Google Street Map of Pakistan

Discussions (48)

June 18th, 2008 at 10:01 pm #Sohail Abid

I am IN!
June 19th, 2008 at 1:48 am #Arfeen

I think you can easily use the Google Maps API to create a mashup that lies on top of the satellite view in google map.

Look here for some information about how this has already been done for Islamabad.
http://greenwhite.org/2008/05/14/routing-in-islamabad-the-naqsha-way/
June 19th, 2008 at 12:58 pm #Aqeel

Let’s not underestimate an official google street map. Naqsha has no doubt done a great and commendable job but it is still a workaround. Google maps has a much wider visitor base. Can google earth users use these overlays made by Naqsha? A bunch of mobile applications that are based on google maps, cannot use Naqsha.net.

If all the major indian cities (lookup Banglore, Mumbai, etc. on maps.google.com) can have a detailed street map, why can’t we?
June 20th, 2008 at 1:38 am #Rakesh

Great idea. Action-oriented venturing. Kudoos to you guys. Unfortunately I am from Karachi as of now, can’t pool in.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:12 am #Asma

As already mentioned … have a look at naqsha.net too :)
June 20th, 2008 at 11:15 am #Asma

I think they have maps (if not in-depth) available for Lahore too … guidance can be taken from them.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:16 pm #Aqeel

Folks, I contacted a close friend of mine who is working in google. I asked him about the right person/group in google who can do this thing. Here is his reply:

————

Hey,
I dont know who is responsible as of now but i remember that they have invested some time but like other places, they couldn’t find any street maps books for Pakistan.
I am not sure if they scan the large sheets of city-wise street maps printed by the ‘Survey of Pakistan as they may not be able to digitize and share copyright info in the attached partial image of Lahore map which says “It is an offense under the Copyright Act to digitize, make and issue any copy or copies of this map or any part of this map, with or without alterations and additions, unless the prior written permission of the Surveyor General of Pakistan has been obtained”

if you can figure out how to scan & share these maps for digitization or is there any alternate option that would be awesome.

————

Can anyone help here?
June 20th, 2008 at 6:33 pm #Sohail Abid

One of my friends has been working on GIS with some ORACLE suit and ESRI. And he says that SoP (Survey of Pakistan) has the digital mapping data of Pakistan and they sell that data. And that data can be used in ESRI.

As far as I have got this: if SoP does sell that data, we should be able to use that mapping data in out custom applications as well. But to built custom GIS applications will not be easy that’s why enterprises license software from ESRI.

I hope this information leads us in some direction. If anyone else knows something in this regard?
June 20th, 2008 at 7:30 pm #Aqeel

@Sohail Abid, this is indeed a good find. I looked up Surveyor General of Pakistan and here is a useful link http://www.fas.org/irp/world/pakistan/sgp/index.html

Their office is in Rawalpindi and the phone number is also present on the website. I think we should call them to find out about the terms and conditions for having access to this digital data. Someone with some level of bureaucratic acquaintances can really help us. I will ping my contacts, you guys can do the same.

Also take a look at http://www.fas.org/irp/world/pakistan/sgp/pk97009.htm and you will notice that they have an annual operational budget of 150 million rupees (as of 1997).
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:15 am #Osama A.

Cool discussion though - shows the power of collaboration first hand
June 24th, 2008 at 9:13 am #Asma

FYI :)
June 24th, 2008 at 11:21 am #Aqeel

@Asma, This is fantastic. I’ll play with it a bit.

Guys, If it is what it looks it is. The next task should be to bring more volunteers to this group and divide the regions amongst ourselves and start the mapping.

It might just be a blessing in disguise as we won’t have to follow up with SGP and the associated bureaucracy :)
June 24th, 2008 at 2:19 pm #Aqeel

The maps defined through google map maker were not visible on google maps (maps.google.com) So I checked their website/FAQ and this is what I found:

—–
Q: How long does it take for changes to appear? Will my changes appear on other Google products?

A: The changes can be seen on Google Map Maker in real time. Not all user contributions will appear on maps.google.com or other Google products. The contributions that do appear on other Google products may take a some time to show up. Google Map Maker is a repository for user submitted information. Google may choose to accept some of that data for display on other websites and products.
—–

Someone had already accurately defined Main Boulevard Gulberg using Map maker but it is still not visible on google maps. I am not sure what will it take to get it through moderator’s approval. Any ideas?
June 24th, 2008 at 2:56 pm #Aqeel

Same topic in google groups.

http://groups.google.com/group/google-mapmaker/browse_thread/thread/725c1cc4319c0d00
June 24th, 2008 at 10:10 pm #Nadir Viqar

Hello All,

I work at naqsha.net. If you have had a closer look at our website you would have noticed that our maps are not just restricted to the Islamabad/Rawalpindi region. We have digital vector data of more than 10 major cities in Pakistan and are adding more data everyday. Naqsha.net provides street level detail of all the cities available on the website. And thats not all. You can also search for streets, roads, POIs (e.g. hotels, petrol stations, markets, land marks, etc). You can then use these points for routing as well, get turn by turn directions, etc. You can also select a location and do a proximity/radius search to find the nearest petrol station, restaurant, etc. Do try it out at http://naqsha.net/extjs/ (this is a new version I am working on and is not yet public).

Regards,

Nadir
June 25th, 2008 at 12:04 pm #Aqeel

Check out the latest contributions on Map Maker. People are making serious contributions. This is awesome.

Please step forward and make your contributions. Follow the guidelines at http://sites.google.com/site/mapmakeruserhelp/user-guide/best-practices

According to the guys from google Map maker team, if quality of contribution is good, it will be available on maps.google.com in a couple of months (I am sure we can push them to do it earlier).

Here is what we need to do:
- Go to Map maker and map the areas you know very well.
- Moderate the areas defined by others and endorse the ones you think are accurate.
- Spread the word and bring more people to this thread of Ideashut for contextual awareness.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:18 pm #Adil

We actually have two different collaboration map projects…

there is the one from google as mentioned above and there is one located on http://www.openstreetmap.org, which had the same idea for some time now…

Yahoo allowed them access to their aerial photography and you can trace over them to create roads, highways, etc. When you go into the details, its alot more advanced than google’s.

Also you can export the info from openstreetmap to anything really and its under Creative Common license, where as google will be the sole owner of all information uploaded to them.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:40 am #momers

Hey Nadir Viqar,

You guys have some excellent work done already especially on the road network.
Any possibility of being able to port this data to google mapmaker? That would be just amazing!

Your new website doesn’t work well in firefox 3 or 2 for that matter. Whats up with that?
June 27th, 2008 at 3:06 pm #Umz

Hi everyone,

I have had a considerable experience with GIS development for a fairly sophisticated application last year. In my view, there is no need to develop a meshup, or an overlay, or anything for google maps. Primary reason, SPEED. People accessing google maps from their mobile devices over low bandwidth GSM connections need to get maximum information in lowest amount of downloaded data. Google has already optimized this issue. So no need to overload it.

Here, all you have to do is point n place any location that you know of. Pretty soon i am sure we will cover large areas and street level details through small contributions.

I know Lahore very well, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi, fairly good. And i am adding places.

So, get started people.

Chao.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:54 pm #Rehan Allahwala

Check out

http://talk.bytesense.biz/internet/google-opens-mapmaker-for-pakistan/
August 31st, 2008 at 12:45 pm #Adnan Siddiqi

I am on FF 3.x and it’s asking to install ADOBE SVG viewer. Why was native SVG used for the application at naqsha.net?

Google is wicked. At one side it seems cool that we are allowed to map our streets while on other hand Google using us to trace every locality of Pakistan easily. As we know, Google ALSO works with American Intelligence agencies.
September 5th, 2008 at 11:13 am #momers

attention all Pakistani Google MapMakers,

Google Mapmaker editing is disabled for the region of Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas in Pakistan. This to me is extremely unfair and might show some bias on part of the India based Google Mapmaker team.

No city names or anything exists for that region while in the Indian Administered Kashmir data exists.

Please lodge your protest to this unfair move.
To read more go here:
http://groups.google.com/group/google-mapmaker/browse_thread/thread/559a6a5efb1753b1

Please raise you voice against this as regional politics should not give an upper hand to the mapmaker team and they are not the ones who should be deciding if or not we can map a region of Pakistan.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:06 pm #aDDY *

AuA Everyone !

Great work done by “NAQSHA.NET” team.
I would do whatever I could.
September 15th, 2008 at 3:21 am #tariq mehmood

i have need the road & street map of rawalpind pakistan with road & street names…………ok thank u
September 16th, 2008 at 9:45 am #aDDY *

Does any one has an idea when exactly Google is gonna publish the data from “MapMaker” to its other applications like “Google Earth” or specially “Google Mobile” ??
Actually I have been surfing and creating maps in “MapMaker” for Rawalpindi/Islamabad. And now you would hardly find any place or road unmarked. The point is, what process would be required now to step up this map data to a full Navigable Map???
October 1st, 2008 at 10:29 pm #Nadir Viqar

Hello everyone. I am pleased to announce that the company behind naqsha.net is introducing in-car GPS navigation devices in Pakistan. Alll devices are from Garmin which is the leading GPS manufacturer in the world. The GPS units would be available soon after Eid. Currently they are available at Tracking World (Pvt) Ltd (51-B Faisal Town Lahore) and at Hi Volts (Al-Babar Centre F-8 Markaz Islamabad).
October 12th, 2008 at 1:55 pm #skhan

A few days back I had a chance to have a ride in my taya’s Big Car. He showed me the street map of his car which was displaying the map of some Japan’s city. He told me Lahore’s map is not available. Instantly I thought of Google Maps and thought wouldn’t that be great if we had Google Street Maps of Pakistan and we could install them to such cars.

That’s nice to see this idea is already being floated around and lots of people are already working on it !
October 14th, 2008 at 8:31 am #Nadir Viqar

Dear Skhan,

I have good news for your Taya. He can get maps on his Big car for Lahore and other cities of Pakistan which have been prepared by naqsha.net. Please visit Tracking World (Pvt) Ltd at 51-B Faisal Town Lahore. Phone number is 042-111-22-66-66. We have integrated our maps with Garmin GPS devices which are now on sale. Most of these devices are hand held and can be mounted on the windscreens of cars. There is also a GPS unit for motorbikes which is water-proof. For cars which have in-build screens and navigation + entertainment systems we have a GPS unit which displays the maps on those in-build screens and entertainment units as well. You can check these products at trackingworld.com.pk or at naqsha.net as well.

Regards,

Nadir
October 14th, 2008 at 9:58 am #skhan

WOW ! I’ll let him know about it. I think the best option for him would be the GPS unit which displays the maps on the in-build screens.
November 2nd, 2008 at 9:06 pm #alias

I don’t get it - Naqsha.net is useless, you can’t use it on a cellphone/PDA - Google Map Maker is not open to data sharing, so you can’t take any data out of it - and the people who have prepared the data are charging 20k+ for it and that too locked on to a device!

People are spending hours/days of their lives updating scattered data on Google Map Maker for PK when they can instead just focus their effort on a single platform and come up with freely available data for sharing like others in the rest of the world have done. Case in point: http://www.malsingmaps.com.

I was thinking of a forum like the example above where everybody pools in and the data is published for everyone to share and improve on. Any takers? I have the technical expertise that could get us started.
November 11th, 2008 at 3:56 pm #Farzana

Can somebody tell me the sheet no. of SOP Map scale 1:50,000 for GUjrant and Mandi Bahudin
November 12th, 2008 at 6:41 pm #Kifayat Hussain

Hello Guys,

It will be very hard to get a free complete routable Garmin map of Pakistan like the one naqsha.net has developed and is developing.

You can get a free OpenStreetMap of Pakistan and many other countries from http://downloads.cloudmade.com/asia/pakistan

Here you all can download a Garmin map of Pakistan in img format and POI data for your Garmin units.

I haven’t tested these maps on the road so far for accuracy as I don’t live in Pakistan but i have had a look at them on my Garmin device in GPS simulation mode and they look good enough.

This is an OpenStreetMap and made by various people contributing to the OpenStreetMap community. If you use these files please make sure you attribute the OpenStreetMap community by including a link to http://www.openstreetmap.org.

Kindly don’t use these maps for any commercial purpose or sale. Open source is meant to be free to use for personal use and not to be sold or used in any form commercially without prior approval from source/author.

Yes we are free to develop and enhance these maps in terms of new data and modifications. You can use these maps as a base for editing the maps as you feel accurate in applications like GPSMapEdit.

The direct download links are:

Garmin .img file: http://downloads.cloudmade.com/asia/pakistan/pakistan.img.zip

POI gpx file:
http://downloads.cloudmade.com/asia/pakistan/pakistan.poi.gpx.zip

Note: The Garmin .img file is not routable but its good enough with many major roads and entities mapped. The cities that have been mapped well are Rawalpindi/Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar.

This is an OpenStreetMap and made by various people contributing to the OpenStreetMap community. If you use these files please make sure you attribute the OpenStreetMap community by including a link to http://www.openstreetmap.org.

Have a good time with your Garmins.

Kifayat Hussain
November 17th, 2008 at 7:41 am #Kifayat Hussain

Hello Friends,

I have been looking around for ideas on how the other groups around the world make their maps that are free to the general public to use on their Garmin GPS.

Examples of such free and open map making groups are:

http://www.malsingmaps.com : GPS Portal of Malaysia and Singapore. They have created their own free routable Garmin maps for Malaysia and Singapore which are available to the open public.

http://www.malfreemaps.com : Malaysia & Singapore Free GPS map forum. Most of these members were previously part of the http://www.malsingmaps.com group but have now setup their own forum. They have created their own free routable Garmin maps for Malaysia and Singapore which are available to the open public.

http://www.gwprojects.org/gps/ : New Zealand Open GPS Maps Project
for Garmin Mapping GPS. They have created their own free routable Garmin maps for New Zealand which are available to the open public.

http://rotweilermaps.com/ : A Thailand based community with people from around the world who have made their own free routable Garmin maps for Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong which are available to the open public.

All these communities are free forums running on minimum contributions and I have personally tested many of these maps on my Garmin on the road and they are no where less than Garmin official maps standards.

The reason I am so focused on Garmin GPS maps (apart from the fact that I have a Garmin Nuvi200 and Garmin Mobile XT on my cell phone) is that it is a market leader in GPS devices and its Garmin Mobile XT software can be used by anyone on any Smartphone that has an internal GPS or using an eternal GPS. Another reason is that the source data, tools and utilities available for building Garmin routable GPS maps are in abundance and almost free.

All these communities take their basic source data from Map Centre (http://mapcenter2.cgpsmapper.com/ ) and Google Earth. Local contributors provide POIs via emails etc and these updates are made to maps on a regular basis.

A good guide on making your own free customized routable Garmin map is available at http://www.malsingmaps.com/wiki/index.php/Mapping_Reference . This guide explains graphically how we can use various tools like GPSMapEdit to create our own GPS maps. It explains GPS map building concepts in detail and all the tools you will require for your map building as well as websites where you can download these tools are also listed.

For the data source, MapCentre has millions of maps. So it’s best to use the following website http://gpsmapsearch.com/ to search for a smaller list of sources available at MapCentre and download them.

The GPSMapEdit utility as I mentioned earlier can use data downloaded from MapCentre as well as display Google Images in the background in real time or from a system cache. This utility is shareware. The basic free version is complete to map routable GPS maps. But in order to access Google images you have to purchase a license. You can download this utility free from http//www.geopainting.com/ .

I hope all this information (which many of you might already have known about before) is helpful in making your own routable GPS maps.

PS: Do let me know if you are planning on starting a forum or community to make free open source routable GPS street maps of Pakistan on my email kafie2002@yahoo.com . I am a Petroleum Geologist working abroad so I really have never had the time and space to make my own GPS maps. But I can offer as much technical help as possible in making a free open source routable GPS street map of Pakistan.

Good luck!!

Kifayat Hussain
November 17th, 2008 at 9:00 pm #alias

Kifayat,
Your post was immensely helpful! In fact, my mapping efforts have surrounded this method as well. I’ve gotten started at: http://pkmaps.freeforums.org.

All of you are invited. We’ll use the same methodology as Kifayat recommended. We already have a base map to work on. All the data will be absolutely FREE for sharing and for others to work on and improve and merge together to give a better map.
December 14th, 2008 at 9:54 am #Mohammad Afzal Khan

Aoa

These maps are also Helpfull to our Enimies also, so becarefull.

Khan
December 15th, 2008 at 1:14 pm #Kifayat Hussain

Hello Khan,

I doubt what we are doing here is going to help your enemy more than how much NAQSHA.NET’s GPS map or Google Earth is going to. They are selling it for 120US$. I think your enemy will have the budget to buy something as cheap as that.

I even think they might have a better version.

We are just trying to develop a few free maps that can be helpfull to the common man. The accuracy of these maps is questionable as well because they are based on Google Imagery, Personal observations and interpretations. Apart from that the conventional GPS devices that will use these maps have a degree or error so that it cannot be used for such purposes.

I guess the Pakistani government has already taken this fact into consideration before permitting NAQSHA.NET to startup such a mapping service in Pakistan.

By the way, We already have a map of Islamabad and Karachi on our website http://pkmaps.freeforums.org/ .

Have a nice day!!

Remember even the person sitting next to you might be your enemy.

Regards,
Kifayat
December 18th, 2008 at 3:03 pm #Hussain

Hello kiffayat,

Good work. I have joined your forum and i am willing to help anyway i can in this good deed. I am a resident of islamabad and own a satglobal usb gps receiver so i might be good use to you.

Tell me how can i help in mapping islamabad.

I have dropped a message on your forum as well.

Thanks
December 31st, 2008 at 11:36 am #sajjal

hi friends….
i am looking for a place of islamabad on google satellite view, but i cannot find. because pakistani peoples have no interest to make pakistan a globle city..
now, i request all of you my friends that we please upload any one fair information about our home city on internet or on satellite view of pakistan, this is a little try to make more and good information about Pakistan for the rest of the worl.. and try to make pakistan a golble city like other world..
i hope that all of you people to do some work for it..
thanks
December 31st, 2008 at 11:38 am #sajjal

DO SOME THING DIFFERENT FROM OTHERS… TO MAKE A BETTER PAKSITAN
January 1st, 2009 at 1:39 am #Ali

People who are working on it might want to look at http://brightkite.com .. a new social networking site that integrates “Where You Are” - Something that possibly can be integrated along this project.
January 16th, 2009 at 7:47 pm #Saad Khan

Alias/ Kafiat
Working on the Lahore map along with Dr Faisal …. road network, POIs, polygons…..more than 60% routability is done….a bit delayed for our deadline this weekend….will post at the pkmaps forum soon
February 15th, 2009 at 7:24 pm #Salman Butt

Hi,
I am Salman Butt plz send me google map street view in my pc live… plz plz plz ………..
February 21st, 2009 at 9:10 am #Saad Khan

http://pkmaps.freeforums.org/
for free garmin maps for lahore, karachi, islamabad, wah, peshawar and more
April 4th, 2009 at 10:59 pm #asif mahmood

my friends Google starts its free street maps, although its not calculating route yet, but still it give u every detail of every street, you can search and find other place and then find out route. i used it in lahore and its gr8 :)
April 11th, 2009 at 2:44 pm #Saad

hi friends….
i am looking for a place of islamabad on google satellite view, but i cannot find. because pakistani peoples have no interest to make pakistan a globle city..
now, i request all of you my friends that we please upload any one fair information about our home city on internet or on satellite view of pakistan, this is a little try to make more and good information about Pakistan for the rest of the worl.. and try to make pakistan a golble city like other world..
i hope that all of you people to do some work for it..
thanks
May 18th, 2009 at 12:33 am #Amir Hassam

Dear Fellows,

I need the Pakistan,s Vector maps on .gst format.
can anybody help me out.

I need it to use in a gps monitoring software.
May 25th, 2009 at 10:12 am #Aqeel

Finally the mapmaker content about Pakistan has graduated to the official Google Maps site. I have been enjoying these maps on my mobile for a few weeks now and last Friday, I noticed the maps were available on Google maps too. The people who have actually (and persistently) contributed to the Mapmaker, such as momers, haris, etc deserve a standing ovation for this. Some news agencies have also recognized their efforts. See here http://newzonfire.com/2009/05/24/pak-netizens-posting-data-google-map-maker-country/.

Many thanks guys. You made us proud.
Aqeel
May 31st, 2009 at 6:16 pm #Jamil Khan

Guys
I have garmin streetpilot which I bought in US, my hobby is to explore the world. I want to create tracks and routs and shre with others.Please help me to create tracks and routes in Garmin.my email is jamilbhi@yahoo.com

Google Street Map of Pakistan

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