The Global Positioning System, or GPS, is a satellite navigation system that works anywhere in the world and is free for anyone to use, with varying levels of accuracy depending on equipment and location.
A basic handheld like the Garmin eTrex Legend, when used in South India with a clear view of the sky, reports typical accuracy around 14-18 metres, with a best of 8 metres.
I have road network traces for a fair part of Bangalore, in GPX format, available to anyone on request. Some of this will hopefully go into a future Bangalore Freemap project. I’m experimenting with Pleiades as a way of making the data available from within this site.
Resources
- Garmin makes GPS devices, including the eTrex Legend.
- GPSBabel tool for dealing with data formats.
- GPX data exchange format.
- GPS Visualizer, which makes maps from GPS recordings.
