OSM Mobile Binary Format
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This page describes a historic artifact in the history of OpenStreetMap. It does not reflect the current situation, but instead documents the historical concepts, issues, or ideas.
- About
- OSM Mobile Binary Format was a draft for a standardised binary file format for OSM data on mobile devices. See also the discussion on the Dev mailing list back in August 2008.
- Reason for being historic
- The draft was never completed.
- Captured time
- 2009
This format is currently being developed and is in no way finished.
Purpose
The purpose of this format is the local storage of OSM-data on mobile devices.
Application-Scope
The scope are mobile routing, navigation and moving-map -style programs.
The scope are not editors
Requirements (current state)
Agreed on:
- storage-space is limited
- memory is even more limited
- indexed access into the file without loading the complete file into memory
- no floating-point
Proposed:
- support saving a large map as a group of smaller maps each covering a well defined area (e.g. tile).
- support updating areas to their newest version
- the format is read-only. Only complete map-files are written.
- Required Tags
Use Cases:
- display the map with different information density
- zoom the map
- pan the map
- find your position on the map based on GPS coordinates
- find your position on a way based on a street-adress or POI-name
- identify an object on the map based on a user click
- find a route for a fixed vehicle-type from one way to another.
- find and display an object based on its textual representation (street name, city name, POI name)
Existing formats (next state)
To be defined
- The OSM_Mobile_Binary_Protocol has a non-indexed, tile-based format
- no support for topological information? (intersections of ways vs. series of LatLon-Diffs)
- Gosmore
- Cartotype
Specification (future state)
To be defined
Coordinate-Representation
routable Ways
roads for program-specific vehicle types (cars, people, boats, ...)
geographic featues
lakes, oceans, woodland, ...
topologic features
city-boundary-polygons, countries, ...