OpenStreetMap
Hi I am a relative beginner to OSM and have captured some GPXs into the system, including even some traces from a recent trip to Albania.
My problem is I'd like to do some capturing without my GPS. Owing to a small accident in Croatia my Nokia GPS phone broke and I am unable to do conventional OSMing at the moment.
Can I do things like street name checks in OSM without my GPS?
Discussion
Comment from lezurdis on 30 June 2011 at 20:22
OSM also work with pen and paper ;-)
You can use some printed map and check outdoor with http://walking-papers.org/
Comment from trolleway on 30 June 2011 at 20:26
You can print high-resolution map on printer, and mark on paper POI's, service roads and paths in cities. I often go for a walk after work with the printout, and note the details in residential neighborhoods. osm.org/go/0t2PopNUV-
Comment from stevage on 1 July 2011 at 00:39
I've done it a couple of times. Once I went and did all the laneways, footpaths and bike paths here: osm.org/go/uG4Ggq7K. I just drew a map from what I'd traced from imagery, then wrote notes on it. It was a bit tedious and fiddly, but I was riding a bike, and stopping every 50m is like that...
Comment from !i! on 1 July 2011 at 06:22
Me too, works quite good esp. if you take for example housenumbers :)
Comment from Sanderd17 on 1 July 2011 at 15:06
It really depends on where you're mapping. If the streets are already drawn, or you have good areal imagery, you don't need a GPS at all.
If you have no streets and no images, than you can't map without GPS.
Before Bing, I had to use my GPS to map. But now, I just draw everything on BING images before I start, than I print the map and go checking it out to give the names, POI, housenumbers ...
Comment from Roger the Shrubber on 1 July 2011 at 17:18
That's cool. Do you have any sort of order to what you capture?
A cursory glance shows that there seem to be many buildings missing in my town. All the streets seem to be in OSM though.
Comment from Anna_AG on 2 July 2011 at 13:40
The Streets and street names are in one way just the beginning of building the OSM map of a town or region. The map really becomes useful once the information about your community is added. For example addition of location of resources such as Banks, Shops, local facilities, Restaurants, Hotels, Petrol stations, Supermarkets, Libraries, Sports Facilities etc.
One can map a town from Bing in an hour, but that extra data can only really be provided by mappers on the ground such as yourself, so good luck and enjoy yourself and your mapping - and thank you for getting involved!
Comment from Roger the Shrubber on 2 July 2011 at 18:38
Thus I think the Walking Papers is far more useful than we rwalise. I used to work for a German company Photogrammtrie GmbH - Europe's oldest mapping firm - and one important aspect of mapping is as we call it - ground truthing. Vital that we collect this info.