My “Let’s GPS Amman ourselves” post from 2005 keeps drawing the attention of some interested readers. Here is one that I thought deserved a post on it own. It’s from a “Mr Wrangler”:
How to Create Jordan Maps without Driving Around
There is a much easier way of creating maps for Amman and Jordan than driving around and taking GPS readings. Here’s how:
1.In Google Earth, zoom in to an area say, 3 Km x 3 Km.
2.Save the image.
3.Open it on Ozi Explorer as a map or any other mapping/GPS application.
4.Calibrate the map using 2 or more points that you got from an actual GPS reading on the road. Do not use the Google Earth coordinate reading since Google Earth maps are NOT geo referenced.
5.On Ozi Explorer follow the roads on the map image by marking them. Make sure to be accurate.
6.Save your marks either as a track or a route.
7.Download on your GPS and enjoy.I created a route in my GPS from Al Waha Round About all the way to Habiba/Arab Bank branch downtown (Al Balad) and the readings were extremely close. If you calibrate your map accurately on Ozi Explorer and mark the roads very accurately you will get an accurate roadmap.
I estimate Amman to take no longer than 5 days of full time work to digitize the major and minor roads … not a very long time.
Considering how big Amman has become, I doubt it can be done in 5 days. But it’s still a cool suggestion..
I am just waiting for the day when visitors to Amman can step into their car, enter and address and get full street directions (complete with voice alerts 
to their destination.
Comments
7 responses to “More ways to GPS Amman”
Voice alerts? Will they say, “Be careful. This road under construction.” or “Watch out! This is a one way street that people always go the wrong way on”?
I know it’s not really related but I just wanna say this; I hate Amman’s roads. Traffic jams are becoming ridiculous. They should install SimCity on every PC in amanet amman, maybe that’ll teach them something
whats the progress on the map? or is it still 0%?
oh yeah , cant we just use the xpress map they have on their XGps service? somehow ?
I just found a website(to follow) that claims to have GPS maps of Jordan. http://www.travelbygps.com/premium/jordan/jordan.php
Please let me know if anyone has any experence with this site. I have a Garmin Nuvi 350.
good maps for amman can be found here
http://mapcenter.cgpsmapper.com/maplist.php?cnt=110&rgn=
i used on my in-dash Garmin GPS on last vacation, very nice and accurate but only has the main cities with all roads but without any POIs… not big deal i know amman by heart so i added my own POIs
salam guys,
i have been looking for a map for jordan too… and the best source so far was from the amman municipality. they provide detailed jpg maps for most of amman areas (by district).
http://www.ammancity.gov.jo/arabic/maps/newmap.asp
so, if we want to have something going, we need to paste them together as a first step, and secondly a software that would utilize the fact that roads a distinctly yellow to provide some basic type of turn-by-turn navigation.
let’s work on this together and see where we can from here.