The Montgomery Advertiser has a story on the collection of road data for online mapping applications, similar to one mentioned earlier in this blog.

From the article: “In the back [of the SUV] is a bolted cabinet containing a GPS receiver attached to the antenna, a laptop docking station, power supply and cables snaking through the vehicle's interior to connect with the computer display and video camera up front. The GPS setup feeds latitude and longitude information several times a second, plotted on the display as green arrows that connect to form digital roads. The camera captures three frames a second, enough to reconstruct road signs and other details.In the databases, roads are broken into line segments, each carrying as many as 160 attributes -- such things as road quality (ranging from 1 for major arteries to 5 for local streets), presence of a divider or center turn lanes, speed limits and addresses of buildings along each side.”