Re: [OSM-talk] NGA Country Files Converter into OSM format
We did a GNS import of place names in Ireland at at time when very few place names were already mapped and the map was full of emptiness. It worked well for us, since the de-duplication task wasn't that bad and it created reference points for future mapping. It is certainly true that accuracy is poor - off by 2km in many cases. But in a from-scratch mapping effort it's easier to re-spot these than it is to create brand new nodes, and even the baseline is better than nothing. I'd be a little more wary of importing such data into a well-mapped area. Dermot -- -- Iren sind menschlich ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] NGA Country Files Converter into OSM format
Hi all, I recently discovered the site available by the US Army with millions of world geonames (towns, etc) here [1] http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/namefiles.htm The OSM wiki says that there is no legal problem using it, altought we should put the source tag [2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/SWDB#GEOnet_Names_Server Here is the XML explanations of the CVS that you can download from the link [1], [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mass_content_adding/Geographic_data/Using_NGA_data/Localization/Description_of_Names_Files_for_Countries_and_Territories_Format/English The question is ? Anybody has developed a script to convert this CVS into a KML or OSM file containing all the towns of a country? This can be very useful for countries in developing countries almost empty. Best Regards. Ivan ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] NGA Country Files Converter into OSM format
Hi, There's a csv2osm script (in svn I think) which will handle the conversion and upload, but you'll want to stop it from uploading automatically to check first. The only place I have looked at using this data source is for Turkey, and it didn't seem too accurate - many places were quite some distance away from where they should be, there were villages I didn't recognise, and there were villages with incorrect names. Try a small-scale import for your part of the world using csv2osm (it copes well with existing data) to see how accurate you find it, but don't be too hopeful. nb.I may be incorrectly remembering the name of this script, and it needed a little modifying to be compatable with api 0.5, but it worked fine for the oil wells I imported recently. -- Alice ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] NGA Country Files Converter into OSM format
On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 10:13 PM, Ivan Garcia capisc...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, I recently discovered the site available by the US Army with millions of world geonames (towns, etc) here [1] http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/namefiles.htm The OSM wiki says that there is no legal problem using it, altought we should put the source tag [2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/SWDB#GEOnet_Names_Server Here is the XML explanations of the CVS that you can download from the link [1], [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mass_content_adding/Geographic_data/Using_NGA_data/Localization/Description_of_Names_Files_for_Countries_and_Territories_Format/English The question is ? Anybody has developed a script to convert this CVS into a KML or OSM file containing all the towns of a country? This can be very useful for countries in developing countries almost empty. They're called GNS files, if you search around the mailing lists you'll find some information about them, there's also a sparse page on the wiki: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/GNS Here's a program to convert them (somewhat) which I modified from another program I found on the wiki: http://git.nix.is/?p=avar/gns-to-osm;a=tree;h=master;hb=master git://git.nix.is/avar/gns-to-osm Here's an example of GNS (in)accuracy (originally from http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-is/2008-December/53.html): OSM data now: http://flickr.com/photos/avarab/3133771125/sizes/o/ GNS data: http://flickr.com/photos/avarab/3133777841/sizes/o/ OSM and GNS data side by side: http://flickr.com/photos/avarab/3133764871/sizes/o/ As you can see the GNS data is prone to miss mountain peaks by a few kilometers, place farms in the middle of lakes and other this was made by throwing darts at a globe stuff like that. Things are generally pretty topographically correct, and can be useful in cases where you can move the nodes according to landsat data, local knowledge or other stuff like that. On my ever-expanding TODO list where nothing gets done I have a write a viable user-powered GNS importer for OSM item, basically: * Go through the entire GNS dataset and split it up by country/type of feature (e.g. one .osm file for peak, one for farms, one for glaciers etc.) * Present a web interface where users can download e.g. peaks in Zimbabwe that haven't been uploaded * The user will then open the .osm file in his editor, move nodes around according to local knowledge/landsat and upload them * The uploaded node will have a gns:UFI (unique feature ID) key and won't appear in the next extract of peaks in Zimbabwe that haven't been uploaded This (or something like it) is IMO the only non-sucky way to import GNS data, it has been imported as-is in some places like the Faroe Islands (which has no active mappers), but I wouldn't like a mass import of raw GNS data in any are which I edit, having a bunch of nodes which are off by few dozen meters to a few kilometers isn't acceptable quality for OSM. Especially for datasets such as these which you can merge with the OSM data on your own if you really want to use them. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] NGA Country Files Converter into OSM format
Check out Mike Collinson's script http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Ewmjc#Miscellaneous_Offerings In the Philippines, we are doing incremental import (first town names, then islands, then mountain peaks, etc). This way, we can edit the data in manageable chunks. There are a lot of errors in location and names, so be careful in importing everything. You will get a lot of data, but a whole lot maybe garbage depending on the area. Still a very useful resource for developing countries. On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 8:34 AM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason ava...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 10:13 PM, Ivan Garcia capisc...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, I recently discovered the site available by the US Army with millions of world geonames (towns, etc) here [1] http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/namefiles.htm The OSM wiki says that there is no legal problem using it, altought we should put the source tag [2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/SWDB#GEOnet_Names_Server Here is the XML explanations of the CVS that you can download from the link [1], [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mass_content_adding/Geographic_data/Using_NGA_data/Localization/Description_of_Names_Files_for_Countries_and_Territories_Format/English The question is ? Anybody has developed a script to convert this CVS into a KML or OSM file containing all the towns of a country? This can be very useful for countries in developing countries almost empty. They're called GNS files, if you search around the mailing lists you'll find some information about them, there's also a sparse page on the wiki: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/GNS Here's a program to convert them (somewhat) which I modified from another program I found on the wiki: http://git.nix.is/?p=avar/gns-to-osm;a=tree;h=master;hb=master git://git.nix.is/avar/gns-to-osm Here's an example of GNS (in)accuracy (originally from http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-is/2008-December/53.html): OSM data now: http://flickr.com/photos/avarab/3133771125/sizes/o/ GNS data: http://flickr.com/photos/avarab/3133777841/sizes/o/ OSM and GNS data side by side: http://flickr.com/photos/avarab/3133764871/sizes/o/ As you can see the GNS data is prone to miss mountain peaks by a few kilometers, place farms in the middle of lakes and other this was made by throwing darts at a globe stuff like that. Things are generally pretty topographically correct, and can be useful in cases where you can move the nodes according to landsat data, local knowledge or other stuff like that. On my ever-expanding TODO list where nothing gets done I have a write a viable user-powered GNS importer for OSM item, basically: * Go through the entire GNS dataset and split it up by country/type of feature (e.g. one .osm file for peak, one for farms, one for glaciers etc.) * Present a web interface where users can download e.g. peaks in Zimbabwe that haven't been uploaded * The user will then open the .osm file in his editor, move nodes around according to local knowledge/landsat and upload them * The uploaded node will have a gns:UFI (unique feature ID) key and won't appear in the next extract of peaks in Zimbabwe that haven't been uploaded This (or something like it) is IMO the only non-sucky way to import GNS data, it has been imported as-is in some places like the Faroe Islands (which has no active mappers), but I wouldn't like a mass import of raw GNS data in any are which I edit, having a bunch of nodes which are off by few dozen meters to a few kilometers isn't acceptable quality for OSM. Especially for datasets such as these which you can merge with the OSM data on your own if you really want to use them. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk -- cheers, maning -- Freedom is still the most radical idea of all -N.Branden wiki: http://esambale.wikispaces.com/ blog: http://epsg4253.wordpress.com/ -- ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
