Andy Valentine spent a month reliving a childhood expertise in his 350Z. He created a mini-map navigation system that makes use of the long-lasting GPS show from Need for Speed Underground 2 and runs on a $20 microchip. His bespoke dashboard setup within the Nissan 350Z tracks GPS place, hundreds map components on the fly, and even features a automotive image that spins within the route he’s touring.
Valentine was taken with utilizing the ESP32-P4 due to its graphical capabilities, which enabled him to pursue his loopy concept. The entire setup matches snugly into the leftmost location on a customized digital sprint, paired with a 3.4 inch Waveshare show with an 800 by 800 pixel decision. A GPS module gives him with location knowledge, whereas a 236 GB SD card shops his maps, which cowl over half of the UK’s roads and trails at zoom stage 16, totaling over 2 million tiles. Every tile hundreds in a tenth of a second, protecting the body price between 40 and 50 FPS.
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Getting all of this map knowledge started with scrounging out some free sources. He used Ordnance Survey for highway maps, the UK Division of Transport for vital areas of curiosity, and OpenStreetMap for supplemental info reminiscent of the place to discover a filling station. Then he used a Python script to look by a 2 GB file for the coordinates labeled “amenity=gasoline,” which might inform him the place the gasoline stations have been. He then used QGIS to interrupt all of it up into particular person tiles, an operation that took him 35 hours, then 18 extra to reformat all of it right into a format that the ESP32 may learn, and an additional 22 hours to repeat all of it onto the SD card, all earlier than he may even fireplace it up.
The code runs in C++ on the ESP32 and depends closely on the LVGL library for all picture and overlay operations. The map defaults to a north-up view, however the automotive image can rotate to observe the route you’re going. That’s a big change as a result of trying to rotate the map itself would lead to a 4 FPS show, which isn’t that helpful. To maintain it fast and seamless, he’s launched lazy loading, which pulls in new tiles as you journey, shifting previous tiles into reminiscence and lowering SD card accesses. Even the loading animations are performed within the background to keep away from triggering any system watchdogs that would crash the factor.
He’s framed your entire show in a pleasant little circle, leaving the perimeters black to keep away from clashing with the opposite gauges whereas nonetheless displaying the opposite warning lights for important authorized causes. You’ll be able to at the moment see a 3 by 3 grid of tiles, nonetheless altering to a 5 by 5 grid would possibly make larger use of the display screen. He’s nonetheless toying with the markers that present the closest websites of curiosity, and he intends to maneuver them to the ring’s perimeter quickly. Subsequent, he plans to exchange bitmaps with vector pictures, which is able to permit for smoother zooming and spinning.
In a twenty-three-minute video, a sure Valentine demonstrates easy methods to go from a breadboard prototype to carving up the car parking zone. A startup locks on the GPS after which takes off, performing a circle of the roundabout and reaching the principle roadways. The overhead drone pictures brilliantly complement the display screen motion as our hero snakes across the twists and over the hills. Petrol stations seem simply as anticipated, and your entire routine performs easily, with no stutters. Your entire affair is a wonderful occasion of how regular drives can profit from the sport’s enchantment.
Anybody can reproduce or tweak this venture; the supply is on the market on GitHub and contains scripts for producing the tiles and the ESP32 firmware. Valentine made every little thing open-source in order that people may make maps for their very own communities, change the visible types, and add multiplayer, sharing by way of servers. The good facet is that the information scale completely, requiring little adjustment whether or not we’re speaking about UK roads or some place else solely.
Future updates have already hinted at extra to return. With vector tiles on the way in which, we should always count on to make use of a lot much less space for storing and scale extra successfully. And the markers will be capable to layer on prime of 1 different independently; moreover, with public servers, folks will be capable to drop pins for his or her buddies. Valentine is already planning to take all of it the way in which to a full-fledged NFS dashboard, and that is solely the start – with every tiny modification, it will get nearer to feeling and looking like a whole sport. And it’s all being performed one drive at a time.
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