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Hi, I am fairly new to OSM, and I am improving the accuracy and detail of my local area.

There are many houses, on large estates. I want to represent them, but the Bing imagery is fairly poor. So I'm unable to represent each house accurately and many have been extended, had conservatories added etc. But most housing estates consist of essentially identical houses, so is it acceptable that I take a standard size, and duplicate it to represent the individual buildings? To me, it feels slightly wrong to add data which I know to be slightly inaccurate, but on the other hand, surely better than nothing at all? Your advice please….

asked 09 Jul '15, 22:05

BaldMapper's gravatar image

BaldMapper
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Generally it is quite ok for mappers to add information to the best of their knowledge, sources, and abilities. In times past, we only had inaccurate GPS measurements or low-resolution Landsat imagery and that didn't keep us from mapping either.

Of course there's a limit to the usefulness of inaccurate data. If there's a settlement of 100 houses then the information that there is a settlement is valuable, but 100 guessed house rectangles probably are less interesting - in that case, just be content with a landuse=residential area and wait until better imagery or other methods of surveying become avaialble. If there's a single house on a large estate, the fact that there is a house there (even if only drawn as a rough rectangle) could be valuable, so if you know the house is still there, map it.

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answered 09 Jul '15, 22:18

Frederik%20Ramm's gravatar image

Frederik Ramm ♦
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accept rate: 23%

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question asked: 09 Jul '15, 22:05

question was seen: 1,757 times

last updated: 09 Jul '15, 22:18

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