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A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

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Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#51

Post by guenthert »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #50
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #47

The article claims that the "match roads by turns" technique "was later adopted by all navigation apps". Does anyone know if this is true? My impression was that they rely on GPS position only for positioning, even though modern phone hardware should give really nice gyroscope/accelerometer data.

Virtually all car navigation software, or phone GPS apps in driving mode, will "snap" to a nearby road if the GPS indicates that you are traveling parallel to one. This compensates for minor GPS reception errors. This can occasionally , in rare situations, be a problem, if you have frontage roads very close to a highway, they can sometimes get confused about which road you are actually on.

In car navigation software it's not all that rare. Chances are the maps are out of date, perhaps by quite a few years (because manufacturers ask for absurd prices on map updates) and you're traveling on a road which doesn't yet exist on the map ...

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#52

Post by mariusor »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #47

The article claims that the "match roads by turns" technique "was later adopted by all navigation apps". Does anyone know if this is true? My impression was that they rely on GPS position only for positioning, even though modern phone hardware should give really nice gyroscope/accelerometer data.

I interpreted that to mean that any error in GPS coordinates will be snapped to the closest road that matches the direction vector. (At the same time, I doubt my understanding since I've seen plenty of navigation systems show the vehicle not on the road when traveling on less well covered GPS areas).

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#53

Post by Affric »

Thtjifiti wrote: post #37
SamBam wrote: post #17

The name is perfect. "Etak" refers to a system of navigation used by Micronesian and Polynesian seafarers to navigate from island to island in the vast Pacific Ocean. Much like this device, it operates by "augmented dead reckoning" (as it says in TFA). The etak system of navigation involves navigating by stars and ocean swells to get the heading, but a key issue when navigating by dead reckoning over long distances i…

This sounds very romantic, but they were mostly at drift. Most very using rafts without any form of propulsion. "Navigation" across wast distances was one way road with no return ticket. They had to do it for overpopulation, not for some explorative spirit.

Do you have a source for your claims?

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#54

Post by guenthert »

golergka wrote: post #31

One thing I notice about the 80s is that people were much more willing to pay top dollar for first, very limited versions of products. $4000 in todays money is almost the same as Apple Vision Pro, for a product that has very limited usability. May be it was easier to market only for rich people who wish to show off then? Since the fall of Vertu no tech companies seem to address specifically this segment. Or may be pe…

> One thing I notice about the 80s is that people were much more willing to pay top dollar for first, very limited versions of products.

I'd rather think that there is more money frivolously spent today; in the S.F. Bay Area, much more.

> May be it was easier to market only for rich people who wish to show off then?

I'm quite perplexed about how your perception can be so very different from mine. How many people own a Tesla in your neighborhood?

This device however, I would have thought, would have been marketed chiefly to professionals. Traveling salesmen, doctors (who then still made house calls), service technicians etc. .

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#55

Post by guenthert »

Sharlin wrote: post #29
rescbr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The style is an artifact/limitation of using a vector display. Compare to today’s ubiquity of a raster display. Why did they choose to use a vector display? Maybe to decrease cost and avoid placing framebuffer memory? Maybe rendering maps directly to a vector display could be faster by skipping a rasterization process? Any other reason?

Maps are intrinsically vector data, and a raster graphics display back then would have been low-res, 320x240 at most, making the map (and text!) really difficult to read. And then you’d need the rasterizer itself, using precious CPU cycles and memory bandwidth to turn perfect mathematical line segments into crude pixelated approximations. And yes, the memory needed for the framebuffer was also likely an issue. The qu…

All true.

> None of the advantages of raster were applicable

Colour might have been nice though.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#56

Post by madcoderme »

neilv wrote: post #19

1991 home video demo of an Etak, in a custom housing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHCCjlSWbHE?t=1m50s (Bet they didn't think at the time that techies of the future would be watching it in 2024 on the ubiquitous global data network.)

Your last line immediately made me think. probably in near future, techies of the future would say something similar about our achievements, maybe gpt, or 4 qbit quantum computer.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#57

Post by ghostly_s »

toast0 wrote: post #42
RicoElectrico wrote: post #36

> The second key invention was a ‘heading up’, moving map display. This meant that the vehicle remained at the center of the screen and the map moved and turned under the vehicle. What you saw ahead of you in the windshield was what was displayed on the screen. This proved highly intuitive. Later on they talk about "heads up" map digitizing, did this mean the map rotated as the operator digitized the street? Seems qu…

I don't think so... I think heads up for the digitizing indicates that the digital map was overlayed on top of the (scanned) source image? As opposed to digitizing from a paper map where you have the map on a surface in front of you, and a digital map hopefully on a screen in front of you (but they did say some were digitizing blind before this?) and you're trying to get the digitized version right by looking between…

I’m guessing the 'blind' method looked something like using one of the early graphics tablets to trace routes or tap control points on a paper map according to a sequence displayed on a text terminal, with no graphical feedback to confirm the vector data during input.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#59

Post by hoseja »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #50
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #47

The article claims that the "match roads by turns" technique "was later adopted by all navigation apps". Does anyone know if this is true? My impression was that they rely on GPS position only for positioning, even though modern phone hardware should give really nice gyroscope/accelerometer data.

Virtually all car navigation software, or phone GPS apps in driving mode, will "snap" to a nearby road if the GPS indicates that you are traveling parallel to one. This compensates for minor GPS reception errors. This can occasionally , in rare situations, be a problem, if you have frontage roads very close to a highway, they can sometimes get confused about which road you are actually on.

It LOVES to happen on complicated in-construction off-grade intersections, where you usually need the navigation the most.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#60

Post by Anotheroneagain »

SamBam wrote: post #17

The name is perfect. "Etak" refers to a system of navigation used by Micronesian and Polynesian seafarers to navigate from island to island in the vast Pacific Ocean. Much like this device, it operates by "augmented dead reckoning" (as it says in TFA). The etak system of navigation involves navigating by stars and ocean swells to get the heading, but a key issue when navigating by dead reckoning over long distances i…

It only happened in the late middle ages, after possibly millenia of experience navigating easier waters. They simply didn't teach their methods to anyone
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