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Especially in universities it might be interesting to tag indoor printers accessible to students. How can this be done?

asked 25 Dec '17, 00:09

nw520's gravatar image

nw520
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Are you suggesting that a printer could be trackable, and plotted on OSM? a bit like the police could track a stolen car? I think osm would take a too long to re-render although looking at the data might work. an interesting way see who has the printer, but it would require users doing the logging at the time, every time.

(26 Dec '17, 02:11) andy mackey

Well, no, actually not. I'm talking about those big office printers like for example this one. Those haven't been moved in years, often even have card readers attached to the wall (making it difficult to move them) and there's even a list of printers provided by the university. I'm just talking about a regular amenity, just like a photo booth or whatsoever.

(26 Dec '17, 13:15) nw520

It looks like a node tagged amenity=printer is the best option at the moment. While far from established with less than 100 uses and no application support, it's been mentioned in the wiki since 2014‎, and the brief definition found in the wiki ("public printer") seems to point at the use case in question, rather than other possible meanings of the word "printer".

You may consider including other tags commonly found on indoor features, such as level=*. See Simple Indoor Tagging for a more detailed reference if desired.

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answered 26 Dec '17, 12:06

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Tordanik
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edited 26 Dec '17, 12:10

Unfortunately "public printer" doesn't distinguish between the two possible cases (and yes, this is the problem with trying to map everything in the "amenity" space!).

(26 Dec '17, 13:34) SomeoneElse ♦

Hm, there do indeed seem to be a considerable number of printer's shops tagged as amenity=printer. I would have expected to see those tagged as shop=*, office=* or possibly even craft=*. Is there any unambiguous term that could be used as the value?

(26 Dec '17, 16:07) Tordanik

If it is in a Uni building create a node with Tag:amenity=printer .Public Libraries usually have some printing facilities as well so i guess you could do a node for them as well. They may get rendered this one does, it's a business that i have found http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/2704917063#map=19/52.07690/4.35368

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answered 25 Dec '17, 14:55

andy%20mackey's gravatar image

andy mackey
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edited 25 Dec '17, 15:02

Thank you for your suggestion. I guess I'll use amenity=printer. In the OSM Wiki there's only a shop=copyshop (like in your link) documentation but nothing mentioned about stand-alone printers or printing service included in other kind of shops and facilities.

(26 Dec '17, 11:52) nw520

"amenity=printer" is used in OSM for something else, so it's not a good choice. See https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/482115055 for an example. A "printer" or "printer's" is somewhere that you go (a shop or office) to get something printed.

Example taginfo search: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/amenity=printer , https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/u1u in overpass.

(26 Dec '17, 11:58) SomeoneElse ♦
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Hi nw520, since a printer is an movable object, it is like a moving bench in a park, dont tag it locally. Or ad public=printer to the building itself just to make clear there is one available.

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answered 25 Dec '17, 10:43

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Hendrikklaas
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accept rate: 5%

4

Printers are theoretically movable, but that should not preclude mapping them unless they're actually being moved regularly. A lot of the things we map – including traffic signs – could be moved within a couple minutes, but in practice they stick around for years or decades. The same is true for many public printers at universities.

(25 Dec '17, 12:54) Tordanik
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question asked: 25 Dec '17, 00:09

question was seen: 2,470 times

last updated: 26 Dec '17, 16:07

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