[OSM-talk] problems with G'o
I posted early this month about the launch of G'o, the replacement for 'mom'. Lots of people have visited the website (poco.org.uk/go) and downloaded the application but a few have reported being unable to run it. This is entirely my fault. I accidentally left some development diagnostics code in place which stalled the application at start-up because it would not find a folder in place on the phone's memory card. I have fixed this and put new downloads on the site. All you who downloaded the faulty launch version (prior to 9 January) should return to the site, get the new files, and re-install over the earlier app. Sorry about the cock up! elvin.ibbot...@poco.org.uk the byre | ecclesbourne lane | idridgehay | derbyshire | DE56 2SB 01773 550658 | 07725 808340 ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] G'o launch
The New Year saw the withdrawal of my mom application for mobile phones and the launch of its successor, G'o. The basic version is still free and registering as a user (for a small charge) unlocks many new and extra features. A basic version of mom is retained, renamed MiniMom, for users unable to use G'o which requires Java location services. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Postcode searches in Namefinder
Well, you learn something new every day! I never knew post codes were subject to copyright. OSM has taught me it is naughty to trace off an OS map or even read the name of a road from one. Now I'm worried about sending letters! Should I add an extra line to the address crediting the Post Office? And the rest of the address: are street names copyright too? Somebody thought of the name of every street so I guess they must own the copyright. Maybe I should just avoid sending letters to addresses that haven't been there long enough for the copyright on the postcode (and street name?) to expire. Now, is that 50 or 60 years? I forget. Correction: I don't care. elvin ibbotson From: David Earl [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 1 December 2008 10:52:23 GMT To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Postcode searches in Namefinder UK postcodes as well as being distinctive and recognisable also have the problem that they are copyrighted (at least, the database and geolocations are), so it is hard to get good coverage using OSM tags (because mappers have no means to collect these on the ground and don't have access to copyright free sources) and the freethepostcode initiative, though improving is still quite sparse (and, I noticed when processing some of it, is riddled with errors - obvious typos and wildly misplaced codes). ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Pompeii - archeological site
There are already a few tags suitable for archaeological/historical sites but there is also my idea for time-based tagging which would make historical/future mapping more practical. It's on the wiki as a proposal at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Timeline_tags elvin ibbotson From: Rodrigo Moya [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 19 November 2008 12:49:43 GMT To: Simone Cortesi [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Pompeii - archeological site On Mon, 2008-11-17 at 11:51 +0100, Simone Cortesi wrote: Hi, a short note to inform you all that we are going to host the first ever archeo mapping party in Pompeii: http://www.openstreetmap.org/? lat=40.75009lon=14.49013zoom=16layers=B000FTF next 7th December. If anyone from abroad is likely/willing to come, drop me a note... what tags are you going to use? normal highway ones? or are there some archeological-specific ones? ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] barrier=gate
Nic Roets wrote The problem is that OSM has a lot of momentum (users remembering tags, tags being hardcoded into all kinds of software, hundreds of wikipages etc). So changing tags should not be done lightly. This is perhaps the only one of dozens of recent comments concerning tagging that is difficult to disagree with. There were dozens of postings on the subjects of footway versus path or cars on tracks, now it is gates and service roads that are exciting people' minds. I believe the fact that tagging queries and arguments are the cause of at least 50% of talk traffic points to at least one underlying weakness in OSM (Steve, Andy and others who were involved with devising it please look away now): rant All map features have certain things in common - they all have a geographical location (or point to nodes with locations), a time, and an author. These properties are intrinsic to the database. They have one more thing in common: they all represent something real in the world. A node might represent a pub or a post box. A way might represent a motorway or a state boundary. This 'type' property is, in my mind more fundamental than all the other attributes we can add using tags - access restrictions, opening times, ownership,... Not only are types fundamental but a feature can really have only one type. A post box may be built into the wall of a pub and the two share the same geographical location, but the pub is not a post box and the post box is not a pub. This leads me into a little side- street here: I understand the data treats a POI as a node with tags, so a pub is a node with the amenity=pub tag. So in my example two nodes would be needed at the same location. I'm not sure if this is allowed, but it is clearly inefficient. It would be better for POI features to simply point to a node. The POI would have the type (rather like a way with just one node) while the node would have a location but no type. In my example there would be two POI features pointing to the same node. Back to the main road, now... I once tried tagging a local river as a railway line. Nothing prevented me doing this. In the database it was (until I went back in and fixed it) a river AND a railway! What appeared on the map was then down to the coding of the renderer which could choose to show it as one or the other, or both, superimposed. It may be possible for a railway to run immediately alongside a river, but the two should obviously be separate features. They might point to the same nodes but they must be discrete ways. Since all features should have one and only one type, I think this should be reflected in the data, just as locations are. Imagine if latitude and longitude were simply tags. We would have endless arguments about whether to tag as longitude=-12.5, easting=-12.5, lon=W12.5, long=W12d30m00s,... It my be anathema to some, but I feel there is a need for a little management - possibly even a committee or working party - with respect to the basic data structure. I would suggest a little less freedom in the matter of feature typing, with every feature having a specific type represented in the dataset in much the same way as location. Logically the menu of feature types would be derived from those in widespread use but with a little more order and a little less variety than at present. Those writing renderers would no longer have to decide which tags to render or need to cater for landuse=forest as well as natural=wood. Those writing editors would be able to build proper menus based on universally-used types complete with guidance on their application. People could still add any tags they liked, but the special feature type attribute would have to be approved in a more structured manner than a few votes on the wiki. If such a radical approach were adopted, changing the dataset would be the easy bit, and authors of editors and renderers would probably welcome a stint of intensive re-writing if it saved hours of work in the future. The real hurdle is in getting some sort of agreement within the OSM community. I know I for one would be far more inclined to devote time to collecting and adding data and even to getting involved in the software/data engineering aspects of OSM if I did not believe its foundations were unstable. But if it continues to grow without training or pruning (note the clever metaphor switch there) I worry it could become a garden overgrown with brambles - full of good things impossible to harvest. /rant elvin ibbotson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] data plucked from who-knows-where?
So, Richard thinks we should take him (just a guess, I suspect there are more mappers of this gender) outside and shoot him, while Etienne thinks we should give him a cigar. Me, I'm all for compromise: give him a cigar and shoot him :-) elvin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] I've added some amenity values to Map Features based on tag usage
From: Mark Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 31 October 2008 07:21:30 GMT To: Chris Browet [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: OSM-Talk talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] I've added some amenity values to Map Features based on tag usage -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Chris Browet wrote: It's fairly standard usage, you see a doctor at the doctors, a butcher runs the butchers. There should really be an apostrophe in there I think, ie: the butcher's shop, the doctor's surgery. But that's not really how people think of it. Just stick both on and point out everyone else's bad grammar :-) Please bear with non-native english speaker. I agree we all use english for easyness but those subtleties seem far-fetched. Let's keep it simple and avoid the non-grammatically-correct-possessive-case. I think the tag value should represent a concept, not be grammatically correct. We might as well use A124 or whatever. If everybody agrees it means a doctor amenity in whatever language, the goal is reached. Obviously, it's far less mnemonic, though... :-) - Chris - grammar-fascist The apostrophe is not correct anyway. It denotes a missed letter, in this word-position it would be 'doctor is', as opposed to the non-apostrophe version meaning 'belong to the the doctor' or plural doctors. Doctors' is just silly but would be technically correct(ish) for multiple doctors (plural) /grammar-fascist I hope we all enjoyed that. Given that the tags are in use, I'm going to pull rank declare a special interest ;) - use amenity=doctors. DrMark To be even more pedantic... I was taught that apostrophes should be used in two cases: to indicate a missing letter and to indicate possession, so the premises of a doctor would be the doctor's surgery, while a group practice would be the doctors' clinic. If the doctor was at work you could say the doctor's at the doctor's. Of course, the English language wouldn't be half so interesting if he rules were simple, so there is an exception with it. Where it's means it is but something belonging to it would be its. Having said that, I tend to go along with the school of thought that we would be as well of without any apostrophes so amenity=doctors seems fine. elvin ibbotson___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] I've added some amenity values to MapFeatures based on tag usage
From: Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 31 October 2008 11:44:49 GMT To: Richard Fairhurst [EMAIL PROTECTED], OSM-Talk talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] I've added some amenity values to MapFeatures based on tag usage Very interesting. Thank you, Richard. Doctor's sounds a bit common to me. Surgery is far better... Cheers, Lucas a bit common Should we have a discussion on which is U or non-U: public toilets, public lavatories, or public loos? Or does public sound a bit common? elvin ibbotson, common man___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] I've added some amenity values to MapFeatures based on tag usage
From: Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 31 October 2008 16:31:03 GMT To: elvin ibbotson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Talk Openstreetmap talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] I've added some amenity values to MapFeatures based on tag usage From: Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 31 October 2008 11:44:49 GMT To: Richard Fairhurst [EMAIL PROTECTED], OSM-Talk talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] I've added some amenity values to MapFeatures based on tag usage Very interesting. Thank you, Richard. Doctor's sounds a bit common to me. Surgery is far better... Cheers, Lucas From: Mark Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 31 October 2008 07:21:30 GMT To: Chris Browet [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: OSM-Talk talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] I've added some amenity values to Map Features based on tag usage -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Chris Browet wrote: It's fairly standard usage, you see a doctor at the doctors, a butcher runs the butchers. There should really be an apostrophe in there I think, ie: the butcher's shop, the doctor's surgery. But that's not really how people think of it. Just stick both on and point out everyone else's bad grammar :-) Please bear with non-native english speaker. I agree we all use english for easyness but those subtleties seem far-fetched. Let's keep it simple and avoid the non-grammatically-correct-possessive-case. I think the tag value should represent a concept, not be grammatically correct. We might as well use A124 or whatever. If everybody agrees it means a doctor amenity in whatever language, the goal is reached. Obviously, it's far less mnemonic, though... :-) - Chris - grammar-fascist The apostrophe is not correct anyway. It denotes a missed letter, in this word-position it would be 'doctor is', as opposed to the non-apostrophe version meaning 'belong to the the doctor' or plural doctors. Doctors' is just silly but would be technically correct(ish) for multiple doctors (plural) /grammar-fascist I hope we all enjoyed that. Given that the tags are in use, I'm going to pull rank declare a special interest ;) - use amenity=doctors. DrMark To be even more pedantic... I was taught that apostrophes should be used in two cases: to indicate a missing letter and to indicate possession, so the premises of a doctor would be the doctor's surgery, while a group practice would be the doctors' clinic. If the doctor was at work you could say the doctor's at the doctor's. Of course, the English language wouldn't be half so interesting if he rules were simple, so there is an exception with it. Where it's means it is but something belonging to it would be its. Having said that, I tend to go along with the school of thought that we would be as well of without any apostrophes so amenity=doctors seems fine. elvin ibbotson school of thought !!! wow !!! why don't we just call it illiteracy? So! It seems that a man who goes to the doctors is both common and illiterate. At least he isn't pompous :-) elvin ibbotson___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Asus eee and OpenStreetMap
Valent Turkovic wrote: ... Asus eee 701 is cheap and great little and very portable laptop - just perfect for mapping! I hope you find this howto helpful. ... If you have bluetooth GPS dongle that you have laying around, or can borrow one from somebody, and like driving a bike or a car around then this is the guide for you. Agreed, the eee is great (almost as nice as the Acer Aspire One which I use) but who wants all that hassle with Linux configurations and lugging around even a tiny laptop (especially on your bike!) when you can just use your phone to log tracks? Many phones have GPS built in and almost all the others have Bluetooth and there are plenty of free applications (including my own, 'mom') see the wiki at... http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Making_Tracks_with_Homebrew- ware#Mobile_Phones_.2F_J2ME elvin___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] map display www.openstreetmap.org
On 10 Oct 2008, at 15:06, Jonathan Bennett wrote: elvin ibbotson wrote: Steve, It looks like fakeSteveC or someone is pretending to be you and posting elitist, patronising, condescending rubbish in an apparent attempt to make you look foolish. I look forward to it being demonstrated that 'most people don't know what coordinates are'. elvin ibbotson Most people is not: Most people on this mailing list Most people who contribute to OSM Most people involved in GIS Most people who know some programming Most people is the man, woman or child in the street, many of whom will never have picked up a paper map, and will certainly never have tried to take coordinates from one. Got a printed UK Road Map? Open it to any page -- where are the coordinates? -- Jonathan (Jonobennett) Coordinates have been around a lot longer than OSM, GIS or programming. people learn about them at school where they are taught mathematics and geography. Most people go (or went) to school. Besides, this is the OSM talk forum and we are talking about people who have taken the trouble to go to the OSM website. Also we are talking about 'most people' not 'many' people. Finally, I reached for the nearest road atlas which happens to be the Ordnance Survey one and has not just the A,B,C/1,2,3 page coordinates used by the gazetteer at the back but British National Grid coordinates too! Some pages also show the scale, though I imagine this will be lost on most of the ignorant masses:-) ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] (no subject)
From: John McKerrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 19 September 2008 21:34:09 BDT Cc: OSM Talk talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Rendering by selecting data based on created date? On 16 Sep 2008, at 13:45, Frederik Ramm wrote: hI, I've had a idea that i'll be able to take a current extract for my area, import into a database, then using the node history, extract the nodes/ways based on the lowest history date. Interesting idea, but since we dropped way history in October '07, it will only go so far. Andrew, I've been taking daily dumps of the Liverpool area since October '06. I've generated some animations in the past that may be of interest to you. I'm sure animations of John's daily dumps would be welcomed on certain forums elsewhere on the interweb, but I for one would prefer not to see them ;-) elvin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap routing service
Another excellent routing service! A question: Is there an API? Is it possible to query the routing engine programmatically? (I would like to be able to send a query from my mom application running in Java ME on a mobile phone.) elvin From: Lambertus [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 6 September 2008 16:06:28 BDT To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap routing service Reply-To: Lambertus [EMAIL PROTECTED] A few hours ago a new version of the OpenStreetMap Routing Service has come online. I think is has evolved enough to go public 'officially'... The (yet another, I know) OpenStreetMap Routing Service is linking together off-the-shelf software such as Gosmore routing engine, Gazetteer namefinder service, Route altitude profiler, Potlatch online editor and OpenLayers framework. This version includes some UI bugfixes for leftover markers and marker placement 'lag'. There's also better support for Internet Explorer, usage of the available display area and help text (still rudimentary). New in this version is the 'Edit map' button which is particulary useful when testing and debugging the OSM way- and routedata (e.g. restrictions, oneway streets and disconnected intersections). Once you've spotted an error you can click this button and the online 'Potlatch' map editor will be opened in a new window containing the current map view. Although this service supports routing throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania, routing in the America's (North and South) is currently not possible. The North American data is so massive that it needs a 64bit server for the routing engine (Gosmore), currently the sponsored server runs a 32bit OS. I hope to work around this problem by splitting America into three areas (Northeast, Northwest and South) but - unfortunately - this will prohibit routing from one area to another. I hope this effort in collecting readily available software will be useful in validating/improving the data, inspire further software developement and attract new contributors. Please give it a try and tell me what you think: http://tile.openstreetmap.nl/~lambertus/routing-world ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] OSM mobile editor
From: Nick Whitelegg [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 26 August 2008 15:32:23 BDT To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: [OSM-talk] OSM mobile editor Hello everyone, Was thinking of a few ideas for an OSM mobile editor which could work as follows: * Ability to allow user in the field to add new attributes to a way (e.g. road name if it's missing, or one way) or correct existing attributes. * Allow a user to add new POIs. * Could work by either downloading OSM data live from the server (though this would have problem of being relatively expensive for the user) or by the user preloading OSM data to the phone before they go out. * Allows user to add annotations to Openstreetbugs (e.g. missing footpath here) * Because the inbuilt GPS in phones is not as good as dedicated devices, it would not be a priority to develop features to allow surveying of new ways. However this could be built in, in preparation for inbuilt mobile GPS improving in the future. * Java ME based for maximum cross platform support. Does this seem like a good approach? As can be seen the idea is not so much to allow addition of new ways (due to the inbuilt GPS on phones not being great) but more to add POIs and tags to existing ways. If there's interest and - more crucially - if I have the time (always difficult!) I could start work on it. Nick I think there is a role for an application like this - working with OSM data in the field. I certainly agree with using Java ME and the impressive processing power of mobile phones. I would take issue, though, with the comments on inbuilt GPS in phones. I now have a Sony Ericsson W760 with built-in GPS and it is not as good as my Bluetooth GPS receiver, but is much ore convenient. Other phones, such as the Nokia N95, have internal GPS with very good performance, and almost all phones have Bluetooth and can be used with small, cheap Bluetooth GPS devices. My own application, mom, can be used to view OSM maps and to collect GPX tracklogs, and I believe it is every bit as suitable for this as any consumer GPS device. Performance is obviously dependent on satellite disposition, nearby trees and buildings and weather, but I regularly see accuracy in the 5 to 10m range - perfectly addequate for most OSM surveying. But of course there is already a phone application for collecting tracklogs and viewing maps, so concentrating on using and editing data is probably the right approach. elvin ibbotson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Mailing Lists for MOM development
On 20 Aug 2008, at 11:43, Tim Waters (chippy) wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, but MOM development is closed, right? It's not FOSS? So why is there a requirement for a new OSM mailing list for mom development, when the OSM community cannot develop it? Perhaps this email subject is misleading me. If its *not* for development, is it for the developers to get and respond to feature suggestions? Perhaps you could think about using forums (a thread in the OSM forums could work) or email newsletter to communicate with your users. Mom is now on release, but is still being developed too. The first release version, at the beginning of May, was v.1.2.3 and I released v.1.2.5 earlier this month. I'm not completely up to speed with all the obscure acronyms so mom may or may not be FOSS depending on what it means ;-) Many mom users are keen to have a place where they can discuss the application and I want to be able to announce changes, sound out ideas and get feedback. Google or Yahoo mailing lists were suggested as was a new OSM mailing list devoted to mom. For now, though, I have simply done a bit of housekeeping on what had become a messy wiki page and created new pages specifically for suggestions, issues affecting particular phones and bugs and other problems where users are invited to join in. elvin ibbotson___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Mailing Lists for MOM development
From: Rory McCann [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 20 August 2008 10:49:14 BDT To: Patrick Aljord [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Talk Openstreetmap talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Mailing Lists for MOM development Patrick Aljord wrote: Heh, I forgot about those, you do realize though that even if the mailing list are not hosted on google, as long as they are public Google will index them and collect all the data they can as the Big Brother they are. When it comes to public web service there is no way to avoid the Google (unless you use the robot.txt but that doesn't fly with mailing lists). The problem isn't that Google can read your data, this is a public mailing list. The problem is that google controls your list. In order for people to sign up to your list, they need to enter an agreement with Google. With your own hosted email list you are the one in control. We're getting sidetracked here with this Google v. OSM debate (anyone remember when Google were the good guys?). I'd like to set up a new OSM mailing list for mom but a quick glance at the wiki didn't find a 'how to set up a new mailing list' page. Can anyone point me in the right direction? elvin ibbotson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] Easy to use system for countryside surveying
From: Nick Whitelegg [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 16 August 2008 16:57:17 BDT To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: [OSM-talk] Easy to use system for countryside surveying Have thought of an approach to make countryside OSM mapping using phones with inbuilt GPS (N95, etc) easy to the end user. A user could survey their walk using an N95 or similar, and then, using a very simple interface, select whether they are on a footpath, bridleway, unclassified road, track, etc every time the type of path or road they are on changes. So if they're on a road, then turn off down a footpath, they could select footpath. Then if the footpath merges into a bridleway, they could select bridleway. The result would be a GPS track with sections tagged with footpath, bridleway etc. A track simplification algorithm could be applied and ways generated from the GPS trace automiatically. This could then be uploaded to OSM for a more expert user (who could subscribe to an RSS feed to inform them of such uploads in their area) to refine the way, i.e. remove extraneous points and connect the auto-generated way to existing ways. Any thoughts? I could probably add the first part of the functionality into my mom app for mobile phones which already allows GPX tracklogs to be collected on a mobile phone with either built-in GPS or a Bluetooth GPS. Mom allows waypoints to be added very easily to the tracklog with descriptive text and/or voice notes and/or photos for logging the type of path, street names, etc. This functionality could be further developed. My worry is with the second part of the process - converting this collected GPX data into ways. I can imagine all sorts of problems trying to automate what is not a difficult task for someone familiar with Potlatch or JOSM but could need a great deal of programming skill. elvin ibbotson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] audio recording while logging
From: Kenneth Gonsalves [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 18 August 2008 09:15:57 BDT To: OSM Talk talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: [OSM-talk] audio recording while logging hi, while driving I would like to do a voice recording of waypoints and things of interest. What would a recommended device/method for this be? How could this be synchronised with the logging to avoid clicking way points. Or can it? Have a look at mom (http://mom.poco.org.uk) which allows audio- annotated waypoints when logging tracks using a mobile phone and GPS. elvin ibbotson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] latest release of mom
On 15 Aug 2008, at 12:20, Gert Gremmen wrote: It seems as if the dowload site still offers only 1.2.4 …. I checked the mom.jad file for it and it says 1.2.4 I saw none of the new options either…. Gert My mistake - sorry! Anyone who tried to download mom v.1.2.5 before 13:00 UK time toady (15 August) probably got v.1.2.4 and should try again. Sorry again. Thanks for spotting that, Gert. elvin (sorry) ibbotson___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] latest release of mom
From: Patrick Aljord [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 13 August 2008 23:49:02 BDT To: Talk Openstreetmap talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] latest release of mom On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 7:49 AM, elvin ibbotson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Aha! but you missed the hidden code which causes your computer to explode if you just enter '@'. elvin ibbotson Sorry if I offended you Elvin, No offence taken - just having a little chuckle at your detective work I don't use mom as I don't own a cell phone capable of doing so. You should get one I was just trying to help Robin. I personally think though that forcing a form on people trying to download something is a bit annoying. The world is a very annoying place, don't you think? If you want to alert your user you could create a mailing list, there are plenty of website that offer such things starting with google and yahoo Thanks, I may look into that. From: Tim Waters (chippy) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 13 August 2008 20:38:52 BDT To: elvin ibbotson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Talk Openstreetmap talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] latest release of mom Elvin, looks interesting, will have to give it a go. I noticed its licensed under a CC licence. Is the source available too? 'fraid not, but I welcome ideas and constructive criticism and users' comments have shaped mom's development. elvin ibbotson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] latest release of mom
From: Robin Paulson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 12 August 2008 20:43:18 BDT To: OSM Talk talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] latest release of mom 2008/8/13 elvin ibbotson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Those of you with mobile phones (especially if they have built-in GPS or you also have a Bluetooth GPS) may be interested to know I have just released the latest version (1.2.5) of my mobile open maps (mom) application. More details at the website or on the wiki. how do i download it without filling out the form? i'd rather not give my details if it's all the same to you A fair proportion of people who download mom appear to share your paranoia and enter fictitious email addresses. I don't really care much. I'm giving away what I believe is a really useful application to which I have devoted countless hours of work and all I ask is a little feedback on what phones and GPS devices people are using, what country they are in and a contact email address so I can let them know if there is an urgent issue specifically affecting their phone. Sorry if this seems unreasonable. elvin ibbotson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] latest release of mom
From: Patrick Aljord [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 13 August 2008 03:34:12 BDT To: OSM Talk talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] latest release of mom On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 2:43 PM, Robin Paulson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: how do i download it without filling out the form? i'd rather not give my details if it's all the same to you Looking at the html code, all you need to do is visit this page: http://mom.poco.org.uk/thanks.html Or just submit the form empty with an @ in the email field, the js validate function is not stricter than that. Pat Aha! but you missed the hidden code which causes your computer to explode if you just enter '@'. elvin ibbotson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] latest release of mom
Those of you with mobile phones (especially if they have built-in GPS or you also have a Bluetooth GPS) may be interested to know I have just released the latest version (1.2.5) of my mobile open maps (mom) application. More details at the website or on the wiki. [EMAIL PROTECTED] the byre | ecclesbourne lane | idridgehay | derbyshire | DE56 2SB 01773 550658 | 07725 808340 ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] path or byway ?
From: Pieren [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 18 July 2008 22:14:32 BDT To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: [OSM-talk] path or byway ? Dear talk, Could some native english speaker explain the difference between highway=path and highway=byway recently introduced in map features ? The description is not obvious. Is it unpaved / paved ? Where is the limit between path-byway and byway-unclassified ? regards Pieren As I understand it, a byway (which may be yet another of the UK- oriented map features) is normally an old road or lane which probably was once well used by foot traffic, horses, carts, coaches, whatever, but was not adopted as part of the modern road network. They are often known in Britain as green roads because they have not been maintained and rarely have much or any surface left, being generally dirt, stones, grass, weeds and mud. They are distinguished from paths and bridleways (another British thing?) by still being rights of way for all/any traffic and so tend to be popular with the off-road community with their 4x4s, quad bikes and scramblers. These things tend to make the byways rutted and muddier and upset the walkers and mountain bikers (the latter also upsetting the walkers) so that local authorities get pressured into placing local restrictions on some byways. Enough detail? (I could drone on for hours). elvin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] OSM maps in 3D
From: Igor Brejc [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 17 July 2008 20:19:02 BDT To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: [OSM-talk] OSM maps in 3D Hi, I've started playing around using DirectX in combination with SRTM data to draw 3D relief OSM maps. The plan is to add this feature to Kosmos. Please visit http://igorbrejc.net/openstreetmap/ openstreetmap-in-3d if you want to see some initial results. Very nice but it needs DirectX. I cut my map programming teeth on a viewer for British OS maps which uses Java 3D (http:// britain.poco.org.uk/desktop.html). I can’t share it because of copyright restrictions on the maps, but the principle would apply to any map source including OSM. Why not use Java instead of Microsoft stuff then it would run on anything. There’s an awful lot of us using Linux or Macs - anything but Windows!. I like the idea of Kosmos but - MS .net!! elvin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM maps in 3D
On 18 Jul 2008, at 09:35, Robert Vollmert wrote: On Jul 18, 2008, at 09:27, elvin ibbotson wrote: Very nice but it needs DirectX. I cut my map programming teeth on a viewer for British OS maps which uses Java 3D (http:// britain.poco.org.uk/desktop.html). I can’t share it because of copyright restrictions on the maps, but the principle would apply to any map source including OSM. Why not use Java instead of Microsoft stuff then it would run on anything. There’s an awful lot of us using Linux or Macs - anything but Windows!. I like the idea of Kosmos but - MS .net!! If you had tried, you'd know that Kosmos does in fact run on Linux with Mono. This one doesn't since there's no DirectX support in Mono, but I'm sure it'd be possible to port it to something like http://axiomengine.sourceforge.net/ . I'm not a Linux hacker. I use a Mac and much prefer the 'install it and it works' approach to either the arcane command-line stuff needed to make things like this work with Linux or the constant and annoying pop-ups in Windows. Java (especially on a Mac) just works. In my opinion, a Windows only project with source available is worth a lot more than some closed Java thing. Fair enough. That's your opinion. But why does 'some Java thing' have to be 'closed'. Java has been open and free since it's inception and there is nothing to stop me releasing the source of my Java apps. On that note, how can the license on the maps keep you from releasing the source code to your viewer? The problem is not with the code. It's the Ordnance Survey maps it views. This topic has, though made me think about revisiting my old 'Britain' app and adapting it to OSM. I wonder if there would be any interest in a Java OSM viewer with 3D, the ability to overlay user layers and create routes? ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM maps in 3D
From: Simon Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 18 July 2008 09:25:55 BDT To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] OSM maps in 3D On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 08:27:56AM +0100, elvin ibbotson wrote: Why not use Java instead of Microsoft stuff then it would run on anything. Java doesn’t really run on anything, and we’re only just getting close to a full working free software implementation. Java runs on Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris and has been full, free and working for years. For 3D, some framework that sits on OpenGL would be even better (or use OpenGL directly). Java 3D will use OpenGL or DirectX. That's one way it runs on anything ;-) Please note: I am an unpaid Java evangelist and have no connection with Sun. elvin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] Misclassified roads
From: Steve Hill [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 9 July 2008 15:36:03 BDT To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: [OSM-talk] Misclassified roads Following the approval of the highway=road tag, I've set about aggressively changing a lot of the highway=unclassified roads around Swansea, that I believe are misclassified, to highway=road, with the intention that they can then be surveyed and reclassified correctly. If you believe they are wrongly tagged (I would avoid the word misclassified when referring to an unclassified road ;-) presumably you have a good idea what classification they are, so why not just re- tag them as primary, tertiary or whatever? However, after starting to do this, I've realised just how many of the roads are misclassified - I'd estimate that well over 80% of the roads tagged as highway=unclassified are, infact, not unclassified roads. How on earth did you arrive at this figure? Wouldn't 'guess wildly' be a better verb than 'estimate'? So I'm wondering about the merits of changing *all* the highway=unclassified roads in the area to highway=road so that the whole lot can be classified appropriately from scratch. No way! I personally have mapped hundreds of roads, a high proportion of them unclassified (and I suspect I am not the only one who knows what this means) and would not want anyone 'aggressively changing' them. This would make it obvious which roads really are unclassified and which need to be checked. What are peoples' views on this? I imagine that much of the OSM world is affected in the same way, and this renders the highway=unclassified tag relatively meaningless in it's current state. Should there be a global reclassification to fix this, or is there a better way? There's always a better way. I suspect the motorway/trunk/primary/ secondary/tertiary/unclassified hierarchy was derived from Britain's highway classification system, since it appears to be a perfect match and OSM's roots are here. I don't have much knowledge of how roads are classified elsewhere, but I guess most countries have classification systems which can be made to correspond to this hierarchy. The grey area for me is in the tertiary/unclassified/ service/residential area. C-class roads in the UK are not labelled as such on road signs or maps (and of course we shouldn't look at maps as this might infringe copyright ;-) so if you don't work for the local highway authority you can only guess at what's tertiary and what's unclassified. In rural areas I tend to tag roads wide enough for cars to pass as tertiary and narrow lanes as unclassified. How many houses are needed for the residential tag is obviously a matter of judgement as is application of the service tag. I have seen some wrongly tagged roads but I would guess nearer 5% than 80%. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] pronunciation tag
2008/6/24 SteveC [EMAIL PROTECTED]: So it would be nice if we could tag how things sound as well as what they're called. First you need to decide how things sound. For example, Redcar is pronounced Redker by locals but red car by most others and Greenhill (in my home town of Sheffield) is known as Gren'l by Sheffielders (unless, perhaps, they're trying to sound posh) but green hill by all you other folk. A friend from London would not believe it was not pronounced green hill but would have laughed at me if I'd pronounced Greenwich green witch. There must be thousands of similar examples and this is one reason English can never be written phonetically without sacrificing regional dialect. This is less problematic for some other languages, but then non-native speakers often mess things up (listen to Brits or Americans ordering zuchini or chorizo). Maybe we should just concentrate on spelling things right :-) elvin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] [OT] OSM based photo catalogue
From: Nick Whitelegg [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 11 June 2008 12:30:59 BDT To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] [OT] OSM based photo catalogue Part of what I'm working on with Freemap (www.free-map.org.uk) is developing mobile software (Freemap Mobile, see post a few days ago) to allow people to take photos of countryside locations. These could be just for interest, but also for direction finding, e.g. if you're out in the country and get lost, you can fire up the app on your phone and look at a (possibly annotated) photo of where you're supposed to be. Nick My 'mom' mobile app allows places and waypoints to have photos (and audio recordings) linked to them. This was intended to aid data collection but if someone implemented photos (and audio notes?) in OSM it shouldn't be difficult to adapt mom to it. From: Rory McCann [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 11 June 2008 12:37:21 BDT To: Rainer Dorsch [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] [OT] OSM based photo catalogue A service like flickr can do a lot of this. It parses the GPS details in files. It only costs about US$20 for 1 year and you get infinite uploads of photos. You can't really beat that. Rory locr is another existing service, but it's the idea if integrating photos into OSM which appeals. elvin___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Freemap Mobile - Open source mobile OSM map viewer
For those of you who didn't spot it, I released mom at the start of June (and there's a wiki page too). Mom runs on phones, uses OSM maps (scales 3-15) and saves GPX tracks. (Oh, and it's free :-) [EMAIL PROTECTED] the byre | ecclesbourne lane | idridgehay | derbyshire | DE56 2SB 01773 550658 | 07725 808340 From: Jonathan Bennett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 10 June 2008 10:12:35 BDT To: Nick Whitelegg [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Freemap Mobile - Open source mobile OSM map viewer Nick Whitelegg wrote: Hello everyone, Would like to announce the initial release of Freemap Mobile, a Java ME mapping application for mobile devices. Freemap Mobile displays Freemap maps (i.e. UK countryside-orientated OSM maps) on a GPS enabled mobile phone (e.g. Nokia N95) and the source code is now available in OSM SVN at applications/mobile/FreemapMobile. Alternatively the JAR/JAD files are available for download at http://www.free-map.org.uk/downloads/FreemapMobile/ Nick, It would probably be a good idea to get in touch with Tommi Laukkanen, the developer of Mobile Trail Explorer: http://www.substanceofcode.com/software/mobile-trail-explorer/ I've been using this to gather tracks on a S60 phone for a long time now, and while it's a slightly different app to yours, the developers of MTE are working at integrating OSM maps into it. I suspect you could save each other a lot of effort. Jonathan (Jonobennett) ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] talk Digest, Vol 46, Issue 26
From: Andrew Chadwick (email lists) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 9 June 2008 11:43:03 BDT To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Don't you just hate it when part 2... Vincent Zweije wrote: Hmm... everyone should be wearing their OSM shirt or other mark while mapping... you'd have have a nice conversation as a result. Slight downside to the OSM high-vis vests that Graham Smith sorted out recently: I've noticed that more people ask me for directions when I'm wearing it than when I'm not. One local resident even seemed to think I was some sort of official surveyor bod and tried to mine me for information about some recently-cleared land. Quite what a real surveyor would be doing out on a Saturday, I'm not sure, but +1 for how fake- official they look. -- Andrew Chadwick When I'm out surveying (with a tape and level and stuff rather than for OSM) I often get nosy types asking what's happening. I tend to say I can say too much but hint at (depending on the location) wind farms, by-passes or toxic waste sites. So far this has never (as far as I know) actually resulted in any NIMBY-style posters or local newspaper headlines, but one lives in hope :-) elvin___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] talk Digest, Vol 46, Issue 27
From: SteveC [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 9 June 2008 12:44:49 BDT To: 80n [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: OSM Talk talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] [tagging] noname streets coz it makes me think of no=yes and that would just be silly On 9 Jun 2008, at 12:43, 80n wrote: noname=yes seems like a perfectly good solution. Why do you think it might not be optimal? On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 10:25 AM, SteveC [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I didn't find much on the wiki, has anyone looked at defining streets without names? I'd like to define some roads that really don't have a name so that they drop off the noname map. http://dev.openstreetmap.org/~random/no-names/ I've been adding noname:yes but I can see that might not be optimal. Maybe name:__none__. Or something. Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk Best Steve Hasn't 80n got a degree in philosophy? If so no=yes might not be too much of a problem ;-) elvin___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] Enabling communities to use OSM as a planning tool
This topic reminded me of some thoughts I had about time-based tagging but did not pursue. I have a professional interest in planned features but a leisure interest in historic features such as ancient roads. The OSM database could include both these types of feature but for general purposes the map should only show what is there now, not what used to be there but has gone or what may be there in the future. My thought was that there could be a time-based tag which would show the time-span of a feature. It might be called 'epoch=' and could indicate when a feature existed/will exist. Anything with an epoch which did not include today would not appear as standard, but a time-based viewer might allow users to 'scroll through time' seeing features appear/disappear as the viewer's epoch entered/left that of the features. A difficulty is that there will usually be some uncertainty about the dates, so the tag grammar would need to take account of this. Sometimes the beginning or the end date will be unknown or there will be only the most approximate knowledge of a date, so the tag grammar must allow for various levels of accuracy and for incomplete epochs. One approach might be to use a grammar like fromto so a road due to open in December this year could be tagged epoch=12/2008 or an ancient track that fell out of use and disappeared in the 16th century might be tagged epoch=C16. A feature that was known to exist for much of the 1700s but probably not before or after could be tagged epoch=C18 (implying from/to dates of 1700 and 1799) whereas a temporary path existing just for the duration of a construction project might be tagged epoch=12/03/200623/12/2006. Features with no epoch tag (like pretty much everything in the map now) would default to 'now' and if the viewer left the present epoch to look back at past features or forward to planned features would show these against a dimmed backdrop of the present-day map. Such a viewer could use the standard bitmap tiles for the present-day background but would need to use vector data from the database for past/future features. elvin From: Andy Robinson \(blackadder-lists\) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 4 June 2008 08:54:53 BDT To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: [OSM-talk] Enabling communities to use OSM as a planning tool Lat night I attended a steering group meeting for my local Connect2 [1] project in north east Birmingham [2]. One of the things that the group could benefit from is rapid response on mapping so that it can discuss route options for the new cycle/walk routes to be built under the project. OSM is the logical tool to use for this process and I'm keen to show what we can do with the OSM data and the OSM platform to support the work. At the moment everything is done as overlays on Ordnance Survey 1:10,000 mapping, not an ideal way to integrate ideas into the existing infrastructure. This brings me to the point though. Currently we map physical features as they exist and in some cases the alignment of known construction, what we do not do is use OSM as a planning tool. What are people's views on this? It seems that OSM is an ideal platform for enabling communities to develop their own planning, without having to rely wholly on the GIS department of their Local Authority, it also makes publishing ideas so much easier without the encumberment of the OS licence restrictions. Anyway I'm going to give it a try here and come up with some logical tags so that the data does not get rendered by default unless a custom style sheet is deployed. But maybe the easiest was is to have the renders ignore data that carries a specific tag. planning= perhaps? I'd welcome some feedback. Cheers Andy [1] www.connect2.org.uk [2] www.connect2birmingham.org ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
On 30 May 2008, at 00:19, Dave Stubbs wrote: This strand of the discussion (below) though echoes the earlier thread I kicked off (but gave up pursuing because there seemed to be more prejudice than logic in the discussion) about the idea of numerically-based properties in the database mapped to human-friendly language in editors and viewers. OMG is your brain mush? This whole nonsense is over what admin_level (a numerical tagging scheme) maps to. It's the perfect example of why numbering the bloomin tags doesn't necessarily actually solve anything. It's also the perfect example of how a global numbering system is utterly irrelevant given our ability to invent domain and ordering specific ones on a whim. Oops! I touched a nerve there :-) I'm no brain surgeon but, from what I've seen on telly, most peoples brains are, fundamentally, a bit mushy. This fluidity and flexibility is IMHO better than the rigidity of an ossified brain. As I understand it the numbers are not the problem, it arises from people not knowing which is the right number to use (eg. England/Scotland border admin_level 2 or 4?). This is why I think numbers are useful in the data but users should not have to know what numbers to use. Rather they should be presented with choices using words they understand which then put the right numbers in the database. As for our ability to invent domain and ordering specific ones on a whim this too would be better translated into English as she is spoke. Most of that discussion was about highways but similar arguments seem to apply to boundaries. I think most British mappers would be happier selecting from a boundary sub-menu of 'National', 'County', 'District', 'parish', with each choice invisibly mapped back to the appropriate numerical boundary type than with the clumsy 'boundary=administrative' 'admin_level=4' approach. Yes, I'm sure they would rather pick from such a menu. Mapping to the relevant boundary and admin_level tags should be trivial as the wiki page manages it. I'm sure implementations are welcome. Exellent! We agree, then :-) elvin (mushbrain) ibbotson___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
From: Sebastian Spaeth [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 30 May 2008 14:16:59 BDT Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands elvin ibbotson wrote: As I understand it the numbers are not the problem, it arises from people not knowing which is the right number to use (eg. England/Scotland border admin_level 2 or 4?). This is why I think numbers are useful in the data but users should not have to know what numbers to use. Rather they should be presented with choices using words they understand which then put the right numbers in the database. The problem is not at all about whether you let user choose a number or from a list of wordings. The issue at hand here is whether Wales country border is of the same type as Austria's is. It's true this was the original issue, and (as I have already said) I would rank the Welsh and Scottish borders at the same level as US states, but my contributions have been about the way the admin_level is presented to the user. This is what wars are fought over and you cannot solve the issue by either numbers or by having people select from a list municipal or country border. Yes, I'm sure they would rather pick from such a menu. Mapping to the relevant boundary and admin_level tags should be trivial as the wiki page manages it. I'm sure implementations are welcome. The issue is not at all whether there's a nice drop down list or not. People work already using descriptions on the wiki. I for one do not want to have to be flicking backwards and forwards between wiki pages looking up the correct tagging convention when I am trying to edit the map. I much prefer simply choosing from the options Potlatch or JOSM present to me. Unfortunately, all to often, you need to consult the wiki and I believe this is likely to put a lot of new users off. I was told only a very small proportion of people who register as users are actually active in building the map. This could be one of the reasons why. The key=value tag approach is great for extending OSM into specialist fields or adding metadata but the core properties have to be standardised. That is why we have the guides on the wiki and arguments over the uses of these tags. I just think there could be improvements to the way the core tags are handled in the database and editor software, is all :-) elvin___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands
This discussion about the national status of England, Scotland, Wales and Ulster is very entertaining but is not going to reach a conclusion without another war. Personally I would give these countries the same status as states as they are effectively states within the United Kingdom or (with the exception of Ulster) Great Britain. This strand of the discussion (below) though echoes the earlier thread I kicked off (but gave up pursuing because there seemed to be more prejudice than logic in the discussion) about the idea of numerically-based properties in the database mapped to human-friendly language in editors and viewers. Most of that discussion was about highways but similar arguments seem to apply to boundaries. I think most British mappers would be happier selecting from a boundary sub- menu of 'National', 'County', 'District', 'parish', with each choice invisibly mapped back to the appropriate numerical boundary type than with the clumsy 'boundary=administrative' 'admin_level=4' approach. In other countries/languages, other words would map to the same numbers. But isn't this democratic/anarchic approach to mapping great? I'm going to put a national/state level boundary around our village and name it Isle of Man, resulting in some worthwhile reductions in taxes and a free grandstand seat for the TT races next month :-) elvin ibbotson From: Shaun McDonald [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 29 May 2008 13:43:43 BDT To: Bruce Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] National borders in the British Islands On 29 May 2008, at 13:31, Bruce Cowan wrote: Seriously, the number system for borders is rather strange, surely there must be a more obvious scale. I suppose this has been mentioned before though. I thought people are using things like district, country, city, town etc for the boundaries, rather than a numeric value. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] OpenPlantMap
Anyone involved with the National Trust? Apparently they are mapping every plant in their gardens all over Britain. Do they know they just need OSM and a few new tags (plant=nettle for example). http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7395915.stm elvin ibbotson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] tagging and rendering
I'm grouping a replies to several posts for this topic... On 9 May 2008, at 19:13, Jeffrey Martin wrote: Typos in real words are easier to detect than a mistake in entering a number. In the scenario I was suggesting numbers would only replace words for type tags and users would never see the numbers but would just see words (in their own language) mapped to/from numbers in the database by the editor/viewer software. This somewhere between the ID numbers (set purely by software) and latitude/longitude (which users do not enter directly) and all the other tags, most of which (like name=) require user direct input. From: Jeffrey Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 9 May 2008 15:09:39 BDT To: elvin ibbotson [EMAIL PROTECTED], OSM Talk talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] tagging and rendering The rendering should be separate from the data. Marking a hiking trail as an autobahn so it will be a different color or be visible on higher zoom levels I think we all agree is wrong. Provided the data is correct, I don't see a problem with altering the way data is collected and recorded to make it easier for renderers, and those who program them and write the rendering rules. I can see the attraction to the use of numbers for the values of the highway tag. Having a new system that does not use terms that have other meanings can force people to think about the OSM definitions of the values. The UK centric terms have this effect for me. I have to think about what motorway means for the US or Korea in terms of the OSM definition because I have no competing definition of the term motorway in my mind. For me motorway only has an OSM definition. I have today tagged a little country lane in my area as a railway line as well as highway=unclassified, as the free-from tagging system would seem to allow this and I wanted to see how it will be rendered by Mapnik and Osmarender. I'm all for freedom but I think the type of a node or way is (like node ID and latitude/longitude) more fundamental than most tags which would retain user input and the potential to invent new tags. From: Jonathan Bennett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 9 May 2008 19:55:01 BDT To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] tagging and rendering elvin ibbotson wrote: Things humans read need to be human readable. The database should be read by software and if it can be faster and more efficient using numbers, numbers are what should be used. The best way of proving this would be to come up with your own version of the OSM server stack that used ID numbers internally, while still outputting human-readable tag names. How long do you think it would take you? I don't think we want another server. I can already demonstrate it: I am currently experimenting with binary data downloads for my mobile OSM viewer, mom. I need data for scales from 3 (just coastlines and country boundaries for enormous areas) to scale 15 (almost everything in a limited area) and until there is a binary API the data has to be sourced as XML then parsed to binary. The standard OSM API does not have any level-of-detail filtering so I am using XAPI. To get data for a particular scale I have to make several calls to the XAPI for each feature group (natural, highway, waterway, ...) in turn, and each call takes quite a bit of setting up in the code. If, for example, the feature types were structured using a numerical system such that so that all natural features began with 0, all highways with 1, etc, but everything needed at scales smaller than 5 ended with numbers smaller than 3 (eg. coastlines: 01; trunk roads: 12) I could make a simple call for features less than *3. From: Martijn van Oosterhout [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 9 May 2008 19:51:18 BDT To: Jeffrey Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: OSM Talk talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] street traits On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 8:30 PM, Jeffrey Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A name for each kind of road in a person's country could be set up as an editor feature. I select mountain road 2 from my list and it fills in the number of lanes, lane size, shoulder size, etc. for me. Strangly enough, JOSM supports this already. Another option might be to have some kind of bot that fills in specific data based on country specific highway tags. I thin you're missing something though. Just because it says highway=motorway doesn't mean it looks identical everywhere. It means what a motorway is in the country its located in. Just determine which types of roads there are (there are about 7 usually, no matter what the country) and then map those to the existing highway tags. All done. If you want to add stuff like lanes/etc go ahead, but for the basics you don't need it. A new thread but more evidence that feature type tagging is fundamental and may need rethinking. ___ talk
[OSM-talk] tagging and rendering
Much debate centres around the way features are tagged and how they are rendered (for example recent discussion of golf course tagging, the term 'highway', rendering power lines,...) and it seems that much of this is inextricably involved with the OSM data itself. I wondered if it was time, while OSM is still relatively young and before it becomes too ossified and institutionalised, for the approach to be reviewed. My own thoughts, for what they are worth, are that the data structure should be language/locale agnostic. For example, ways could have a numeric type field with, hypothetically, 10-19 being used for roads. In this scenario 11 might be a UK motorway, an Italian autostrada or an American interstate, while 19 might be a rough track (10 being reserved for some not-yet-invented super highway, after all some of us were here before motorways). The editors used to input data (Potlatch, JOSM, whatever) would hide this structured data from the user and translate it to/from human language. One immediate advantage is that a German user could tag an autobahn rather than a motorway and global users would not have to use language clearly derived from the British motorway/trunk road/A/B (and little-known C) road classification system. Instead, local nomenclature would be mapped (no pun intended) to the underlying data structure by the local edition of the editor. Highways are an obvious example we are all familiar with, but the principle would apply to all feature types. Places of worship could be mapped as cathedrals, churches, chapels, etc in Britain or as mosques, temples, shrines, whatever in the east. Rendering of the data is I think less tied up with the data itself, but again could be implemented differently by different map viewers. My paper road map of Ireland shows primary roads red in Ulster and green in Eire. Autbahns are green on my map of the Alps while autopistas are patriotically red and yellow on my Spanish map. Local or customisable viewers are possible with the current OSM but not, as far as I know, implemented yet, but the principle of separating the core data from the way it is described and depicted is, I believe, important. Another aspect of the base data structure is that of level-of-detail (LoD) filtering. This is obviously done at present (villages and footpaths disappear as you zoom out) but is dictated by the people who code the viewers and is not, as far as I know, very well addressed in the API, so LoD filtering has to be done after data has been acquired, when it should be possible to specify LoD when requesting data. If LoD were considered in structuring the database it would be easy to filter data (eg. road types 10-13 only or for major ways of all types *0-*3). This is simpler for programming than clumsily using named tags (highway=motorway|trunk|primary) and would be invisible to users who might see autopista, autovia or carretera general. elvin ibbotson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] tagging and rendering
On 9 May 2008, at 11:05, Dave Stubbs wrote: As far as I see it there is no difference between mapping 11=autobahn, and mapping motorway=autobahn. I think you missed the point. At present we have highway=motorway and I believe a German user would need to use these words. What I suggest is that if Potlatch is used on a German computer the user would be presented with a menu of road types starting with 'autobahn' while I would see a menu starting with 'motorway', both mapping to a database field of (hypothetically) 11. I can't see how 'motorway=autobahn' helps with anything. Places of worship could be mapped as cathedrals, churches, chapels, etc in Britain or as mosques, temples, shrines, whatever in the east. Um... except that Britain has quite a lot of mosques, temples and shrines. These are different things, not the same things named differently. Fair point - I didn't think that one through until I'd clicked SEND. Best not talk about religion, eh? This is why we don't have (and have resisted) tags such as highway=red. Point missed again! I'm saying separate rendering from tagging. highway=red is exactly the opposite of what I'm suggesting. People have done customised renderings... see Freemap Slovakia for example: http://www.freemap.sk/? lang=enzoom=8lat=48.49281826990847lon=18.326709281821315layers=BF0 FFFT Yes. Anyone can put up their own viewer, but I imagine most use the one on the OSM site and that could (possibly) render the content differently according to the keyboard language or to some locale setting in its control panel Another aspect of the base data structure is that of level-of-detail (LoD) filtering. ... If you consider something like the cycle map where we have ncn as the things that should show up at zoom level 6 instead, then we have to apply different rules. No problemo! Special viewers like the cycle map would simply apply their own filters. And with well-structured data a map viewer could even have settings (eg. cycle routes on/off) allowing it to be customised by the user, making a proliferation of specialist viewers unnecessary. So we only really gain something if the LoD demands happen to coincide with the data model you define. LoD is generally a more complicated problem that requires you to actually define a whole array of features, and mechanisms for simplification. I never said it was going to be easy :-) I do think that LoD demands are something that should be considered in designing the data structure. (I also think elevational data should be well integrated, too, but that's another topic.) ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] tagging and rendering
On 9 May 2008, at 12:21, Dave Stubbs wrote: The mapping to numbers doesn't gain us anything. It doesn't let us do anything we can't already do, or make it any easier as far as I can see. If the database, which is accessed by programmers, was numerically based, it would be be more amenable to algorithmic logic. At the simplest level, selecting elements with values above/below certain levels. The numbers would of course have to follow some logical pattern. Similar procedures using the current tags involve clumsier code like 'motorway OR trunk OR primary' and, if users are actually typing these words in (rather than selecting from human-friendly menus presented by the editor) a typo such as 'secodnary' cold corrupt the database and prevent the feature being seen by map viewers or routing engines for example. I think you were actually suggesting something like type=11 -- where 10-20 means roads, 30-40 could mean railways etc. But as far as this argument goes it doesn't really make much difference, other than leaving us with a massive allocation problem which has been neatly sidestepped by using free-form tagging. Yes free-form tagging avoids having to decide on a pattern and allows for open-ended evolution, but it doesn't work if it's completely free- form. I could describe many roads around here as 'highway=country lane but would they get rendered? The fact that there are tagging recommendations acknowledges that anarchy would not work. But a data structure would have to allow change and evolution (at the simplest level, leaving spare numbers for future use) and this is a challenge. Indeed point missed again. We DON'T DO (sorry Richard) highway=red. We do highway=primary and you can make that any colour you like... same as you can do with highway=13/type=13 -- it makes no difference is my point. Numbering the highways won't help. Now I'm confused. I'm not suggesting numbers to avoid red highways for goodness' sake! It could yes. There are a couple of issues with this mostly to do with actually maintaining the style sheets and providing the processing power/disk space. Moore's Law should take care of those :-) No problemo! Special viewers like the cycle map would simply apply their own filters. And with well-structured data a map viewer could even have settings (eg. cycle routes on/off) allowing it to be customised by the user, making a proliferation of specialist viewers unnecessary. Hmm.. yes, maybe. But the point of your e-mail was essentially numbering everything, and that really doesn't help us with this goal. It's just that numbers are easier for programmers (see above). Users would never see them. They would see words in their own language and the viewer/editor would map words to numbers. elvin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] tagging and rendering
On 9 May 2008, at 14:56, Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio wrote: Hi, the last line of your messge looks like a triple parallelism. Just to be precise: we are tagging 'autopistas' and 'autovias' as motorways, 'carreteras nacionales' as trunks and main regional roads as primary (for example, the roads linking Catalan cities to the Pyrenees)... just in case you are mapping something in Spain :-P It's funny to see you say 'carretera general', that's old-fashion language, often heard in the rural Spain. Wow, who'd have thought Open Street Map would improve my Spanish? I stand corrected. I just took the old-fashioned language from a road map I bought on holiday about 10 years ago to illustrate a point. Sadly, my Spanish does not extend much beyond ordering two beers or telling the waiter 'La mesa no es limpa' (if I remember the holiday Spanish phrase book correctly). I never encountered a dirty table in Spain, so never had chance to try this one :-(___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] tagging and rendering
On 9 May 2008, at 16:48, Dave Stubbs wrote: There are some genuine problems that need solving -- tag translation, tagging hierarchies, tag documentation and guides, and some bad tags in common use to name but a few. Here we agree. Unfortunately people seem most interested in solving these problems via the magic bullet approach. This basically involves turning everything on it's head, adding a level of indirection or two, putting in some extra technical elements, and finally hoping that someone will take the opportunity of the wholesale change to actually fix the problem. I don't think we should be afraid of radical change if it is needed. OSM has many years and many more terabytes to look forward to and if it needs change it would be better sooner rather than later. The highway tag has well known problems; mostly that it's a highly subjective short cut for lots of tags and widely differing concepts, of which nobody is entirely sure which takes precedence. This doesn't get fixed by making everyone use numbers. I just took highways as a simple example everyone is familiar with. I don't want to make everyone use numbers. I don't want users ever to see the numbers. But users should never actually see the database. My whole point is separation of data from the viewing/editing interfaces. Numbers are an abstraction, that's all they are. The present tag names/values are also generally abstractions... just human readable ones. Things humans read need to be human readable. The database should be read by software and if it can be faster and more efficient using numbers, numbers are what should be used. elvin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] tagging and rendering
On 9 May 2008, at 14:51, Vincent MEURISSE wrote: You can look at merkaartor. It implement something like that. When you draw a road, it show up a translated list for the tags. I thing that an editor must hide tags for most usages to avoid tagging errors and allows power users to change row tags. agreed For example, ways could have a numeric type field with, hypothetically, 10-19 being used for roads. In this scenario 11 might be a UK motorway, an Italian autostrada or an American interstate, while 19 might be a rough track And why use tags at all. We can use highway=1 railway=2 amenity=3 name=4. Then we will renouce to xml format and use a binary one and then close the source of osm software. Seriously we use xml. The principle of xml is to be human readable and use text attribute. If there is any tagging facility and tags translation, it's the job of the editor. I'm sure you must know of the binary data proposal. I have developed a mobile OSM viewer which uses the bitmap tiles - slow and big for mobile devices. But XML data is way bigger! There is a great deal to be said for a binary format. But the future is probably XML. I have no objection to tags with words (they are inevitable anyway for such things a names) provided they chosen to allow things like level-of- detail filtering and future growth, and are (as you say) separated from the user by the editor. elvin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] contours on main map
I too would like to see SRTM elevational data in OSM - possibly optional in the UI - and preferably using colours rather than just contours. I posted an initial proposal in the wiki some weeks ago. I don't have much data, but I suspect contours add a big data load, but producing coloured bitmaps from SRTM sources is not difficult and these could be used as backgrounds to the rendered OSM data. elvin ibbotson On 8 May 2008, at 10:45, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Robin Paulson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 8 May 2008 03:32:42 BDT To: osm Talk talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: [OSM-talk] contours on main map is there any intention to include contours on the main map at any point? would it be possible to have them as a static layer (i.e. they not be re-rendered every week like the mapnik images, to save processing time), with a transparent background? alternatively, are there any world wide maps out there with contours and osm data, that update regularly? ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] The future of Potlatch
Richard, I use both JOSM and Potlatch. Each has its own strengths and would be missed if it were to disappear. Equally, each could (and I'm sure will) be improved. I'm not sure what Cloudmade's motivation is. As a commercial company are they looking to make money from their new editor? Or are they intending to present it to the OSM community as a replacement for Potlatch? On the question of ActionScript: I haven't used it (or Flash) but I have done quite a bit of JavaScript and a whole lot of Java programming. I don't know what the ActionScript 1 experience is like but I find using JavaScript like driving in fog (difficult to know where to go or where you went wrong) and would use Java every time. If the ActionScript 1/3 relationship is anything like JavaScript/Java I would jump ship at the earliest opportunity (and if Steve Nick will give you some of their VC cash to do it, all the better!). I'm sure you have tremendous respect from OSM people and will have plenty of support. I know how I would feel in your place and I know from experience that it is likely to look totally different when it all settles out. Potlatch works fine for now and from what you say no- one has even started coding another Flash editor, so why not take some time out as you suggest and let the dust settle. I bet if you rebuilt Potlatch from the bottom up, using a better language, it would be all that any of us could ask for. elvin ibbotson From: Richard Fairhurst [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 1 May 2008 18:35:59 BDT To: talk@openstreetmap.org, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [OSM-talk] The future of Potlatch [warning - long ponderous e-mail follows!] Hi all, A fairly weighty issue concerning the future of Potlatch has arisen, and I'm completely baffled as to what to do - so I thought I'd ask the community for thoughts and advice. CloudMade (Steve and Nick's VC-funded company set up to commercialise OSM data, www.cloudmade.com) wants to commission a new online Flash editor for OSM. It would, I believe, probably be written by developers from Stamen Design (www.stamen.com): some of you will remember that Stamen's Tom Carden wrote OSM's early Java editing applet, and they've also written a slippy map in Flash called Modest Maps. As you can imagine, this has taken me aback a bit. As I understand it, their main issue is a technical one. Potlatch is written in ActionScript 1, which is the same language as JavaScript, but for Flash. The latest version is ActionScript 3, which is much more like Java for Flash. The end user doesn't notice a difference, but the programming style is very different. CloudMade believes this is holding back the development of OSM: that if the editor were written in the latest version of the language, more Flash designers would come to work on it, resulting in a better editor. Steve cites OSM's move from pure Ruby to Ruby on Rails as an example of how a contemporary language encourages more people to contribute. And they're also worried that if I were run over by a bus then no-one would be able to speak ActionScript 1 and maintain Potlatch. I'm not so sure. I think people are beginning to contribute code to Potlatch; that as essentially JavaScript it's approachable enough; and that the problems of attracting developers is symptomatic of core OSM in general (as per http://trac.openstreetmap.org/log/sites/ rails_port). I hope that Potlatch, as something maintained by an active community participant _for_ the community, has demonstrated a pretty rapid rate of improvement anyway. It's meant to be small and compact, of course, not a a bells-and-whistles editor like JOSM: nonetheless, in the last few months, for example: it's become the only editor yet to offer revert/history, gained very good relations support, background layers, flexible GPX import, etc. And there's a lot of stuff on the way, mostly focusing on usability - from a generic 'undo' and pop-up help panel to a new, super-user-friendly tagging panel with draggable POI icons and things like that. It's got faults, everything has, but it's come a long way in the last year. For what it's worth I think it's the best thing I've ever coded. For most purposes AS3 probably is a better language - except for the fairly major proviso there's no open-source player even in development. Indeed, if I were starting all over again I'd probably do it in AS3, and in a couple of years I may well migrate Potlatch to AS3 (or 4, or whatever) anyway. But right now it's more important to spend time improving usability for mappers, given that - like most people here - I do have a full-time job which isn't OSM (which isn't computer-related at all, in fact) and consequently time is not unlimited. So I really don't know what to do. Part of me thinks that the most important thing is that Potlatch is still available and users are offered the choice
Re: [OSM-talk] namespaces and copyright
From: Martijn van Oosterhout [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 28 April 2008 20:57:45 BDT ... But one thing I learned from mapping my own area: the maps you buy are *wrong* in so many places. Maybe easter eggs, maybe bugs. In either case, don't make the assumption that just because you paid money for it or that it looks like an official looking printed map that it's actually accurate. I couldn't agree more. The one exception is our own dear Ordnance Survey. Very occasionally one may find a small discrepancy between the OS map and what appears to be there, on the ground. This is simply a case of reality being wrong. From: Chris Hill [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 28 April 2008 21:37:28 BDT ... Climbing is a sport that kills people who don't take it seriously, but it can still be fun too. Naming routes is fun for some people. I know. I have friends who climb and I'm sure they can't all be masochists, but the odd scramble I have tried just scared me witless. A tip though - there's often an easier way up around the back. It sounds like this climbing malarky is as anarchic as OSM. You should have committees to grade climbs and approve route names and climbing police to ensure no-one ever uses a copyrighted route name without proper attribution. This is called the BMC. LOL___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] namespaces and copyright
It seems my little rant about what I perceive as an unnecessarily precious approach to copyright issues ruffled a few feathers. I think everyone's plumage is spruce again now, so I just want to respond to some of the helpful guidance received. You may yet have to come across a streetname deliberately spelled wrongly or in fact any of the other possible easter eggs introduced by commercial mapmakers just to protect database rights. Using street signs and doing general surveing on the ground is the only safe option. --- Dirk-Lüder Deelkar Kreie Correct! I have never actually seen one, but I'm sure they exist. However, I can make my own spelling mistakes without their help. I hope people didn't assume I'm doing all my mapping from the A-Z. I do actually go out there collecting tracks with my GPS, photographing things, naming waypoints and even remembering the odd street name. Further discussion on this topic is probably best relegated to the legal-talk list: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/legal-talk If not, I would like to see them sue. This statement is exactly the *opposite* of what the OSM Foundation probably feels. Lawsuits cost money. OSM doesn't have the kind of resources that allow it to consider defending a suit a reasonable path at this time, and thus, it takes the 'moral high ground' by avoiding all the issues involved and playing it completely safe, as is the best position for a project of this nature to take. --- Christopher Schmidt also... I think this is generally the point: most people would prefer they /didn't/ sue. Even if their case didn't really have a leg to stand on, you still end up having to defend it which is more hassle than it's worth if you can simply avoid the situation in the first place. The same goes for taking street names or climbing route information from sources which claim copyright. As for whether copying the names from maps is legal, well there's plenty of opinion on this from lawyers and non-lawyers alike. Database right tends to come into it too. I get the feeling YMMV. OSM policy has always been to keep to the safe side of the argument and only allow sources which are guaranteed to be permitted. Anyway, follow ups to the legal-talk list please. --- Dave Stubbs I tried subscribing to the legal list but something seems to be broken, so I'm back here polluting the talk list - sorry! Here (I would like to see them sue) I was using what I thought was a widely-used and equally widely-understood device, colloquially known as 'irony' (though I'm sure a grammarian would correct that). I did not actually mean it literally. I like OSM and I really hope it doesn't get sued (and here I'm not being ironic). I'm all for staying on the right side of the law even if it means I might not go to heaven when I die. If anyone ever accuses me of copying a street name from a book or a map I will deny ever having set eyes on said book or map or having asked anyone who might have seen it. There is a danger I might occasionally have to lie, but it's better than getting sued, eh?. To be really safe, I'm going to start looking carefully at the street signs for copyright notices. (sort of irony again). On the other hand, on a rock face there are no signs - things can become much more subjective. Climbing (difficulty) grades, for example, are estimates - there is no hard fast rule about what makes a route a specific grade. A bunch of people climb it and make a guestimate on how hard they think it is. --- Steve Hill My original post was prompted by one about climbing route names from Chris Hill. You guys take your surnames too seriously. It sounds like this climbing malarky is as anarchic as OSM. You should have committees to grade climbs and approve route names and climbing police to ensure no-one ever uses a copyrighted route name without proper attribution. elvin ibbotson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] GPS recommendations
Most people already have a mobile phone and simple Bluetooth GPS receivers without displays or keypads are cheap to buy, small, very easy to use (mine has one buttonand two LEDs) and lighter on batteries than Garmins and the like. I have not used an up-to-date GPS but used to have a Garmin 12 and now have a cheap, generic Bluetooth device which seems every bit as accurate. I imagine performance has more to do with the chipset used than anything. I use mine with my Sony Ericsson W880 and the two work together really well. I can keep the phone in a pocket and the GPS clipped to the handlebars, on a cord round my neck or in a 'Napolean' pocket and my hands are free and I avoid looking like the mapping nerd I really am :-) There are many (mostly free) applications which will run on mobile phones and display/process GPS data and often maps. Modesty prevents me recommending my own but it will be available real soon now and you can learn more at mom/poco.org.uk. elvin.ibbotson From: Laurence Penney [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 24 April 2008 19:57:17 BDT To: Kai Krueger [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] GPS recommendations On 24 Apr 2008, at 19:32, Kai Krueger wrote: I would be interested to hear how you would rate that solution compared to one involving a bluetooth GPS mouse and using e.g. a cell phone to do the recording and display of OSM maps. With GPS bluetooth receivers selling already at about 20 to 30 pounds, this solution seems quite a bit cheaper than buying a Garmin. I can't really comment on the quality of reception, as I haven't had a Garmin my self, but at least the other points you mentioned, such as built-in OSM mapping, storage capacity ease of use, ... should be achievable with a phone given the right software such as e.g. GpsMid (Trekbuddy or WhereAmI, might work as well, but I haven't tried those). I quite liked my Nokia N70 + BlueGPS (Sirf3, non-logging) + nmea_info.py combo. So much so that I bought another BlueGPS when I left my first one on a train in a good position near the window. I can't find its replacement now, so wonder if I left that in a taxi, bleary-eyed after some flight. Having an all-in-one is quite a bit less hassle so I'm sticking with my N95 + SportsTracker for now - will be good for a day out when I buy a spare battery. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] namespaces and copyright
I too am relatively new to OSM and occasionally bemused by the arcane debates on the talk list. Those who know about database theory should be able to decide on the merits of namespaces. I can see the value of a structured, hierarchical approach provided it is implemented in a way we lesser mortals can understand and presented via a usable interface and I have to say I'm not sure this is always the case. I have yet to get to grips with bridge tagging, never mind relations or worrying about namespaces :-) Chris Hill is worried about copyright issues with climbing routes and this is like lots of concerns I have seen expressed such as taking street names from actual street signs rather than from copyrighted material. If it's the name of the street, it's the name of the street, no matter how or where it is communicated. Not only am I not an expert on databases but I am equally ignorant of the finer points of copyright law. But PLEASE! A street name cannot be copyright and printing it on a piece of paper or causing it to appear on a screen is hardly the stuff of intellectual property. SteveC rightly debunked the whole map copyright issue at the beginning of this month and we need to recognise humbug and treat it with the contempt it deserves. JOSM imports waypoints with GPX tracks and I would like to see Potlatch do the same, but I came across something this week about the terrifying risk of accidentally importing copyright stuff such as the location of Garmin's headquarters. What?! If Garmin put this information on every device they sell they would probably be delighted if it accidentally appeared in Open Street Map. If not, I would like to see them sue. elvin.ibbotson From: David Ebling [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 25 April 2008 08:46:47 BDT To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: [OSM-talk] namespaces I don't know if I count as a new user (started late 2007) but I can't see any benefit from this namespace business. I'm technically minded, but not an expert geek by any means, and not familiar with the concept of namespaces. On this occasion I find Ockham's Razor convincing. i.e. K.I.S.S. If something adds no benefit, (and I've been following this bizarre discussion and have yet to be convinced of any benefit whatsoever) then why should we add a whole load more characters to loads of the tags we add to things? It will lead to more typos, more errors, more confusion about correct tagging, increase the size of the db, and raise the barrier to entry for OSM contributors. It's already quite challenging for some new members to get the hang of the editors, and getting harder with things like relations. We don't want OSM data to only make sense to people familiar with the concept of namespaces do we? Or was that the intention? Lets keep OSM as accessible as possible. Dave From: Chris Hill [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 25 April 2008 11:28:43 BDT To: OSM Talk talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: [OSM-talk] Climbing routes Leaving the namespace issue aside, how would one collect the information about climbing routes? The routes I climbed didn't have signs or the like to gather from the site. All of the climbing guides I have that describe the routes, including their name, grade, number of pitches etc are copyright. Are there copyright free sources of this information? Cheers, Chris ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] namespaces and copyright
OK, now we're completely off the original topic :-) Thanks for the tip, Richard. I hope I'm not the only user who didn't know that. elvin ibbotson From: Richard Fairhurst [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 25 April 2008 14:03:26 BDT To: OSM Talk talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] namespaces and copyright elvin ibbotson wrote: JOSM imports waypoints with GPX tracks and I would like to see Potlatch do the same It does (and has done for a while). One user seems to be having problems with GPXs created by the bundled Garmin software, but it certainly works with those created by gpsbabel. You need to click the edit link by the track itself, not the one at the top of the screen - the waypoints aren't stored in the database, so Potlatch has no way of getting them unless you tell it to work off the actual track itself. cheers Richard ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] SVG tiles
Yup! Osmarender seems to produce SVG, and I guess SVG is an intermediate stage in producing the bitmap [EMAIL PROTECTED] tiles, but what I am suggesting should be considered is a server that would deliver tiles in SVG format instead of/as an alternative to bitmap tiles. Could this be done simply (as if anything was ever simple :-) caching the SVG between running Osmarender and converting SVG to bitmaps? On 21 Apr 2008, at 18:00, 80n wrote: On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 2:33 PM, elvin ibbotson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: poco.org.uk I have developed a mobile-phone Java app (called 'mom') to navigate OSM maps and save GPX tracks (amongst other things) which will soon be out there for people to download. It uses mapnick PNG tiles at 5 of OSM's scales (3, 6, 9, 12 15) which look nice but are quite big files to download to a phone (typically 12kB-15kB for scale 15) so take a significant amount of time and eat into a user's data allowance to fetch. I considered using the compact binary downloads aimed at mobile apps, but this is raw data and the graphics limitations of mobile Java mean the maps drawn from it would not look very pretty. I am fairly ignorant of OSM data structures and back-room software but I understand SVG is used in producing bitmap tiles. As I understand it, the idea of SVG is not only to give nice, scalable, graphics, but to do so using smaller file/download sizes than bitmaps. Many/most of the newest mobile phones are able to draw SVG graphics in Java, as are browsers, and desktop Java will soon include SVG graphics, so it looks to me like the way forward. If tiles were available as SVG I am sure it would be relatively easy to substitute them for bitmap tiles in slippy maps or apps like mine. Not only would downloads be faster but a smaller range of scales would be needed, with the same data set and appearance being used for a range of scales and scaling of the SVG image used for intermediate (or infinitely adjustable) scales. I had been intending to get round to mailing this list enquiring if SVG downloads were possible/available when the Export tab appeared. My initial delight** was slightly diminished when I exported a map in two formats - SVG and PNG - and found the SVG version was 340kB while the PNG file was 132kB. A glance at the SVG data suggests that text is actually drawn (sometimes more than once (for background then again for the text itself) using long, elaborate paths and shape definitions of every character at every orientation and size, rather than just using the SVG text element!!! I suspect it also incorporates bitmap images as icons rather than using SVG definitions. I think SVG is the way forward, but not if the file sizes end up almost three times bigger than bitmaps! Take a look at Osmarender. This creates proper SVG. Details here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Osmarender I suggest that, if has not already been done and is hidden somewhere I haven't looked, that a server should be dedicated to scalable map tiles using a compact and efficient implementation of SVG coding. **Hats off to those involved, by the way :-) [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] talk Digest, Vol 44, Issue 85
On 21 Apr 2008, at 18:00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Tom Hughes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 21 April 2008 14:48:56 BDT To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] SVG tiles In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] elvin ibbotson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I had been intending to get round to mailing this list enquiring if SVG downloads were possible/available when the Export tab appeared. My initial delight** was slightly diminished when I exported a map in two formats - SVG and PNG - and found the SVG version was 340kB while the PNG file was 132kB. A glance at the SVG data suggests that text is actually drawn (sometimes more than once (for background then again for the text itself) using long, elaborate paths and shape definitions of every character at every orientation and size, rather than just using the SVG text element!!! I suspect it also incorporates bitmap images as icons rather than using SVG definitions. I think SVG is the way forward, but not if the file sizes end up almost three times bigger than bitmaps! Some of the text is drawn twice in order to get the halo effect that our mapnik stylesheet uses. The icons are bitmaps because, as I believe I explained yesterday, mapnik does not (currently) support vector symbols. If you want to help with that I'm sure Artem will be pleased to here from you. Everything else is essentially down to cairo, which is the rendering library that mapnik uses to render vector maps. I ask it to render text using a given font and if it chooses to convert that to a path then that is because it thinks it isn't possible to do it as a text render for some reason. In general terms SVG is pretty verbose anyway, so it's not at all clear to be that it's ideal for what you are doing. I would also point out that the export service was really designed for people doing one of exports and not to act as a back end for the sort of thing you're doing and it is unlikely to scale well to supporting large scale use of that sort. Fair enough! It sounds like SVG export from Mapnik/Cairo is a little sub-optimal :-) I wasn't suggesting applications somehow used the export service but that SVG tiles should be available alongside (and ultimately instead of?) bitmap tiles I suggest that, if has not already been done and is hidden somewhere I haven't looked, that a server should be dedicated to scalable map tiles using a compact and efficient implementation of SVG coding. Sure. I'll just look in the cupboard marked spare servers and pull out a server for you. Then I'll go write stack of code and deploy and manage it for you. Great, thanks. Seriously. You want it, you write it. Aw shucks. You guys are so much better at it than me. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Beyond Zoom 18 - (Some scratchspacing ideas concerning siteplans)
As an architect I spend a lot of time using mapping 'beyond zoom 18' and have contributed a lot of stealth taxes to the British government paying through the nose for Ordnance Survey site plans (another debate altogether). Accurate data for building footprints (we'd best keep out of people's living rooms to avoid privacy issues) would be great but is beyond the capabilities of the techniques generally used by OSM mappers - hobby GPS devices and tracing from Yahoo imagery. Either a professional surveying-quality GPS rig would be needed, giving centimetre accuracy, or the data would have to be imported from CAD, with some method of accurately relating this to OSM's coordinate system. Bigger servers might be needed too :-) From: Frederik Ramm [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 22 April 2008 00:44:59 BDT To: Sfan00 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Beyond Zoom 18 - (Some scratchspacing ideas concerning siteplans) Hi, What exists are the start of some example floorplans for : * A supermarket * A Cinema seating arrangment * A simple house... I would welcome some thoughts on what to expand... Micromapping is surely an interesting area that we'll have to spend some thought on; if and how we want it in our data, how this can work with generalisation (zooming out) and so on. However I have a feeling that our current approach of mapping what's there will fail miserably when we try to create schematics of the insides of railway stations or cinemas. Such floor plans are usually not even remotely drawn to scale, often for good reasons. But our way of doing things does not leave room for *not* drawing something to scale. So maybe we just end up with links to some other system (OpenFloorPlans)...? ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] mobile binary data
I want to experiment with the mobile OSM binary data protocol mentioned in the Development section of the wiki but I am not sure how to get hold of the data. The wiki page suggests a URL like this bmap.php?tile=257882462ts=29have=41 but this is not a complete URL and being relatively new to OSM I am not sure what to put between http:// and bmap.php. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] SVG tiles
poco.org.uk I have developed a mobile-phone Java app (called 'mom') to navigate OSM maps and save GPX tracks (amongst other things) which will soon be out there for people to download. It uses mapnick PNG tiles at 5 of OSM's scales (3, 6, 9, 12 15) which look nice but are quite big files to download to a phone (typically 12kB-15kB for scale 15) so take a significant amount of time and eat into a user's data allowance to fetch. I considered using the compact binary downloads aimed at mobile apps, but this is raw data and the graphics limitations of mobile Java mean the maps drawn from it would not look very pretty. I am fairly ignorant of OSM data structures and back-room software but I understand SVG is used in producing bitmap tiles. As I understand it, the idea of SVG is not only to give nice, scalable, graphics, but to do so using smaller file/download sizes than bitmaps. Many/most of the newest mobile phones are able to draw SVG graphics in Java, as are browsers, and desktop Java will soon include SVG graphics, so it looks to me like the way forward. If tiles were available as SVG I am sure it would be relatively easy to substitute them for bitmap tiles in slippy maps or apps like mine. Not only would downloads be faster but a smaller range of scales would be needed, with the same data set and appearance being used for a range of scales and scaling of the SVG image used for intermediate (or infinitely adjustable) scales. I had been intending to get round to mailing this list enquiring if SVG downloads were possible/available when the Export tab appeared. My initial delight** was slightly diminished when I exported a map in two formats - SVG and PNG - and found the SVG version was 340kB while the PNG file was 132kB. A glance at the SVG data suggests that text is actually drawn (sometimes more than once (for background then again for the text itself) using long, elaborate paths and shape definitions of every character at every orientation and size, rather than just using the SVG text element!!! I suspect it also incorporates bitmap images as icons rather than using SVG definitions. I think SVG is the way forward, but not if the file sizes end up almost three times bigger than bitmaps! I suggest that, if has not already been done and is hidden somewhere I haven't looked, that a server should be dedicated to scalable map tiles using a compact and efficient implementation of SVG coding. **Hats off to those involved, by the way :-) [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Rendering power lines: black is beauty
I'm sure any paraglider folk using the map would be glad to see power line on there. Preferably as broad red lines! They are seriously bad news and surprisingly difficult to pick out when they're not silhouetted against the sky. elvin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] re contours
On 20 Mar 2008, at 10:05, Steve Hill wrote: On Thu, 20 Mar 2008, elvin ibbotson wrote: Treating contours as shape files seems to me to be heavy on storage, downloads and processing. I have made a proposal in the wiki at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/ Relief_maps#a_proposal to use relief shading as a background to mapnik tiles. I'm sure there must be good reasons not to do this and look forward to hearing them. I hadn't come across that proposal before, but my initial thoughts are: Coloured relief as described is good for an at-a-glance idea of the terrain, but (IMHO) are less useful when you want to look at the map in more detail. It could be sensible to use this system on the low-zoom tiles and the switch to contour lines on the more detailed high-zoom ones. The proposed doubling of the intervals leaves them far too widely spaced at high altitudes which would render it more or less useless in mountainous terrain. For example, a ski resort may have the town centre at 1100m and the top of the mountain at 3300m - on that map the only colours you will see are the 1024-2048m and 2048-4096m bands - 2 bands to cover up to 3000m of altitude difference is nowhere near enough to be useful. On the whole I'm not convinced about reducing the band frequency with altitude anyway - if you're cycling (for example) at an altitude of 600m, a 100m high hill is just as significant to you as it would be if you were cycling at sea level, but in the former case it wouldn't show up on the map at all whilst in the latter it would be very obvious. I think, on balance, band width proportional to altitude makes a lot of sense. A rise of a few metres makes a lot of difference if you live in a flood plain but is less significant when you're halfway up a mountain. But, the proposal was just kite flying and if people think the colour band approach is worth pursuing the banding and colours wold need more thought. 1m band width near sea level is perhaps too small while doubling each time is perhaps too exponential (though very easy to code). More bands would help but would be counter-effective if the colours became difficult to distinguish. elvin___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
