Greetings From Atlanta, GA USA

[jetdoctor]

Hi Everyone,
My name is Doug Walker. I live in Atlanta, GA and work for an airline here as a Technician. My wife is from Digos, Davao Del Sur which is about 60 klicks south of Davao on the island of Mindanao. We usually go to Digos for a family visit every year. I have lost track of how many times I have been there.
Digos is a crossroads for the roads heading south out of Davao. There is a road heading west towards Cagayan De Oro, and south towards General Santos city. There are many transportation companies operating in Digos because of this.
I found this site by doing a search on Google. There was a link from the ADVRider site where I am a member. I have done extensive touring in North America, including Alaska, Labrador, etc. I rode the Trans-America Trail last summer which is heavily dependent on GPS Navigation. It was an education in how to use a mixture of routes and tracks, along with various map sets, in order to follow the intended route.
With this background, I have always wanted to travel the length of the Philippine Archepelago via motorcyle. Having a good gps map database would be a great help in terms of keeping someone from making the wrong turn into whatever hell they happened to find. My wife and her family think I am nuts. Of course they have the Filipino mindset of staying close to their network of family and contacts.
I subscribe to several Yahoo groups, and have spent some time looking around on this site. I always wonder if things in the Philippines are as bad as they are made out to be--ie "the politics of chrisis." It gives me heart to see people living their lives and enjoying themselves. On the other hand, I am not sure that I want to end my life with the swish of a Kris from some betel chewer. Ahhhh life in the wild wild south.
I am presently installing Mapsource on a laptop computer preparing it for my trip next week to Mindanao. Maybe I can keep the cab drivers honest on our overnight on the way home by using my 76cx. My wife and Brother in Law are both civil engineers, so it should be an interesting project to map out our travels. Having a map of Digos will help me to find my way around by myself. Hopefully, I will have enough data for the mods to allow me access to the big map.

Cheers,
Doug Walker

[hennme69c]

Welcome, Doug

The newest map (1.09) is quite good and you should be able to travel the length of the island chain without much issue. Suck up as much data as you can from your trip and send up the new stuff. Contributor status is not hard to achieve.

Please start, though, by reading the "How to" section and becoming familiar with the standards.

Regards,

[jspalaroan]

Hi Doug, welcome to Roadguide, we do have few contributions in Digos as well as some tracks in Gensan to Isulan, Sultan Kudarat and Buluan, Maguindanao hehe. Please feel free to ask and enjoy your stay

[jetdoctor]

Thanks for the replies,
Is there any way that I could get the info from Digos which has already been submitted? That way I could build on it rather than re-doing what has already been done.

I do not think that I will be doing much visitting in Sultan Kudarat, Buluan, or Magindanao. As a 6' tall white guy, I doubt I would survive very long........ Hmmmm Abu Sayef in the south and NPA in the north. Why am I on Mindanao?

Thanks again,
Doug Walker

[DaveMorrison]

Thanks for the replies,
Is there any way that I could get the info from Digos which has already been submitted? That way I could build on it rather than re-doing what has already been done.

I do not think that I will be doing much visitting in Sultan Kudarat, Buluan, or Magindanao. As a 6' tall white guy, I doubt I would survive very long........ Hmmmm Abu Sayef in the south and NPA in the north. Why am I on Mindanao?

Thanks again,
Doug Walker

Doug (or should I just start calling you "Hey Joe" now?), you can download version 1.09 and view in Mapsource, it has the latest info, except for any real recent submissions. From the look of Digos on the map, there is plenty you can help with. There are the two main provincial highways and very little else. If you zoom in on Mapsource, 200m scale or better, you can see there are lots of waypoints with no roads connecting them. It actually looks wrong; we normally need the roads before the waypoints. (Pokz - could you check this?).

Basically from what I can see tracks of every shopping trip will be a help. There is high res imagery for the area in Google so some could be traced but some of the Google frames have offsets, we need good track control to rectify the imagery. Also we cannot get street names, Barangay names and other details. Also road conditions are important i.e. cement, tarmac or the good old unpaved are difficult to determine from imagery, but can make a big difference to travel times. Basically verified data from the ground enhances the quality of the map drastically.

So if you like GPS and doing a bit of mapping - you are on your way to hog heaven.

Read through the how to's and the standards. I suggest you grab a few examples, and upload as quickly as you can to get feedback that you have got it all worked out. The MC's are usually good at letting you know if there are problems with your uploads. If you get no response it usually means you have got it right.

Your help would be appreciated. Hope you get that bike, I prefer the mountain variety but they are a great way to see the country.

Regards
Dave

[hbt]

Doug (or should I just start calling you "Hey Joe" now?), you can download version 1.09 and view in Mapsource, it has the latest info, except for any real recent submissions. From the look of Digos on the map, there is plenty you can help with. There are the two main provincial highways and very little else. If you zoom in on Mapsource, 200m scale or better, you can see there are lots of waypoints with no roads connecting them. It actually looks wrong; we normally need the roads before the waypoints. (Pokz - could you check this?).

Basically from what I can see tracks of every shopping trip will be a help. There is high res imagery for the area in Google so some could be traced but some of the Google frames have offsets, we need good track control to rectify the imagery. Also we cannot get street names, Barangay names and other details. Also road conditions are important i.e. cement, tarmac or the good old unpaved are difficult to determine from imagery, but can make a big difference to travel times. Basically verified data from the ground enhances the quality of the map drastically.

So if you like GPS and doing a bit of mapping - you are on your way to hog heaven.

Read through the how to's and the standards. I suggest you grab a few examples, and upload as quickly as you can to get feedback that you have got it all worked out. The MC's are usually good at letting you know if there are problems with your uploads. If you get no response it usually means you have got it right.

Your help would be appreciated. Hope you get that bike, I prefer the mountain variety but they are a great way to see the country.

Regards
Dave

hi kuya dave,

with regards to the digos area, we already did some tracing there. it will be there on the v1.10
somebody uploaded the waypoints before and promise to upload the tracks but didnt. thats why pokz wanted the tracks also uploaded if there is a waypoint in the middle of a place to prevent something like this.

thanks and happy holidays

[Reiji]

Thanks for the replies,
Is there any way that I could get the info from Digos which has already been submitted? That way I could build on it rather than re-doing what has already been done.

I do not think that I will be doing much visitting in Sultan Kudarat, Buluan, or Magindanao. As a 6' tall white guy, I doubt I would survive very long........ Hmmmm Abu Sayef in the south and NPA in the north. Why am I on Mindanao?

Thanks again,
Doug Walker

Hi Doug.
Welcome to Roadguide.
Hbt did a trace on streets of Digos and it will be available on next update.
It would be much better, if you could submit 1-sec tracks, street names and points of interests.
Enjoy your stay here and have a nice and safe trip to Mindanao.

[Borgie]

Hi Doug & welcome to Roadguide! Yup, Mindanao specfically the ARMM area is not the place to be for a westerner. Visayas is much better, hehe. In our place, i see lots of westerners passing thru on big bikes, mostly in small groups. With your gps and the Roadguide map, you won't get lost for sure if ever you want to do road trips to Visayas & Luzon & the "safe" areas in Mindanao. Hope you can contribute asap so you get to use the much more detailed contributor's map...

[jetdoctor]

Hi Everyone,
Thanks for the replies.
I have been called "Agao" much more than "Hey Joe" around where my wife grew up. I usually reply by waving and calling them Agao (cousin). Several years ago, I was shopping with my sister in law for clothes for the kids before my father in law's funeral. A girl working in the department store shouted out "Hey Joe!" to me, and I replied "hey Joe ka caron........" Her eyes got all big, she turned red and took off the other way. My sister in law still laughs about that.

We are busy packing a few clothes and a lot of Pasalubong. The kids get excited when I am going over there. I think that working on a project like this with the GPS will be a good way to get to know some of them better. A few are getting old enough to understand what is going on, and who knows it may give them the desire to study math and science so that they can make something out of themselves. On the other hand, none of them have the comand of English (even the honor student) that their parents do, so that may be a problem.

I still have some time before we leave on Sunday, and have been looking over the maps available to me. I have been making waypoints on the islands of their names and regions, so that I can keep track of where I am as I scroll around. The scale of the maps is very small compared to what I am used to, and it is kind of like looking at an elephant through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. I am starting to get a better idea of the geography involved as well as the political/ethnic boundaries.

Dave suggested that I download V1.09 and look at it in Mapsource. I was under the impression that I will need to contribute in order to get the unlock code to view it.

It is not a very good idea to try to trace maps on Google Earth, and then upload them into Mapsource. There were some guys trying this on the Trans-America Trail, who had tracks going off cliffs and such in the meat (real not virtual) world. The images tend to be skewed by the angle which the pictures were taken and certainly do not account for earth curvature. I have tried to purchase paper maps of Mindanao on several of my visits. I bought a couple in Manila one year, but they are not of the best quality. With all of the money that was spent on Mindanao in conjunction with the Global War on Terror, I would expect that someone did some modern mapping. I wonder if my friend out in CA who does mapping has access to maps of the PI.

I am concerned that my tracks will get truncated as I walk up the street if I am using a high resolution track. I am wondering if a better thing to do is to make some waypoints at intersections and turns and then rubber band them together using the track draw tool. I am also at somewhat of a loss as to how I would label the roads in terms of what their surface was. I guess that I need to do more reading to see what is needed to be useful.

Cheers,
Doug Walker

[Tofu]

Hi Doug,

If you're going to record tracks while walking, don't use 1 second recording... the track point will be too near each other and it will bounce around like crazy sometimes. It would be better to set it to 3 to 5 seconds.

Happy tracking...

[hennme69c]

Dave suggested that I download V1.09 and look at it in Mapsource. I was under the impression that I will need to contribute in order to get the unlock code to view it.

You can download the v109b map onto your computer. You need the unlock code to get it working on your GPS.

I am concerned that my tracks will get truncated as I walk up the street if I am using a high resolution track. I am wondering if a better thing to do is to make some waypoints at intersections and turns and then rubber band them together using the track draw tool.

You can do that. Should not be a problem.

I am also at somewhat of a loss as to how I would label the roads in terms of what their surface was. I guess that I need to do more reading to see what is needed to be useful.

Unfortunately, you would not be able to open a file if I upload here. So I'm sending you a PM with one of my trips into the mountains of Cebu. It's already been incorporated into the v109 without comment, so whatever I did, I did it right. Use it as an example if you wish on how to label different roads. Also, look here: http://roadguide.ph/forums/showthread.php?t=992

Again, welcome.

[Borgie]

Hi Doug,

If you're going to record tracks while walking, don't use 1 second recording... the track point will be too near each other and it will bounce around like crazy sometimes. It would be better to set it to 3 to 5 seconds.

Happy tracking...

Tofu's right. And you can also set it to auto. But if you intend to stop for more than 5 mins, better turn off the GPs (in the satellite page, not turn off the device) to avoid getting those random tracks that shoot off in different directions...

I have been called "Agao" much more than "Hey Joe" around where my wife grew up. I usually reply by waving and calling them Agao (cousin). Several years ago, I was shopping with my sister in law for clothes for the kids before my father in law's funeral. A girl working in the department store shouted out "Hey Joe!" to me, and I replied "hey Joe ka caron........" Her eyes got all big, she turned red and took off the other way.

Funny story, hehe. Most kids and folks in the barrio do call all white guys "Joe" in this southern part of the country. And it's not often that a white guy can speak the language or at least memorize appropriate words to be able to reply. And i laud your desire to kindle in the minds of these kids the interest of going into science & technology. Nothing sparks more interest than showing technology in action. And that you can do by showing them your GPS. Thanks for sharing...

It is not a very good idea to try to trace maps on Google Earth, and then upload them into Mapsource. There were some guys trying this on the Trans-America Trail, who had tracks going off cliffs and such in the meat (real not virtual) world. The images tend to be skewed by the angle which the pictures were taken and certainly do not account for earth curvature.

In our experience with the high resolution satellite imageries of the Philippines, that's just not so. As long as you have GPS tracks of a particular area you want to trace, you can make pretty accurate traces of roads that don't have that big an error to make it worthless in the real world. Please go over the various threads in this forum that discuss GE tracing. Just might make you change your views on this...

Happy New Year Doug & to all of us Roadguide'rs!

[DaveMorrison]

Classifications etc

Doug,

For streets etc I usually download my tracks and waypoints etc then hand draw the streets based on the tracks and knowledge of the streets, very difficult to use raw tracks in busy conjested areas where you are stopping starting, turning corners which look nice and rounded on tracks but is basically a 90 degree intersection. Good waypoints can certainly help.

For classification, the standard about covers it with the following:

"please use following generic names:
road ( paved concrete or bitumen )
unpaved road (compacted dirt road, passable by sedan)
4 x 4 trail (can be passed by 4x4 vehicles)
dirtbike trail (only passable by dirtbikes)"

This worked in well with a totally different method I used for my bike tracks. My only comments are "whose sedan are we driving, yours or mine?" and of course "dirtbike trail" means passable by my mother (my granny passed away)on a dirtbike and of course real men on mountain bikes whilst playing a guitar!

I actually take the "Hey Joe" as a friendly gesture out of the cities, I bike up some rough track into a purok and those that are close enough to eyeball me say good morning, those further away use "hey Joe" to basically say "hello, welcome to my village". Most rides I never see a fellow "Joe" so I am pretty sure who they are saying hello to and call back, lung capacity permitting.

When I first got my "clipless" bike shoes (who dreams these names up) I would sometimes attempt to stop and wave good morning back, forgetting to "unclip" and promtly falling over. This provided great entertainment and was one way to introduce myself. I have since got better and limit my entertainment value to that of a red faced, sweaty, smelly Joe in ridiculous looking biking gear, trying to look cool.

But they still manage to be friendly!

The only unfiendly comment I had was a question about by "big belly" (reduced by 17kg since) but he was quite large himself and I think he just wanted confirmation that the problem was Filipino wifes and their cooking, and therefore not our faults!

Have Fun.
Dave

[Borgie]

I actually take the "Hey Joe" as a friendly gesture out of the cities, I bike up some rough track into a purok and those that are close enough to eyeball me say good morning, those further away use "hey Joe" to basically say "hello, welcome to my village". Most rides I never see a fellow "Joe" so I am pretty sure who they are saying hello to and call back, lung capacity permitting.

When I first got my "clipless" bike shoes (who dreams these names up) I would sometimes attempt to stop and wave good morning back, forgetting to "unclip" and promtly falling over. This provided great entertainment and was one way to introduce myself. I have since got better and limit my entertainment value to that of a red faced, sweaty, smelly Joe in ridiculous looking biking gear, trying to look cool.

But they still manage to be friendly!

The only unfiendly comment I had was a question about by "big belly" (reduced by 17kg since) but he was quite large himself and I think he just wanted confirmation that the problem was Filipino wifes and their cooking, and therefore not our faults!

Have Fun.
Dave

Nice post Dave . You are very observant ...