Sigh... with all due respect, I'm not holding my breath. At this point, I require a far more substantive, vocal response from PD than another useless teaser. For all we know, the teaser is simply an advertisement for GT7 related content.
Well, the principle is simple. While the GPS app is enabled, you drive, ride, walk, run etc a "proposed course", much as one can do with google map when creating a walking route or bicycle route. The smart phone app collects data along the route, including geographic location and (hopefully) elevation.
Once collected, the user (somehow) plugs that data into the game, either by a direct connection into the game via USB, via file transfer, or even via email (you'd email your data to your PSN identity) (or you enter your PSN id into the app and it automatically transfers the data to your game...or something else...detail there is in the end unimportant. the important thing will be getting from a (collecting) to b (presenting in game). What happens inbetween isn't (imo) all that important unless you actually have to code it.
The game then maps that data into a course, presumably over a default gridwork, kinda like the reverse of skinning. How trees and other items of interest are populated will probably be the observe side of that theoretical skinning operation. The GPS data is the topographic content (think pin cushion) , the world's pretties (grass trees, stands, etc.) the skin which is applied, or more visibly "draped" over the topographic data. (In GT5, we worked with fixed topographies and fixed pretties, on which our generated content was applied) With regards to road camber, etc, not sure either, but my suspicion is that in that respect, it will be a combo of the GT5 method for adjusting "bank" and mathematical calculation of a "predicted" banking based on curvatures etc. How they'll deal with data outside the boundaries of the GPS collect data is puzzling, but one could use a variety of mathematical methods for filling in the gaps. First one that comes to mind is a (somewhat simple) reiterative approach used in fractal analysis, but that's probably way beyond this venue, and in the end unimportant for the vast majority if consumers who will benefit from its inclusion (presuming we ever see it beyond teasers)
However, we can presumably expect (and *should realistically expect) a certain degree of non uniformity between the real world and the GPS generated content. Personally I'm ok with that, since the power of being able to create similar analogs to the real world (not 100% accurate duplicates) to me far outweighs the requirement that every single nuance of the real world is reproduced in infinite precision, although I'm also quite sure (and saddened that) any deviations between the real world and the game's interpretation will inevitably be incorporated into the drama model so many seem to love, and it will no doubt provide them with hours of entertainment creating specious whines about how the curve on "my street" isn't exactly like the game and "PD suck cuz they didn't make it work exactly the same as my street" (which to me is a different beast from actual substantive complaints like "this content I paid for still hasn't been added to the game and your company has not produced any official comment on your failure, wtf!")
Of course, what you said about it being an updated version is
a) only logical. At least from my POV as a technical creator. One generally builds from previous experience, and we often reuse methods and functions, even if translated to a new programming language.
b) It's actually something I'm hoping for. I don't want them to simply replace the previous method for generating content with a GPS app, even though I think it's a great idea and have been saying so since my first days using the course maker back in GT5. I produced a large number of challenging, infinitely enjoyable road ways using the old creator and don't want to see the idea removed, just enhanced. To me, the main drawbacks were that course length limits were too short and I didn't have enough control over various aspects of their "creation". That doesn't mean I want to divorce her. Just someone please teach her how to cook something more complex than boil water and ramen noodles!
