WalkersGuide

WalkersGuide is a navigational aid primarily intended for blind and visual impaired pedestrians. It calculates routes and shows nearby points of interest. The project consists of an Android client and a server component. The latter performs the route calculation. The map data is provided by OpenStreetMap, a project to create a free map of the world.

There are two reasons for the focus on blind and visual users:

  1. The currently available navigation systems which include a routing functionality don’t consider the needs of that user group. For example information about the condition of ways and streets, a description of intersections and details about distance and bearing of the next routing point often are missing. Of course the client application must be accessible to assistive technology like screen reading software too. In case of the Android operating system that’s Talkback.
  2. Meanwhile there exist solutions especially for blind and visual impaired users too. These are often apps for the iPhone operating system. But in summer 2013, when the project planning started, none of them offered a routing functionality. Instead they helped to get an overview about points of interest in the user’s surrounding. Other aids were outdated or very expensive.

Based on this findings, a concept for a routing based navigation aid for blind and visual impaired users was created as part of a diploma thesis at the TU Dresden. You can find further information about the thesis here. After the research was completed, the concept was implemented and is ready for download now.

Main features

The WalkersGuide project is licensed under the GNU General Public License. Therefore it can be used for free. You only have to install the client application. See Downloads for that.

Maps

At the moment this WalkersGuide server instance provides the maps of most European and several other countries around the world. Have a look at its status page for more information. If you need a map, which is not listed there, please contact me.

Unfortunately my servers free disk space is limited at the moment. Until I’ve organized a hardware upgrade please specify your required region as precise as possible. Have a look at download.geofabrik.de, select your continent and country and scroll down to “sub regions”.