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I have gone through the beginner's material, the mapping techniques, I have uploaded several tracks recorded on my Android phone and also have made several edits on the OSM. I plan to cycle to an area nearby, I checked on OSM and I guess more details can be added. My dilemmas are :
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First off: there is no one correct answer. Each mapper has their own personal style of doing thing, also depending on what you'd like to map. As aseerel4c26 said, record the things you think would be most useful to you. It's nearly impossible to fully map an area in one go, usually several people visit the same area repeatedly, each time adding more and different details. Don't stress too much about recording everything; anything you add to the map has value! If the area is relatively blank, you can start by just mapping the trails and roads, and any significant POIs. When mapping an urban environment I would, for instance, write down street names, street types, locations and names of shops, etc. Note that this requires stopping every few seconds (depending on the density of things you want to write down), if you want to spend more time riding, then some kind of automatic camera setup might be better. Personally when I map on a bicycle I record my GPS tracks on my phone. I have a notepad and pen, and I draw annotated schematics of my surroundings, recording things which I find relevant (here is an old example). I don't worry about getting the proportions correct on my sketch - my GPS tracks will handle that for me. When I get home, I upload my GPS tracks to OSM, and then use an editor like JOSM to draw the ways and points, combining the information from the GPS tracks (which gives me their location) and my sketch (which gives me their attributes). In dense areas this is enough, in more sparse areas you may want to manually create waypoints using your GPS logger (so that you know where to map that POI, as it may not be obvious just from looking at your GPS tracks). For sketching you could try using Field Papers, but a blank piece of paper does it just as well. |
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I don't have experience with surveying with a bike, but wonder whether you are willing to stop and take notes each time you see something interesting. Perhaps you could install the Mapillary app on your phone and attach it to your bike. It will continuously take pictures of your ride. You upload the pictures when you are back home to their server. When the images are processed you can see them in iD and JOSM and use them to map all kinds of things. Other people use a video camera to collect data. I make walks and only take pictures of stuff that I want to map. But usually I do not take enough pictures (ca 300 pictures for a 2 hour walk of ca 12km). I use a DSLR and attach long/lat to the pictures later on using the GPS track I recorded with my GPS device via the geotag application. Personally, I find my smartphone way to slow for taking pictures (also because I want to use it as navigation aid and switching between 2 apps takes forever). |
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Map what you like, map what would be useful to yourself. Plan your journey, look whats missing on the map, possibly look at the aerial imagery to spot features which may be cycle-able ways and ride to explore and survey them. Knowing what to look for in advance makes it easier. And you get to know new areas! It may be as simple as to survey the Similar to tracktypes you could have a look at some quality assurance error detection tool (I use keepright) to find nearby potential errors. Then you could go out with your bike and have a look at the place. Important: all those are just hints for potential errors. The tools may be wrong. This is special important to know if you are just new to OSM. Be sure to understand what the "error" is, before you attempt to correct it. Similarly you may want to look at nearby notes and have a look if you can help by surveying. If you make a break at some points you may take more notes at a saved waypoint. Yes, also the mere GPS track recording and possibly uploading into the OSM GPS tracks database will help. It would be good to check your GPS track before you upload it. Is the quality okay or is it much more jagged/off than other already uploaded tracks? I cannot comment on pen and paper - never used it in any surveying. Also have a look at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapping_techniques . Last, but not least: have fun and start slow! With a bit more experience you will get to know what to look for, what to map, how to map. 2
You can set up OSMTracker for "one big button". That's what one of my button sets is: if I tap the screen anywhere, it starts a voice recording.
(05 Jun '16, 04:15)
Carnildo
@Carnildo: thanks, "button sets" sounds good!
(05 Jun '16, 12:32)
aseerel4c26 ♦
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Mapping on a bicycle, I'm relying on my memory, my GPX track recording, and where applicable, on the existing map (in this descending order of importance). The track helps a lot - "why did I make a left turn here? Aha, that was when I went off the paved road onto a dirt track. And oh, there was this bus stop shelter at the same intersection, too." If there's something data-intensive (such as a new shop with opening hours posted), I take a photo (I'm recording my tracks using Locus Pro, which allows me to add photos, recordings and even notes to the track). At home, I load the GPX track into JOSM, and check it with the pictures I took. |
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I recently blogged about exactly this problem: https://people.gnome.org/~federico/news-2016-04.html#20 In summary:
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