Re: [Talk-us] Michigan Forest Land
On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 1:18 PM Kevin Kenny wrote: > > The Michigan maps are lacking the information for state forest land. I > > have noted that the Upper Peninsula does have some state and national > > forest areas, but there is much missing here in the Lower Peninsula. > > > > I have found the data on the State of Michigan website, and have > > successfully downloaded the shapefile for all state forest land. > > > > I would like to proceed with adding this data to OSM, with the help of > > experienced editors. I took a look at the data set, and we'd need to do some research before importing on what the various "ManagementType" might correspond to in terms of boundary=protected_area protect_class=* tagging. In addition, the data set has a large number of parcels where adjacent parcels are identical except for FC_Key (intended to be a unique ID for the parcel?), County and YOE. (I don't know what YOE means - it appears to be "Year Of" something - and there are dates in both the future and the past, so I don't think it's "year of expiration"). In some cases, the dividing lines appear to be township and range lines, but in many places, they're too irregular to be simple PLSS lines and aren't meander lines either, so I suspect they simply represent former lot boundaries. Most parcels appear to be about three sections in size, and given that they're consistently elongated in an E-W direction, may simply be consecutively numbered sections. (If you don't know what township, range and section mean in this context, read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System). Given the large number of parcels that are named alike, we probably need to look at coalescing adjacent ones. I suspect the division is just to keep accounting straight for parcels that were acquired at different times or from different former owners, and not something we ought to be replicating in OSM. ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Michigan Forest Land
On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 11:58 AM David Martin wrote: > I'm new to editing OSM, having been a heavy user of OSMAnd for Android for > several years. I primarily use the maps for snowmobiling here in Northern > Michigan, and building my own database of gpx tracks. > > The Michigan maps are lacking the information for state forest land. I have > noted that the Upper Peninsula does have some state and national forest > areas, but there is much missing here in the Lower Peninsula. > > I have found the data on the State of Michigan website, and have successfully > downloaded the shapefile for all state forest land. > > I would like to proceed with adding this data to OSM, with the help of > experienced editors. > > This is public data, available at > http://gis-michigan.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/dfe0bcec31184b57b9f0d96bc02d6548_1 > > This is high-value data for all OSM users in Michigan, to understand when > they are public land and help prevent trespassing onto private land. I often > have to switch over to Google Maps to see if I am on state land. > > Please advise as to how I may proceed. A bit of background: I am the original importer of the 'New York City Watershed Recreation Lands' data set, and I re-imported and continue to update the "New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Lands and Campgrounds" data set, so I appear to be the primary custodian of OSM's representation of about 25000 km² of public recreational land. I certainly think that representation of State Forests on OSM is a worthy goal. With that said, an iimport is a really tricky thing to get right. If you're imagining a process whereby you could take a shapefile from Michigan's GIS department and pour it into OSM, it's by no means that simple! A few questions and comments, to get us started -- How familiar are you with OSM mapping? In order for an import on the scale that you're contemplating to be successful, the importers have to be extremely fluent in the editor of choice - most importers use JOSM, and many use external tools in addition. In particular, if you're not familiar with mapping multipolygons, or with 'conflation' - the process of merging data with what's already there - an import is likely NOT the place to learn! I'm surely willing to advise and assist, but I really want to be advising before any major moves, rather than trying to clean up the massive mess that results from a botched import. Anticipating some of the objections: OSM ordinarily does not map land ownership, but only land use, land cover, land access, land protection. What we're going to have here is 'land open to the public - managed by the State of Michigan Department of Xxx - a protected area (IUCN class #nnn) - etc." Those are the salient facts, rather than the fact that the State owns it. Since we routinely map parks, forests, nature reserves, an objection on the grounds that we are dealing with land ownership data can be rebutted on these grounds. How observable in the field is the presence of a state forest? In New York, where state land abuts a road, or where a trail enters or leaves, there is ordinarily signage, comparable to a private landowner's posters, that looks like https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/NYS_Forest_Preserve_sign.jpg. In addition, where the road is entering or leaving the forest, turning off to a parking area, or othewise in need of a 'welcome' sign, there will be a larger sign like https://andyarthur.org/data/photo_021252.jpg. Moreover, in the back country, while the posters may be absent, the survey line for the border of the parcel will ordinarily be blazed, either with paint blazes, or for many of the older lines, axe blazes. Axe blazes are visible for decades, even when a tree is nearly healed - https://howtowilderness.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/blaze.jpg is an example. In general, while it might be possible to stray outside a forest parcel unwittingly if the adjacent landowner has neglected to post, someone who knows the approximate location of a boundary line and is looking for it will find it. If we have "there is signage identifying the forest" and "there is at least this minimal level of field visibility of the boundary", then in my opinion at least, the import clears the bar of 'verifiability.' Now comes the issue of compliance with the import guidelines. https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Guidelines . You're already well into Step 2, and doing OK so far. I'd recommend that the next step is to draft an import plan. (This is actually called out as item 2 under step 4, but you'll find that if you approach the 'imports' mailing list without a plan, you'll not get a favourable response.) There's an outline for the plan on https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Plan_Outline. For similar imports that I did, you can see the plans at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import:_NYCDEP_Watershed_Recreation_Areas - this one is a full plan - and
[Talk-us] Fwd: Spot elevations collected as natural=peak and name=Point (height in feet)
OOPS - meant to send to the list, not the originator... -- Forwarded message - From: Kevin Kenny Date: Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 9:49 AM Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Spot elevations collected as natural=peak and name=Point (height in feet) To: Joseph Eisenberg On Fri, Mar 8, 2019 at 11:02 PM Joseph Eisenberg wrote: > > Natural=peak must be a local high point, so it has to be at least a > few meters higher than the surrounding land. A natural=peak does not > have to be the highest point of a mountain, but it has to have some > topographical prominence. Not all spot elevations on USGS are of > peaks, some are just a visually prominent part of a ridge, and other > are saddles. Once again, map the object, then tag the elevation. The maps don't ordinarily show spot elevations that aren't associated with an object that can be recovered in the field. If it's a trig point, we have tagging for that. If it's a saddle, we have tagging for that. If it's a highway intersection, tag ele=* on the node and add a note=* to indicate that the elevation is associated with the intersection. If it's the surface elevation of a waterbody, we have tagging for that. If it's a destroyed benchmark, then don't map it (or give it place=locality without a name if for some other reason it must be mapped). If it's an object of a kind we haven't discussed, then let's discuss that kind of object rather than arbitrarily discussing tagging of spot elevations. Tagging spot elevations out of context will serve only to get in the way of integrating with third-party photogrammetric, radar or lidar data sources - and I think we're all agreed that OSM is *not* the right place for fine-grained elevation information. There are peaks where the elevation is the name in common usage. Certainly, anyone chronicling the history of the Vietnam War would recognize Hill 875, Hill 881 or Hill 943 as place names. Even though those names started out simply as spot elevations on a map, they have subsequently been written upon the land in the blood of soldiers. ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] motel vs. hotel
The only clear definition that has come across this list is whether the rooms open to the outdoors or to a hallway. All of the others are way too subjective to be useful to anyone trying to decide how to tag it. -- Brian > ___ > Talk-us mailing list > Talk-us@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us > ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] motel vs. hotel
>> As I believe the etymology of the word "motel" (circa 1920s) is a contraction >> of "motor hotel," I believe it is fair to say that a motel is a hotel which >> caters to motorists. That is, patrons who arrive in an automobile and wish >> for it to be immediately accessible, as in parked directly outside the room >> in the case of a single story facility, or very nearby for multiple story. Pretty much this. I would define a motel as a place you would stay at just to rest and shower while on a long, multiple day, drive. Like driving from the East coast to the West coast in USA without extra stops. Simply a room to stay in with possible a common area that provides cold breakfast (cereal/bagels/etc.). A hotel would be more somewhere you would stay at for multiple days in a row on a vacation or business trip. These usually have extra features (hot breakfast/pool/room service/etc.). Aaron Forsythe ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
