Share GPS Data

Problem Description

• Field staff for NGOs (both Humanitarian & Development) visit Programme sites with handheld GPS (e.g. Garmin eTrex).
• They collect data as they go (Tracks & Waypoints).
• They would like a way of easily sharing this information between each other:
  • uploading data to a central repository
  • managing this master repository to have a reference dataset: no duplicates, names checked for consistency
    • this management should work offline
  • download the reference dataset to each GPS
• A secondary benefit will be in terms of wider communications (e.g. reporting to Donors)
• A potential future enhancement would be to be able to download GPX routes from/to specific locations.

This requirement is defined by ​Oxfam in Haiti, but is applicable to many other organisations & locations.

High-Level Architecture Proposal

It would be ideal if as much of the reference dataset as possible could be incorporated into the Base Map - OpenStreetMap is ideal for this.

Propose to:

• Set up a Virtual Machine containing all necessary software (to make it easy to install on any available PC - this setup may need replicating in several offices, although no need to sync between offices except via main OpenStreetMap database at this time)
• Local OSM Server
• Build a GUI within Sahana to allow the uploading/editing of GPX data

Other Options Considered

• Garmin MapSource
  • can't load more than 1 GPX file at a time
• Google Earth
  • doesn't work offline

Detailed Architecture Proposal

Sahana

The current GPX layer interface is probably insufficient.

Instead have 2 tables:

• WayPoints (where each point is individually editable for a label & marker - often the raw data will just have numeric labels, so we'll need to add a prefix to distinguish for when re-labelling from written notes)
• Tracks (where all points are equal - we don't need to keep track of time or person: if we wish to see a specific track we can use the current GPX file interface for that...so maybe we keep the file uploads but add to the main table via an onaccept?)

Can we develop a Flash(?) interface to actually manage the transfer to/from the unit of the GPX &/or basemap?

Local OSM Server

• wiki:InstallationGuidelinesGISDataLinux#OpenStreetMap

Edit Base Map

• Potlatch2
  • Editing local database or only main one?
  • Need better integration into Sahana:
    • passing in the area of the current viewport
    • seeing Sahana overlays inside Potlatch (can export as either GPX or OSM)

Sync Base Map

Our local install needs to be kept up to date from the global repo.

If we're making local edits then we need to feed those back to the master repo.

• This may be hard. Team up with ​OSM-in-a-Box to look at this?

Export to Base Map

• wiki:UserGuidelinesGISDataOpenStreetMapGarmin
  • srtm2osm
  • mkgmap

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