Any experience or pointers on making this GPS app?

Comdrpopnfresh

Golden Member
Jul 25, 2006
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SWIM may/may not be involved with a project in which a vehicular asset's location (either current, in-motion, or intended upcoming stop/location) is provided to a web resource.
Focusing on a user web app (to avoid costs of getting into platform app stores, while providing cross-platform availability)... How would one go about using that location info, grabbing the device/browser location info, and map the two along with possible directions on a map (google maps or similar); with the following requirements:
- The site providing the webapp will likely show it in a frame, and no redirects or link-outs can be used; the mapping/location information must be generated/displayed within the webapp and it's frame.
- Any APIs, design tools, etc. must be no-cost.
- Everything past being sent the vehicular location information should be done on the client device via the web app (no separate web-hosted storage or DBs).
- Focus is on design of the web app and not infrastructural setup, server/hosting resources, or hardware.
- Solution is attainable for a small group of folks; some app-dev bg (java, little bit of c++, tiny tiny bit of c# experience), others with mild web use-testing, and the remaining likely using prototyping/mockup/wireframe/design tools to rapidly generate the interface (non-technical project team members).



A current proposal is the following:
Using wordpress (or maybe appery.io), the the web app interface will be made. A prototype is being sought, initially; so, the vehicular GPS info will be hard-coded in the web-app design as static, dummy data. Browser/device location info is requested, and (somehow) using google maps API (if free for this usage) will show the vehicle as a point or destination on a map... The user's location will indicate their position on this map, and options for routes (by car or by foot) to the vehicle are options below the map graphic.
 

mrjminer

Platinum Member
Dec 2, 2005
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1. You would only be able to get the location of the user accurately through GPS. There might be an IP address based service that could give you some location information, but I would doubt the reliability of it if it exists. You would have to have some sort of browser plugin to grab GPS information from the computer to get location information on the browser-end of the tracking. If the browser-side is in a fixed location, it would probably be easiest to just have them enter their address. For phones, there's probably some extremely easy API to get GPS location information (with how shitty most things that use location information are, I'm just guessing it's not very hard to do), but you'd have to check this by phone OS.

2. Google / Bing / others provide mapping services that accept things like latitude and longitude. So you would just have to make sure whatever GPS data you send is converted accordingly if it is not already in the format. Haven't tried with directions, just with single points, and it's pretty easy. You'd have to check if their respective APIs support directions (I'm guessing most do)

3. Google / Bing (and probably others) allow you to query xxxx per month, then you have to pay. I think it's usually 5,000 or something, but it might be higher. There is no map service I am aware of that provides free unlimited queries. You might be able to find a free/open source solution for this and host it, but I am not sure; even if you find one the real task would probably be finding one that has updated maps and can handle directions. There are paid-for solutions IIRC for self-hosting, but it's been a while since I looked this stuff up. I think I found some university site that offered map data packs they regularly update once, but I think it ended up just being coordinates for notable locations, not anything of real detail. Also note, the query limit restrictions might not apply, but you would have to read the T&C of the providers to see based on whatever you are doing with your application
 
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Comdrpopnfresh

Golden Member
Jul 25, 2006
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81
Going through the google maps engine and maps API... it looks as though this may be doable with some dummy data stored on a google account as a vector table... which is accessed, using an API key, by the app prototype.