[Roadster] gps_tab

[William Reid]

Ian McIntosh wrote:

>Hi Bill,
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Nice to meet you Ian.

>>I had to unfix some GPS items in order to compile with gpsd 2.15... 
>>before that I was segfaulting with gpsd 2.28 (from debian packages).
>>    
>>
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>Someone else was having trouble with the new gpsd.  I think they traced
>the crash to inside gpsd.  BUT they weren't having problems with other
>apps using gpsd, so I don't really know where the problem is.
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Why not default to using sockets?  Is this a silly question?

>>Has this stuff been disabled (for the pre release?)
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>Yes.  Also, I no longer have a GPS receiver and I'm out of the US (no
>road data here), so it's hard for me to work on it.
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>>I am trying to see what all has been done so I can pick something out to 
>>help with.
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>All the GPS user-visible features need to be written or updated:
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>- Show on map
>- Keep centered (or within a small circle to keep the # of redraws down)
>- Draw trail (we will probably want line clipping for this!)
>- Stick to roads
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I think these are the most likely canidates for me to work on.  I will 
have to figure out where to begin.
I think getting GUI stuff reenabled would be helpful for me.  I took a 
shot at it but had some trouble.
Then getting gpsd updated and working.
By then I could probably tell what all is working or already there.



Also, I had a lot of trouble with libmysqld.  Mostly it was my 
unfamiliarity of how it worked (or was supposed to work).  I am 
wandering if the install should include the mysql database (like the one 
I had to build in my home dir).  I still don't know how I could now 
access the database normally. 

I have seen postgres's postgis stuff but am as of yet unfamiliar with 
mysql4's spatial stuff.  I have not even peeked at the indexing/layout.

>======
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>There is existing code in need of love:
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>- map_draw_cairo_road_label() in map_draw_cairo.c.  It's straight C and
>some Cairo text drawing.
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I  am much better with existing code.  I am inventive, but it doesn't 
make up for my lack of experience.

>It's the code responsible for curved road labeling.  It's a bit long.
>It could be broken up into the stages: 1. create possible draw spots, 2.
>pick best, 3. draw.
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I will take a look.  I just updated to cairo's cvs version and got an 
improvement in performance.

>======
>
>If you like algorithms, you could write a polygon stitcher.  From TIGER,
>we get a bunch of polygons that are touching on many points (but never
>overlapping), and it would make sense to combine them into one.
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>It doesn't have to be fast or conserve memory, as it'll run during a
>batch import process (and never on the user's PC).
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>Something like:
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>void map_math_stitch_touching_polygons(const GArray* pPoly1, const
>GArray* pPoly2, GArray* pOutput);
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I am not good with algorithms, but I might know where an example of 
something like this lives.

>pOutput will be an existing (but empty) GArray.
>
>=====
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>Please let me know if you want more ideas or more info on one of these!
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For me it is baby steps.  It would be best to get the gui pieces working 
and then get gpsd up to date.

hehe.  I am excited, your maps look great, and are faster then roadmap.

>-Ian
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>[1] http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API//2.0/glib/glib-Arrays.html
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