGLE,DiGLE,etc.) all work world-wide, as long as you have a mappack for it, however. so if you put one together by hand (see the downloads page) it should "just work" :-)

[arkasha]

<snip from DiGLE readme>
3.4 Building your own mappacks:
...............................
Just add coordinates, .png images. See the existing .mappack
files in <install dir>\JiGLEMaps\maps\* for hints using any
text editor. Note that due to legacy design, the meanings of
"x" and "y" are reversed from what you'd expect them to be in
a view of the world where the equator is the cartesian "X"
axis. See above disclaimer regarding feet, holes.
</snip>

[uhtu]

er ..and since we use the same mappack format (currently :-), that goes for JiGLE as well.. i'm just lazier than arkasha.

[JF1980]

So how does GPSdrive get map data for the UK? It does, and it's free..

[uhtu]

they get them from providers like microsoft/expedia.

you can do the same on your own, for wigle tools as well (there are instructions for making mappacks on the wiki),
but we can't (and won't) host them from the wigle site.

if you can find a freely licensed, or public-domain, source of map data for the UK (or anywhere else) we will happily add them to our detailed maps!

[JF1980]

Simple, use the same system as gpsdrive, download to the client straight from the provider.

Doesn't matter to me, I guess I will just have to keep booting in to linux to go wardriving, just thought that information may help, seems you just don't want to bother.

[uhtu]

well, we go to alot of effort to not bother :-)

we provide the services we can provide. if you can track down a public domain set of data for the UK we won't sleep until we have that dataset available just like the highres data we get for free for the US.

we don't tie into anyone else's servers to make our software work, which is why it does. nothing stops you from doing your own data acquisition, but we can't do it for you.

[JF1980]

Just seems like too much effort to do it myself, when all I need to do is boot in to Linux. Now if I could get gpsdrive running in VMware (all works except wifi access obviously) I would be in heaven

[izzy4505]

I've been trying to figure out scaling system for some time now of mappoint maps. If I can get that figured out, it will be working in my WiGLE client, Musatcha.com Advanced WiFi Mapping Engine. http://www.musatcha.com/computers/software/wifimapping/

For now, terraserver support is in there. Redistributing MapPoint maps is illegal AFAIK, which is why you won't see premade maps on WiGLE or any other site.

[Caffeine82]

have you checked open street map ? is their map source free ?

[TomThumbUK]

Try - https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/opendatadownload/products.html
I've been working with a lot of OS Opendata recently and all it requires is a simple attribution - the data is free!

[sunsanct]

Try - https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/opendatadownload/products.html
I've been working with a lot of OS Opendata Map of Las Vegas and Las Vegas Map 2010 recently and all it requires is a simple attribution - the data is free!

___________
I was unaware of any maps for the UK I will definitely give it a try. Thanks for the recommendation!
Cheers!

[i_do_dew]

Likewise you could generate your own by uploading and downloading parts of OpenStreetMap.org. They have a good part of the world mapped already and are constantly updating more. I use them as a better reference than TIGER which is at worst 10 years out of date.

The other downside to TIGER is something that I presume is the case, but I have not been able to confirm. TIGER is maintained by the Census, I suspect that local government uses TIGER to apply for Federal and State Highway funds. As a result new roads are added but almost none are removed, even when they have been closed to all sorts of traffic, or in some cases, never even built. Google caught some when they did their wardriving/picture taking, for street view, but by no means did they catch all. Also TIGER lists some things that are roads technically, as they are named, but in OSM you can edit them to say they are a single track high clearance vehicles only type seasonal road. In the US, OSM does do occasional TIGER imports.