ALPR tools
THE GOVERNMENT BIRDS REQUIRE A PLACE TO RECHARGE
Jokes aside.
I made some tools you might find useful to counter the surveillance state.
★’s demarcate usefulness (my opinion ; scale of 5)
★★★★★ Big B-router
Maybe you don’t love Big Brother, but maybe you can love Big B-router. Follow the jupyter notebook to edit a pbf file to remove/edit road geometries that are in the sightline of ALPR’s. Then with OsmAndMapCreator we convert the pbf file into an obf file. Upload the OBF file into OsmAnd (on a phone) for an offline map that can navigate around the ALPR’s found in OpenStreetMap data. (Works with AndroidAuto/Carplay in the paid version)
This has been really helpful not only to avoid ALPRs, but is the main way I use to identify ALPRs that aren’t recorded in OSM data. (It’s also interesting to go off the beaten path sometimes)
★★★ osmiumupdate.py WiP
I didn’t see many options for automating map updates (didn’t really look hard). So this is a simple python script to download and apply change files. Downloads from geofabrik, uses wget & osmium, and sends notifications on linux through echo text > /dev/pts/0.
★★ PBF-Prep
Select a bounding box on the map and other stuff to prep data for use in the Big B-router ipynb. Useful as a starting point for other data projects using osm data.
★★ Map-Marker
An interactive map tool to create/edit geodataframes. The shapes are paired with editable metadata. The intention was so one can systematically go through streetview imagery and not end up redoing areas. Or for collecting/identifying areas with out-dated imagery to review/survey later. Fairly niche. Running iD editor locally might be a better option.
Other ways to help
- Share the OBF file (from Big B-Router) w/ the less technically inclined
- These files also need to be updated/redistributed as mapdata improves
- These files also need to be updated/redistributed as mapdata improves
- Identify and contribute more ALPRs
- Correct inaccuracies in OSM data (bad direction/position/tags, sometimes duplication)
- Look at the BC (Bad Cams) articles covering/listing the inaccuracies I identified programmatically.
- Look at the BC (Bad Cams) articles covering/listing the inaccuracies I identified programmatically.
- Support the tooling/data that made this possible