OpenStreetMap
Hallo, newly addicted mapper here.
Posted by Verm on 23 September 2009 in English. Last updated on 25 September 2009.Got most of my home town filled in over the last week or so.
When I took a look at it when I first logged in, there were only 4 streets.
(EDIT: there were 8 other streets done in the northern corner by someone else aswell.. sorry for not acknowledging that.)
That would not do!
Luckily, I have an aerial photo hanging on the wall and someone kindly uploaded some gps traces, so with those as my main tools I filled in most of it.
Then I started wandering around town taking notes and pictures to adjust and/or correct and fill in what has changed since the photo was taken.
I am now trying to fill in the details, but I seem to be mucking up tags and keys.
(for example, bridges will just not show up... and the airport is just a blank area.. so back to faq's and forum)
Discussion
Comment from ianlopez1115 on 23 September 2009 at 03:14
Hi! Just made a few corrections in your place. I noticed that a good number of intersections weren't connected, so I corrected them. Airports are probably landuse=industrial (like the airport in Las Vegas, Nevada), and I corrected some ways. If it's a runway, it should be a way, not an area. If you want to tag some node, way or area like highway=something, the "highway" part should be on the first blank space, while "something" should be on the second blank space. If you need any help, just ask any experienced contributor, by sending them a message. To send a message, go an experienced user's page, then click on "send message".
Comment from Verm on 23 September 2009 at 06:24
Thanks!
That cleared up what I was doing wrong.
I went back and got my bridges working, and one ways, and traffic lights,and rail crossings... :P
Comment from davespod on 23 September 2009 at 08:19
Welcome! Regarding airports, everything you need to know should be here:
aeroway=*
Comment from Anna_AG on 23 September 2009 at 10:01
Hi - great work re your town - As per Ianlopez comments - POTLATCH, the web based editor is a little limited ( or not as flexible ) as say JOSM for doing detailed editing of town. Out of interest I downloaded your town and noted that the street intersections are not nodes - some of which I have corrected - but this is your town, not mine so I stopped!
There will be a bit of a learning curve with JOSM if you have not used it before but a road being essentially two points can be split into multiple nodes by clicking of the mid sections between nodes, which then turn into nodes themselves. These nodes can be MERGED at intersections with other nodes using the Tools Merge option, thus the junctions are joined and thus nodes.
Why is this important? you ask - I am not entirley sure but presume that it is important for routing programs which use the node information to know if direction changes can be made at intersections. If you have flyovers etc these are marked by bridges or tunnels etc and of course there is no node joining these items where they cross.
Keep up the great work
Cheers bri
Comment from Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason on 23 September 2009 at 12:51
Did the aerial photo you used have appropriate licensing for use with OpenStreetMap? If so you should upload it to Wikimedia Commons.
Comment from Verm on 24 September 2009 at 05:59
re: davespod
Thanks.
I did read that wiki about aeroways and lots of other tags and keys... but what did not sink in was when they are talking about "key: Aeroway=runway" was that you replace the word "key" or "tag" (in the first box) with the word "aeroway" and the descriptive goes into the second box.
I was putting things like "Aeroway=runway" and "highway=oneway" in the second box.
Re: IanLopez and Bri G
when my lack of nodes on intersections was brought up, I figured that it had something to do with possible routing with future applications. Makes sense.
Kinda wish potlatch did it automatically as streets crossd over, but then that would create a whole different batch of problems...
So, I have been filling in my missing nodes....
And finding it really annoying that potlatch shifts the road a tiny bit as the node is created.. no matter how still I try to keep my hand.
DOH!... I have not been merging them... more fixing.
When roads were merging (like T-junctions) I was trying to make sure the road I was joining to lit up with the blue dots, so at least those ones will be correct.
Re: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
hmm... good point. I will ask my friend that took the photo if it is OK.
Technically, I assume the copyright is his, as he is the one that made the photo and gave me a copy.
Sorry that I did not think about this before. I was thinking in terms of corporation and company owned images, and that I own one of two copies of this private taken photo.
I will take a look at JOSM.
I am enjoying this mapping..... I am already wondering what will I do when I have finished my town... then again, it will be a good excuse to buy a better GPS and go on a few road trips. :)
My next main step is to fix the coastline of the lake around my town.. It was put in very roughly.
Would it be silly to put too much detail in?
Like the shapes of buildings, sand traps in the golf course?
I was not expecting to get any answers here, but when I tried to join the OSM forum, it says not accepting members.
Is there a new forum or somewhere to ask questions like these?
Comment from Verm on 24 September 2009 at 06:09
Notes to self:
Will be asking city managers if ok to use their "legal city maps" (that are available online) with OSM.
Check with OSM if this is ok to suggest to city in return:
Since OSM is open source, is it ok if city uses the OSM map instead of the google map they are using on their tourist information pages?
Can I add specific items to the map that may not be rendered in general maps that make it a more "customized for Nelson" map?
Also: talk to the boys at "free ride entertainment" see if they already have GPS tracks of their cycle routes.
Comment from Verm on 24 September 2009 at 06:16
By The Way...
I noticed in the forums that there are a few cycling enthusiasts in OSM and that is probably part of why there is "cycle maps"..
Nelson (my home town) is where Free Ride Entertainment is based from.
A lot of their early "extreme sport" filming is from around Nelson.
We have a lot of tourist that come to town just for the mountain/downhill biking.
Comment from DanHomerick on 24 September 2009 at 20:12
Don't worry about going too detailed. Unlike a paper map, it's easy for OSM to hide details when zoomed out, so clutter isn't nearly as great a worry.
I believe it's fine for the city to use OSM maps on their tourist pages, though the uptime and response times for the maps probably aren't as good as Google's.
It's very possible to create a custom map rendering, though I haven't tried it myself and can't speak to how hard it is.
Helping to get cyclists GPS tracks uploaded and marked can be a really useful goal. If they do the uploading and marking themselves, there's a reasonable chance that they'll get hooked and start doing other edits too. If they just upload, or hand off the tracks to someone else to convert/upload, you've still managed to greatly increase how quickly the trails can make their way onto the map.
Cheers!