How to map a small area from a precise survey

I want to map the objects in a small pedestrian area (say, 20x20 meters). I have a pretty precise survey done on paper, down to centimeters.

JOSM has a bar at the bottom which displays useful info when drawing polygons - angle to the last segment, current segment length... but the segment length's precision is only displayed in decimeters (e.g. it shows "5.6 meters" with a single digit after the decimal point). I'd like one more digit of precision to get centimeters. This would make my mapping quite simple.

Is there a way to change that in JOSM, or another tool I can use to map this?

josm survey mapping

asked 28 Sep '15, 03:29

Federico Men...
471●6●7●17
accept rate: 0%

One Answer:

active answers oldest answers newest answers popular answers

You could use JOSM's measurement plugin, or hack JOSM source to let you zoom closer. But there wouldn't be much point to it:

The OSM database stores coordinates in a format that has a 1.7cm granularity depending on where you are on earth (longitude granularity does get finer near the poles). So you can't store anything more precise in OSM.
Plate tectonics cause movements of more than 1cm/year in most places of the world, so while you can map something with cm accuracy relative to itself, the absolute position (which is what OSM stores) would need to be updated every year.

permanent link

answered 28 Sep '15, 11:56

Vincent de P... ♦
17.3k●18●152●249
accept rate: 19%

Thanks, I'll try the measurement plugin :)

I'm fine with 1.7 cm granularity. I'm pretty sure my little area lies completely within a tectonic plate; if it cracks in two during an earthquake, I'll have bigger problems.

(28 Sep '15, 17:43) Federico Men...

Frederico, you’re able to get any length by zooming and some arithmetic + - up to 0.04 m using JOSM, suitable for a building with the aid of the original building drawings or a survey locally. Since the measurement at 0.04 m is divided into 4 sections you got 0.01 m. The mode of your GPS is much lower for instance between 2.00 and 10.00 m, so don’t use the trick for open spaces like you’ve mentioned, as Vincent mentioned the accuracy of OSM is not that good.

(28 Sep '15, 23:17) Hendrikklaas

Follow this question

By Email:

Once you sign in you will be able to subscribe for any updates here

By RSS:

Answers

Answers and Comments

Markdown Basics

*italic* or _italic_
**bold** or __bold__
link:[text](http://url.com/ "title")
image?![alt text](/path/img.jpg "title")
numbered list: 1. Foo 2. Bar
to add a line break simply add two spaces to where you would like the new line to be.
basic HTML tags are also supported

learn more about Markdown

Question tags:

josm ×622
mapping ×193
survey ×18

question asked: 28 Sep '15, 03:29

question was seen: 2,483 times

last updated: 28 Sep '15, 23:17

How to map a small area from a precise survey

Follow this question

Related questions