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I am currently travelling through Thailand and sometimes take the time to do thorough surveys of the city / area I am visiting. An example of what the GPX then looks like is here: http://westnordost.de/blog/thailand/78/beach-holidays (scroll to the bottom)

On my travels, I only have a tiny netbook with me, so I want to avoid inputting the data myself as it puts quite a strain on my hands. To boot, in the area I travel I noticed that sometimes there is lotsa stuff missing that could be inputted from bing imagery or that it is still quite unprecise because it is based on the old yahoo imagery. So even more work to do.

Now, my question is, is there any place where I can make available those surveys with POIs (this is the important part if you look at my example up there) for other mappers to process? And if there isn't any platform that is dedicated to this thing (or not frequented), what would you suggest what I should do with these traces then?

P.S: I can't use Vespucci, because I am offline-surveying here

asked 01 Aug '13, 15:59

westnordost's gravatar image

westnordost
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accept rate: 0%

edited 01 Aug '13, 16:01


(based on SomeoneElse's answer …)

I'd like to add that the question was explicitly about "for other mappers to process". So … put together:

  1. If the gpx files do not contain traces from your survey: prepare the waypoint gpx file to be accepted by the OSM.org server (add one trackpoint with a time stamp). See wiki: Upload Waypoints.
  2. upload to OSM.org server with a "identifiable" ("public" may also work, but is less useful if you also include real traces in a gpx file) visibility setting,
  3. point other mappers to your list of traces (since the waypoints do not seem to be available if someone just queries the server for all traces).
  4. Then the other mappers can use your traces and waypoints with P2 directly (example = edit link on trace page; using P1 would also work) or download from the trace page and load from their local computer in JOSM.

To coordinate the mapping you (or another mapper) could (or even should because it will not work otherwise) make a wiki page (e.g. a sub page of your user page) where you copy and paste the links to each trace; already processed/used traces can then be marked by others. You also can make personal notes there (although most info should be on the trace page itself), e.g. additional surveying notes.

That is a kind of small remote survey assisted armchair mapping mapping project then. I think communication between the project's contributors is important as relying on surveying notes/waypoints by someone else who is doing the armchair mapping is probably no easy task. Not as easy as using other people's traces to help to adjust a aerial background image or to average a way's location.

All in all I think it is not easy - steps mentioned above and it needs people who want to join in such a mapping project.

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answered 01 Aug '13, 17:09

aseerel4c26's gravatar image

aseerel4c26 ♦
32.6k18248554
accept rate: 18%

edited 02 Aug '13, 15:27

Sounds good! If this doesn't exist yet as a general project, I wonder if it wouldn't be wise to create a mapping project for this kind of collaboration on a global level then, (so, not on userpage and not as subproject of Thailand) as the method as such is not bound to Thailand.

(02 Aug '13, 14:21) westnordost

@westnordost: yes, sure. Maybe there already exist such a project, I am just not aware of one. If you find one, or set one up, mention it here for others stumbling over this question. You could ask for helpers/people to join the project and discuss the idea further on forum or mailinglists.

(02 Aug '13, 15:29) aseerel4c26 ♦
1

I opened a new project in the wiki named Remote Surveys for this.

(03 Aug '13, 16:52) westnordost

Yes. Create a GPX file containing the waypoints, then using a text editor edit a couple of track points in, like I did with this example one.

OSM will then allow you to upload the trace with visibility set to "Identifiable", and waypoints will be displayed when you edit the trace (provided the editor that you choose supports them).

Of the available editors Potlatch 1 supports waypoints extremely well, Potlatch 2 nearly as well and JOSM a bit. Not sure of the current status in iD.

Obviously the waypoints need to have a location recorded by yourself and not use one copied from some other source.

EDIT: aseerel4c2 noticed, and I didn't, that the requirement was for other mappers to process.

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answered 01 Aug '13, 16:12

SomeoneElse's gravatar image

SomeoneElse ♦
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accept rate: 16%

edited 01 Aug '13, 17:13

Not sure why you say that JOSM supports waypoints just "a bit". Can you explain? Which P2 waypoint feature is missing in JOSM? Ah, maybe to use waypoints directly from the server? Seems so.

State of iD's capabilities (not possible currently).

(01 Aug '13, 17:01) aseerel4c26 ♦
1

(re JOSM), see this question, and this one, and this one. Things may have moved on since they were asked, of course.

(01 Aug '13, 17:04) SomeoneElse ♦
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question asked: 01 Aug '13, 15:59

question was seen: 5,781 times

last updated: 03 Aug '13, 16:52

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum