Today I did one of my favourite hikes and tried to add missing paths to the map. Most of the way, there’s a clearly visible path on the ground but there’s sections in between where you just have to navigate through fields by yourself.
OpenStreetMap
Today I did one of my favourite hikes and tried to add missing paths to the map. Most of the way, there’s a clearly visible path on the ground but there’s sections in between where you just have to navigate through fields by yourself.
Discussion
Comment from Hendric Stattmann on 6 May 2019 at 10:31
Hello! Congratulations for your first edit and welcome to our community! Indeed, there is a lot to be done in rural areas and OSM is by far the best data source for hiking maps - way more detailed and up-to-date than Google etc. Your contribution is worth a lot!
Let me give you a few hints: When I plan to map certain features, let’s say a few unmapped paths in the forest, I will have a look at the OSM wiki page for the elements I am likely to add. Example: highway=path As you can see, every element can have a great variety of additional attributes. If you are aware of these, you can generate much richer information from a single mapping hike.
When I am hiking in forest areas, I try to bring along two independent GPS receivers (or better: a combined GPS/GLONASS/Baidu/… receiver like many modern smartphones) for improved accuracy. Even better: walk the paths several times to have even more GPS tracks. Loading all of them in JOSM will give you a good hint about the accuracy of your data. Draw your path as an average of all tracks, discarding outliers.
I sometimes upload my tracks into OSM, this helps the project to prove that the data was not illegally copied from other maps, but was genuinely created.
Have fun! Hendric
Comment from andy mackey on 6 May 2019 at 20:22
Welcome. I started recording GPXes over ten years ago and eventually i uploaded almost all to OSM, 1000+ of them now, all walked. I use Potlatch2 and like Hendric who uses JOSM it can show all traces in the same area. I map a line that is an average, Bing is also a good help and once aligned with the same average is probably the best way to get best detail. I take JPEGs of official notices of pathlines and changes and using the gates, stiles and filger posts confirms rights of way. In England and probably Wales the councils maintain their Definitive Maps which may be available online which SHOULD show the latest changes. There is a source of County Council Rights of Way in KLM form I’ve seen somewhere, i’ll remember and add it. Happy Mapping
Comment from andy mackey on 6 May 2019 at 20:37
We should thank Robert Whittaker for levering the info from councils and Barry Cornelius for his work in formatting it. (I hope i got this correct :) ? https://osm.mathmos.net/ Barry Cornelius https://www.rowmaps.com/kmls/
Thank you both. I have found this info very useful . Andy