On 22 Sep 2007, at 15:27, Charles Warcup wrote: > Dear Steve, > > I was electrified to read about OSM in this week's "Die Zeit" (Die > neue > Heimat: http://www.zeit.de/2007/39/geoinformatik) as it seemed to > be similar > to an idea which I had a few years ago, but have so far failed to find > backing for, which I called "Nearly Free Data", NFD. Looks as if I > don't > need to bother any more.
Hi What exactly is NFD? > > When I put my ideas to paper the Web 2.0 concept hadn't filtered > down to me, > so I was somewhat at a loss as to how to set up an interactive mapping > structure - I have been working with computers on and off for > decades, but > don't have the state-of-the-art internet programming skills to do > it myself. > Anyway, OSM is up and running and I'm sure it will soon become an > extremely > powerful source of information and tool. > > I've had a brief look at it, of course wondering how much of NFD > has already > been realised in it. Lots, apparently. But I found it difficult to get > direct answers to some of my queries, because of course the > introductory > pages for OSM are not designed to provide them. So rather than wade > through > all the documentation, I thought I would ask you directly. > > In drafting NFD I worked from the bottom up, i.e. assumed that the > basic > geographic information unit would consist of point objects. I guess > OSM > started life as a collection of GPS tracks and is therefore based > primarily > on line objects. First question: Have you considered enabling the > editing of > polygon objects? It might be good to get in our newbies@ and talk@ mailing lists to talk about these more in depth, I'm bouncing there. > Q2: Is it possible or planned to perform GIS-analyses using > attribute data? > Q3: What is the storage format of the data? > Q4: Is it compatible e.g. with the shapefile format or do you have/ > plan > import/export interfaces? > > Q5: Do you consider the contributed material to be subject to self- > cleansing > tendencies (bad data being pushed out by good data in the course of > time, or > are there already built-in plausibility checks? In fact, how do you > deal > with duplicated data? I ask this because, as I started with point > objects, > the question of their plausibility struck me as being rather important > (whereas line objects, especially ones made from GPS tracks, are > perhaps > intrinsically more likely to be reliable). > > Anyway, to cut a long story short, I'm attaching my draft idea in > the hopes > that it may be of interest to you and could help you to see why I > am asking > these questions. It would be great to hear from you. > > Best regards, > > Charles Warcup > > REALisation Projects > Ludwigstrasse 21A > D-86919 Utting > +49 (0)8806 958790 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > www.RealisationProjects.net > <NearlyFreeData_Presentation_E.pdf> have fun, SteveC | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.asklater.com/steve/ _______________________________________________ newbies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/newbies
