We just launched the Map Matching API. The API allows for cleaning noisy GPS traces by matching them against Mapbox Streets - all over a simple HTTP interface. It is powered by the Open Source Routing Machine’s fast map matching feature we built earlier this year in April. The API is now available as a preview, just contact us!
Map Matching is the process of snapping recorded traces - for example from your phone while driving a car or from a GPS tracker while running - to a network of roads and paths. Example use cases are aligning noisy traces to display them cleanly on a map and assuring correct waypoints for a routing request. Our new Map Matching API supports traces from driving, walking and cycling and can match them anywhere in the world.
Below is a map-matched trace from a run I recorded with RunKeeper on my phone. The matched trace is visually cleaner, following the underlying road network perfectly. Read more about this new API in our Map Matching API documentation and contact us if you’d like to get testing access.
This live example loads an original trace as GPX file (in orange), converts it with togeojson to GeoJSON, map-matches the original trace against the Mapbox Map Matching API with mapbox-match.js (in violet), and displays both on a map with mapbox.js. All this running in your browser and with less than 50 lines of JavaScript code.