OpenStreetMap
If anyone has a spare ten minutes I'd be ever so grateful if you could fill in my questionnaire (see Google docs link below) and e-mail the completed version to [email protected]
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17JwTHkY28BdU91sQ8hN9bNQywIycyiXniYcPdFNmmxk/edit?hl=en
Since having found out about OSM back in Y11 Geography Club (a good few years ago now!) I have been very interested in the project. As part of a GIS module at university we get the chance to undertake a project of our choosing so I thought I'd do something OSM related.
I'm aware there's a lot of research into OSM's quantitative accuracy at the moment - in particular Muki Haklay's work. I am assessing the external data quality of OpenStreetMap which refers to the correlation of data with that of the user requirement for the data.
I would thus like to look at what the majority of people actually use online maps for and whether OSM can meet that requirement. The responses have been a bit Google-centric so far so it would be great to have some input from OSM users.
Thanks again and I'm very sorry to take up user diary space with my questionnaire plea!
Discussion
Comment from z-dude on 20 February 2011 at 04:36
another 'I'm researching OSM' thread. There's a lot of these.
You'll find the 'users' of the maps vary, and the map data get rendered differently by different people, so the skiers will use OpenPisteMap for skiing, cyclists would use OpenCycleMap. Mountain bikers don't have a custom map which rates the trail as 'beginner' 'intermediate' 'expert' like you get with ski hill sign trail entrances... so we get by with the cyclemap rendering.
OSM ends up as a consumer device replacement as well. It gets put into a Garmin GPS via a .IMG file and used by hikers, cyclists, and drivers.
In a way, it's up to Garmin how they route people based on the tags we create with OSM.
The cycling community makes use of the OSM data, through sites like BikeRouteToaster, and Bikemap.net
The people who use OSM for routing, have quality requirements of 'accurate enough to drive with', 'accurate street names', and 'accurately connected nodes', and 'accurately tagged roads' ... Ie, you shouldn't get routed the wrong way along a street.
There have already been some discussions on these forums where it's clear that OSM data isn't accurate enough for utilities.. ie, you won't get pipelines located accurately enough to dig based on OSM data alone.
In general, it's a map designed for humans to use, so knowing where a trail is on a mountain, accurate enough to find it with a gps, is good enough for that user.
Where OSM wins against competing maps, is where a road gets built near OSM mappers... my local bridges were accurately mapped long before Google or Bing had the data.
OSM wins where the government is inaccurate. OSM wins in poor countries like Mali and Haiti, where the government data wasn't that great to begin with.