Today I have been thinking about what format data should be stored in on the mobile. Parsing NMEA sentences into an XML format should be within the possibilities of most S60 mobiles. So, the options seem to be:
- Store in .OSM XML format
- Store in GPX XML format
- Store as a CSV or a TXT
The aim of OSM Mobile is to assist exisitng users with the mapping they do for OpenStreetMap and to attract new users by combining a GPS with a mobile phone, allowing some basic notation of street names and POIs and above all, to make it all simple. Bearing this in mind I think a CSV or a GPX file is going to be the best bet. They are both ubiquitous file types that can be understood by a lot of people. GPX has the advantage of being able to be read directly into the OSM editors such as JOSM and already has fields like and that can be used to store information.
I’m also concious that as a contributor to an Open Source project, I’d like to produce something that others can build upon. I’m not going to be writing a portable GIS for OSM in the next few weeks, but I’m sure others will do eventually.
As usual any suggestions are most appreciated.