OffLine Address Search - Suggested Idea!

dmytro

Its my first post here I love MGMaps, (running Blackberry 8130)
Too bad there is no source code otherwise I would jump right into it an write this feature myself... Laughing

But here is what would be VERY NICE TO HAVE.

I was able to get some offline map data to my SD card, but having Offline Address Search...sordof like a small (even self made) database of addresses with corresponding GPS coordinates (lat,long)

This way we can type (even partial street # or postal code, anything that can match) search the addresses, instead of having too many pointers saved on the map.

Very Happy

Let me know if this is a good feature worth looking into.

Cheers

Cristian Streng

dmytro · Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2008 7:13 pm Post subject:

Hello Cristian Streng,

Thanks a lot for reply. Wink

Is it only you who is developing MgMaps?

I just installed Blackberry Java Development Environment + Blackberry emulator. great stuff (I have previews experience developing mobile apps) I can help in developing some of the features....including this one.

I am more interested in Blackberry for now, perhaps you can somehow arrange a wrapped up jar classes (so you don't have to give out the source code entirely....but enough for coding on top of it) and than I can play around and send you the patches so you can integrate it to the original MGMaps.....Just such a wonderful program Very Happy

more people developing would be make it more powerful!

Cristian Streng · Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 6:49 pm Post subject:

dmytro · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 6:19 pm Post subject:

Thanks Cris for letting me into the development team.

Glad to announce that next releases of MGMaps will have Offline Search capability. Its done and currently in testing stage Smile

A new piece of software was introduced to extract local addresses called "OfflineBot" found at: http://offlinebot.iroot.ca

Please give feedback on it and any new countries that you would like to be added. Cool

Cheers

michaelng · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 10:35 pm Post subject:

Hi all,

First and foremost, thank you Christian for sharing MgMaps with us. It is ingenious and very generous of you. Razz

I'm LOVING IT, now that I figure out how to get the maps loaded (which took me awhile)!

Great suggestion dmytro and good on you for being pro-active! I've been thinking about the same thing actually, having an offline search will make it even better! Is it possible to get the offline street search for New Zealand?

I'm not a programming boffin but I'm happy to learn and help out in any way that I can.

Regards,
Michael

dmytro · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 11:40 pm Post subject:

New Zealand it is! I will add it to the search database.

You can help by looking up the street name list for your city, submit it using offlinebot.iroot.ca (or see example there) if you can to share it with everyone.

Cheers Smile

michaelng · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 11:57 pm Post subject:

Cheers.

Just a few questions.

How does the search database work exactly?

1) What if there're more than one road with the same name? For example there are probably quite a few "Queen Street"s in NZ. Do I need to provide suburb names as well to help with identification? Even if I split them into cities (like the existing Canada cities) wouldn't there still be error when there are more than one road with the same name?

2) I have a GIS software, does it help if I provide aprx co-ordinates for each road name (or does it search down to individual street addresses)?

dmytro · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 12:06 am Post subject:

Hi,

The beauty of "OfflineBot" is that it can extract GPS coordinates based on list of streets from 0 to 'unlimited' (usually 7000+ for some streets)

Depends how popular your city is you can find an existing list of street names on Google, just put them to txt file.

Please NOTE: MGMaps with OfflineSearch has not been released yet.

The search works like this [inside MGMaps]:

1)You type the number + partial or full street name AND select country from dropdown list
2)A list will pop up which will "autofill" suggest the street name with a city.
3)here you select the street name (even if it has duplicates) with the city

Hopefully there is no same street name in the same city Smile

dmytro · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 12:14 am Post subject:

http://maps.yellowpages.co.nz/ypnz/AUCKLAND%20CITY/AUCKLAND/

this can be useful maybe write some script which will reduce all the manual work Smile

michaelng · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 2:34 am Post subject:

I have submited an index of all NZ roads.

Can't wait to start using the search function! Yay! Laughing

dmytro · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 2:43 pm Post subject:

all NZ roads? I thought there are cities in New Zealand. It would be easier to categorize them by city. Thats where it is useful when there are duplicate street names.

I don't know but I think it would be better to submit by city, not entire country at once Smile

palitu · Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 7:43 am Post subject:

Definately need australia added in Smile

dmytro · Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 11:05 pm Post subject:

Australia has been added. Cool

You can start extracting, and don't forget to submit your city list.

palitu · Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 8:40 am Post subject:

will do...

palitu · Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:49 am Post subject:

hmmm...

I'm having trouble finding a list of streets in perth...

Any ideas?

skyli · Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 12:25 pm Post subject:

I'd like to have an offline city searcher in mgmaps from hungary.
I found a city list: http://www.garmin.hu/data/telepuleslista_2005.04.html
And a Budapest street searcher would be awesome too.
Budapest street list see attachment.

Please Cristian, could you make it to the mgmaps?

lofarkas · Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 5:18 pm Post subject:

I'm from Budapest, too so this wd be nice 4 me.

But surely, that list is from a paper map with square codes like F4 and B2. It won't be much use unless you convert all square references to a GPS coordinate. That'd be reasonably easy to do if you have the map they come from, but all the locations in mgmaps wd be imprecise.
(Just determine the coords of the 2 opposite coners, then see how many rows and columns the grid has, do the math and use MS word search and replace to plug in the coords.)
This method can work with any city but it's not perfect b/c of the imprecise location references...
One could scan a map's street guide with OCR to get the list. If the OCR works well the rest is done in 10 minutes.

Ideally, we need another source. But to my knowledge, there is no Budapest street/GPS location database (I forget what these are usually called).

skyli · Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 5:25 pm Post subject:

Yes, but maybe somebody can make a script or anything to search for the names and get the coordinates fast. But the idea to do that with the squares is good but not too precise but i think it's much better than nothing Very Happy

the squares are 256*256 With search and change in notepad it will be easy to do.

dmytro · Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 6:04 pm Post subject:

Hmm lets see if I can understand this. I am from Canada and here we go by the street # + name (example: 123 Front Avenue)

I noticed attachment by skyli is not what "OfflineBot" will take. It needs to be parsed to get only street names!

Once again the idea of "OfflineBot" is to extract GPS coordinates based on street names list. (example: from 1 to 7000 Front Avenue) It uses GoogleMaps API for now, but planning to add Maporama for Europe.

So from my understanding, (corrent me if I am wrong) You have building # with letters? (example: 11B Akácfa)?

Let me know,

By the way I am developing Offline Search for MGMaps at the moment Smile

Cris is very busy.