Digitalized Roads based on GPS Data in a Virtual World

Abstract

In this paper an algorithm for implementing a digital map based on the path traveled by a vehicle manipulated in a Virtual World is presented. The algorithm sets the position of a virtual vehicle in a 3D coordinate system and determines the angle of direction to decide which parts of the road can be modeled as lines or curves. The least square method is employed to estimate the roads position based on the pattern of the route followed by the vehicle, with this purpose the equation of circle in curves and a polynomial equation in lines are employed. Two main steps are considered: the first one considers the VW creation using real GPS data and the second one simulates GPS data through a vehicle in the VW, such that, the analysis of GPS data simulated and the real data validates the proposed algorithm for building digitalized roads. The network of roads in the Virtual World simulate a suburb where is desired to implement a digital map, these roads are based on real GPS data of Guadalajara city. The proposed algorithm uses the data obtained with the virtual vehicle to estimate the position of the roads in the VW thatwas originally constructed with GPS data. It is verified that sampling the vehicle trajectory based only in the sampling time induce errors in the road estimation, then the position of the vehicle is sampled considering a minimum distance between samples.