root/branches/workshop/FOSS4G2008/Docs/01_introduction.chapter

= FOSS4G routing with pgRouting tools and OpenStreetMap road data =

=== Presenters: ===
 * Claude Philipona ([http://www.camptocamp.com Camptocamp SA])
 * Daniel Kastl ([http://www.orkney.co.jp Orkney, Inc.])

=== Further authors: ===
 * Frédéric Junod ([http://www.camptocamp.com Camptocamp SA])
 * Anton Patrushev ([http://www.orkney.co.jp Orkney, Inc.])


== Abstract ==

pgRouting adds routing functionality to PostGIS. This introductory workshop 
will show you how. It gives a practical example of how to use pgRouting with 
OpenStreetMap road network data. It explains the steps to prepare the network 
data, make routing queries, assign costs to the network links and modify your 
results through wrapper functions.

== Description ==

Navigation for road networks requires complex routing algorithms that support 
turn restrictions and even time-dependent attributes. pgRouting is an extendible 
open-source library that provides a variety of tools for shortest path search. 
The library in its current version is an extension of PostgreSQL and PostGIS. 
It's predecessor "pgDijkstra" was written by Sylvain Pasche from Camptocamp. 
It was then extended by Orkney (Japan) and renamed to pgRouting.

An introduction will give an overview of the project history, development team, 
infrastructure, productive environments and scope of use. The workshop will 
explain about shortest path search with pgRouting in real road networks and how 
the data structure is important to get faster routing results. Also you will 
learn about difficulties and limitations of implementing pgRouting functionality 
in GIS applications.

To give a practical example of how to perform shortest-path searches with 
pgRouting, the workshop makes use of OpenStreetMap road network data. The 
OpenStreetMap community creates their own road data that is freely available 
for a rapidly growing number of areas. We will use OpenStreetMap data of 
Capetown for this workshop. You will learn how to convert the data into the 
required format and how to calibrate the data with "cost" attributes. 
Furthermore we will explain the difference of the three main routing algorithms 
"Dijkstra", "A-Star" and "Shooting-Star".

By the end of the workshop you will have a good understanding of how to use 
pgRouting and how to get your network data prepared. While similar to the last 
years workshop "Web-based Routing: An Introduction to pgRouting with 
OpenLayers", this year's pgRouting workshop will – in regard to the students 
feedback – focus on pgRouting itself and network data issues. OpenLayers map 
client will still be used to display the route on a map.

Due to time limitation installation of pgRouting is not part of this workshop. 
An installation with pgRouting will be provided for you as well as the 
OpenStreetMap sample data for Capetown.

== Workplace Access ==

 * Download the compressed VMware image and extract the file
{{{
http://files.postlbs.org/foss4g2008/
}}}
 * Start VM Player and load the workshop virtual machine
 * If root access is required, use
{{{
username: foss4g
password: foss4g
}}}

== Get the Source ==

 * Checkout the latest workshop documentation, code samples and data from here:
{{{
svn checkout http://pgrouting.postlbs.org/svn/pgrouting/branches/workshop/FOSS4G2008/ workshop
}}}

== Further informations ==

 * pgRouting project website: http://pgrouting.postlbs.org
 * MapFish project website: http://www.mapfish.org