TomTom

TomTom is a Dutch multinational developer and creator of location technology and consumer electronics. TomTom has been making data improvements to OpenStreetMap through organised editing since 2021. TomTom announced that its new TomTom Map will use OSM data when it is released, sometime in 2023. TomTom will attribute this map according to the ODbL attribution guidelines.

Contributions

TomTom contributes to OSM in a variety of ways, including releasing two tools (see Community Tools below), sponsoring State of the Map conferences and local OSM communities, map editing leads, and making approved data improvements in the OSM map.

Map Data Improvements

TomTom has made map data improvements in over 200 countries and contributed editing leads via MapRoulette challenges for OSM community editors in several more.

For details about how TomTom contributes map data improvements, see Organised Editing/Activities/TomTom and Automated edits/TTmechanicalupdates.

Community Tools

TomTom has created tools that use GPS data to identify potential problems in the map. These tools are available to the community to use as resources when making edits to OSM.

MapMetrics

MapMetrics helps to identify routing issues in OSM.

Portions of the map can have bad routing for a variety of reasons, including missing roads, inaccurate one-way streets, and poorly drawn connections between roads. MapMetrics uses billions of GPS traces to assess how close drivers are to the route that the OSM engine suggests. When the tool identifies large deviations from the suggested route, it highlights those map areas with a red-to-green color scale, making it easier for map editors to identify and correct errors in the map.

To read more about MapMetrics, see Happy Birthday, OpenStreetMap! and The battle for quality maps on the TomTom blog.

RoadRunner

RoadRunner helps to improve the accuracy of the road network in OSM.

This tool uses vast amounts of GPS trace data to automatically generate a road network. The road centerlines that it generates can be loaded as a custom background in the OSM iD Editor. The centerlines can then be used to identify missing and misaligned roads in the map.

To read more about RoadRunner, see RoadRunner: Instant Maps on the TomTom blog.

Sponsorships

TomTom provides sponsorship support to OSM in the following ways:

• OpenStreetMap Belgium – corporate members
• 2022 State of the Map US – anniversary sponsor
• 2022 State of the Map Firenze – gold sponsor

OSM and TomTom Devices

The Dutch company TomTom manufactures a range of Linux-based satellite navigation hardware, including a car navigation software and several streetmaps. In addition they have ported their software to several PDAs and mobile phones equipped with Bluetooth or built in GPS receivers.

• See also GPS Reviews, Tom Tom Devices.

The navigation units do not normally record tracks. However all recent TomTom units run Linux and allow other software to be installed and run, which extend the functionality of the original firmware. Some useful tools (to record tracks, and others) are listed below:

Using OSM maps with TomToms

Screenshot from a TomTom GO 910 running Navit.

Successful attempts were made with Navit software, see TomTom on their wiki.

Though TomTom's mapping format is a closely guarded secret, both for copy protection and because if you knew how they stored the maps, they would be giving away a lot of their navigation secrets. As a result there is no software to allow OSM mapping to be converted to the format the TomTom app uses, and unlikely to be any unless TomTom themselves make it.

• ttMaps enables the display of raster maps (ECW format) for navigation. It can be used with downloaded OSM maps.
• Another method to display OSM maps on TomTom could be porting Gosmore to OpenTom. (mail)

Tracking Tools

• Le Web Bazar offers several add-on applications for TomTom units, including:
  • NMEALogger dumps the nmea output from the receiver into a log file on the memory card or internal FLASH memory. New logs can be automatically created when the unit is resumed.
  • Tripmaster is a more complex applet, with compass, GPS position and such. It can log directly to GPX or KML files. However, it is using the corrected (copyrighted) position from the TomTom software as default. Therefore it must be switched to "Real" coordinates for collecting tracks for OSM. As a downside of Tripmaster, the TomTom moving map is moving noticeably slower (sometimes even freezes for a few seconds) and the TomTom often crashes when selecting a new routing target. The recommended configuration settings (reachable by pressing the ][ button at the bottom right) are:
    • Setup: Coordinates "Real" - to get "uncorrected" GPS coordinates, this is important
• Event Logger can produce GPX tracks. In early versions the produced GPX tracks were corrected by the TomTom's built-in Maps, and hence using them in OSM is not possible. Versions 6.4 and newer can make a GPX of the raw data from the GPS device. Note: The log interval should be something around 1 second and the Event Logger only logs your position every 10 seconds (?), this is enough to map straight streets but you'll not have enough data to map a turn or smaller details. See this page for more Information about installing Event_Logger on TomTom. --Cohort 2 June 2008 (UTC)
• ttMaps enables the display of raster maps (ECW format) for navigation. While ttMaps can handle tiled maps, it's faster when using a single big image for each map set. Among the features which are most interesting for OSM users and mappers:
  • Track recording, import and export (GPX)
  • NMEA stream recording
  • Pedestrian mode to get smoother GPS coordinates (must be enabled for OSM data collection)
  • Back and forth switching between several sets of maps, at the touch of a button (installing several OSM map sets rendered at different zoom levels, this feature can be used as a slippy map zooming function)
  • Display of the current or of a stored track (great to visually check which parts have already been explored)
  • Route display (GPX)
  • POI management (GPX and OV2 formats), with position averaging function.
  • Switch off the display after a certain time (configurable) of non-use, for increased battery life. --Kaitu 12:32, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Comparison

Feature	Tripmaster	Event Logger	NMEAlogger	ttMaps
Save NMEA Stream	yes	no	yes	yes
Produce GPX files	yes	yes	no	yes
Coordinates not "corrected" (realigned) by TomTom Map	Depends on setting	Depends on setting/version	yes	yes
Maximum sample rate	1 sec	4 sec	1 sec	1 sec
System load	medium	medium	fair	replaces main application
Supports altitude	yes	yes	yes	yes
Supports geoid altitude correction	yes	yes	no	yes
Supports external SD-card	?	yes	no	yes
Supports local timezone	no	yes	no	yes
Supports compressed log files	no	yes	no	yes
Flexibility/settings	high	high	low	high
User interaction	high	high	medium	high
Shows the track over map	no	route display via .ITN files	no	yes
Raster maps display	no	no	no	ECW (*)
Automatic start at boot	?	Depends on setting	no	Depends on setting
Works on most recent (9.026) navcore version	Depends on hook	yes	?	yes
Can work also without TomTom's navigation application	no	no	no	yes
Open source (GPL) software	no	no	no	no

(*):ECW is an image compression format, within which geographical referencing and map projection information can be embedded, suitable for very large images. --Kaitu 18:42, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

OpenTom

OpenTom was a center of 3rd party open-source development for the TomTom. There were two intentions of this project:

1. One was to write and document the writing of add-ons for the normal TomTom software.
2. The other was to write a new software stack from scratch. Currently, there are no maps or navigation facilities.

Using OSM POIs with TomToms

If you are using Linux, you can use osm-ov2 to download OpenStreetMap data from Geofabrik, extract points of interest and convert them to OV2 format for use in TomTom satnavs.

Using Osmosis with GPSBabel is also possible.

TomTom Users in the OpenStreetMap community

User	Model	Logger	Comment
AlexZ	ONE V3	NMEALogger
Bmarand	ONE V1	TTTracklog
Christopher	ONE V2	NMEALogger
Cimm			only the Bluetooth receiver with 3rd party software
Christian Krützfeldt	ONE V3
Clive
Cohort	ONE V3	EventLogger v8.3
cputrdoc	GO 920T	EventLogger
eclispe	ONE V2	NMEALogger
EmJay	Navigator 6 on PalmOne TREO 650
farrpau	ONE V3	EventLogger
Franc Carter	GO 910	-	experimenting with TripMaster, EventLogger and NMEALogger to see which I like
User:Gorn	GO 910	EventLogger
HBR	GO 720T	EventLogger	Just starting HBR 00:50, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
jcr83	ONE V1	ttMaps v0.7.0
Jean-Yves	ONE V3	EventLogger v8.0
Joghurt	several
Jon	GO 510
Jonnybob	ONE XL	Tripmaster
kaitu	ONE V2	ttMaps
Keichi	ONE V3	EventLogger v8.0
user:kollokollo	ONE V3	TTTracklog
Langläufer	GO 930T	NMEALogger 2.0	Tripmaster 3.1 also works fine, but I only want a small logger
user:la_poigne	Start	TTTracklog
Magne	GO 910
Marc			tried the cross compiler, want to compile extra stuff, people needed
Mercator	GO 910	NMEALogger
mike alder	GO 910		for mapping and OSM display on unit
Navisence	Rider V2	EventLogger
NukSu	ONE XL	NMEALogger
phobie	ONE V4	NMEALogger
Pjw1965	ONE V1	NMEALogger
Robert (Jamie) Munro
User:Rob Latham	ONE	Tripmaster
Rodrigo Moya
RWoelfel	510	Tripmaster
Sannifrosch	ONE v3	TTTracklog	successfully using TTTracklog on my device
Simone	300	NMEALogger
Thomas Petazzoni	GO 920	Event Logger
Tor Harald Thorland	GO 720T	NMEALogger 1.5
ULFL	Rider	Tripmaster
Willi2006	Wireless GPS receiver (Bluetooth)		using the Bluetooth receiver with JOSM on a netbook with Windows 7
Wookey			have tomtoms, interested in improving software infrastructure for their use with OSM

Additional TomTom Pages

Organised Editing/Activities/TomTom

Automated edits/TTmechanicalupdates

Tom Tom Devices