Map Directions and Routing

One of the most sought after features on websites that include maps is the ability to get directions. A popular misconception is that all maps are pretty much equal. If you are only viewing locations it may not be a big deal if new roads or subdivisions are not on a map but if you want directions it suddenly becomes critical.

An even more crucial element is that the roads being used for routing actually exist. The base maps that many websites use contain a huge number of paper roads. These are roads that have been drafted and exist on paper but for various reasons have never been constructed. Your routing engine cannot differentiate roads that don’t exist and it will instruct you to use them if appropriate. Since routing instructions are sequential, if any point in the sequence doesn’t exist the remainder of the route becomes useless.

For this reason GeoSmart built its own map dataset. To do this we drove more than 94,000km of roads and collected a huge amount of information including the road centreline, road class, angles of corners (which might impact on driving times), turn restrictions (e.g. no right turn), one way roads, dual carriageways, intersections and much more. We also cross-referenced the information collected with that derived from our aerial survey and photogrammetry business to ensure the most geospatially accurate dataset in New Zealand.

Through our relationship with local and regional government and other transport authorities we are advised whenever new roads are approved and constructed and when there are structural changes to them so that we can keep our maps up to date. Our mapping data for SmartFIND clients is updated regularly so that anyone using our SmartFIND maps will have current information.

As a result of our driving program and our rigourous data collection and validation processes, we are the pre-eminent provider of maps to the car navigation and fleet management market in New Zealand and support world-recognized customers such as Navman, BMW, Honda, Rentokil and Toll Holdings.

Our Routing API supports multiple ‘Via Points’. This means that you can create a complete itinery with turn-by-turn instructions with many waypoints between the Start and Finish points. This is a powerful feature for Travel and Tourism sites, location based games and other environments where more complex directions are required.

Routing is available for all general Points of Interest (POI) as well as your own proprietary locations.