Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 11:19 AM, David dban...@internode.on.net wrote: Waldo, you suggest that people mapping dirt roads (and others?) need to record every relevant characteristic of that road. No, no one NEEDS to record EVERY characteristic (though that would be great, obviously). All I insist is that the information that is entered is verifiable. (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability). ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
Waldo, you suggest that people mapping dirt roads (and others?) need to record every relevant characteristic of that road. If I was employing mappers to do that, i could write their KPIs and call them into my office every three months and discuss progress, it might work. It would have to be, of course, global. But frankly, Waldo, thats not going to happen. Mappers will map because they enjoy doing it. They are not going to fill in a table with twenty columns for every road and, even if they did, I suspect you would find unholy subjectiveness in most of those columns anyway ! Far better we document a number of broad categories, most people with any off road experience will quickly recognise those categories and use them. I suggest you stick to your idea way of doing things, if you can make it work I will be thrilled. I don't think either of us are going to convince the other . But in the mean time, we need a solution to a real problem. For those who believe in the category model, please look at the comments on the Australian Guidelines page. I still think an extension to tracktype= is the way to go. But happy to look at any practical alternative. Much of the arguments documented on my wiki page. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Davo David . waldo000...@gmail.com wrote: 4wd tracks ? There are simply too many factors at play here for us to measure, should we measure the height or spacing of corrugations, the 'softness' of sand, the depth of run outs, the narrowness, the slope, the wetness of the mud, the effect of weather on the track ? Well, what information did the mapper gather in order to judge its suitability? Did the mapper notice the width(/narrowness) of the track? If so, enter it. Did the mapper notice the maximum depth of run outs? If so, enter it. Did the mapper notice something else? Enter it. Alternatively, did the mapper follow a clearly laid out specification on the wiki of what suitability means, in terms of the above factors? If so, follow the objective procedure in the wiki to enter the suitability as a summary that still has a clear meaning. That is the compromise I'm suggesting. Even if we could, how could the average map user possibly comprehend the data ? If the objective information is directly entered, it is straightforward (e.g. width=*)! If it is entered in the form of some summary tag (e.g. suitability=*), it is harder. The user would need to look up what that means in the wiki. If the wiki description is vague, they have no hope of comprehending what the tag indicates. Again, I say, we need to put data in there that is likely to be usable. Agreed. Usable by applications like renderers, routers, search engines, etc. In this case, the user wants advice on should they use the track in question. The end user, yes. But the map should not DIRECTLY offer advice, because advice is a function of the map that we all must share (i.e. representing the state of the world on the ground) PLUS a user's preferences. There's no sense muddling the two up when entering tags. Compare that to the alternative, no information, a map user assumes every track shown is suitable for them to drive ! Dangerous indeed. That's a straw man argument. The alternative is entering observable facts, either directly or in the form of summary tags with objective definitions in the wiki. I'm really only repeating what has already been said here - please read it if you haven't yet: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
For a subjective tag, verifiability is more difficult and would normally be statistical e.g. Recommended or Yes could be defined as, say, 95% of the target population successfully pass through. Assuming of course such information is avaialble. If such information is available, then the subjective tag ceases to be subjective and becomes objective, in which case I have no problem with it :-) ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
4wd tracks ? There are simply too many factors at play here for us to measure, should we measure the height or spacing of corrugations, the 'softness' of sand, the depth of run outs, the narrowness, the slope, the wetness of the mud, the effect of weather on the track ? Well, what information did the mapper gather in order to judge its suitability? Did the mapper notice the width(/narrowness) of the track? If so, enter it. Did the mapper notice the maximum depth of run outs? If so, enter it. Did the mapper notice something else? Enter it. Alternatively, did the mapper follow a clearly laid out specification on the wiki of what suitability means, in terms of the above factors? If so, follow the objective procedure in the wiki to enter the suitability as a summary that still has a clear meaning. That is the compromise I'm suggesting. Even if we could, how could the average map user possibly comprehend the data ? If the objective information is directly entered, it is straightforward (e.g. width=*)! If it is entered in the form of some summary tag (e.g. suitability=*), it is harder. The user would need to look up what that means in the wiki. If the wiki description is vague, they have no hope of comprehending what the tag indicates. Again, I say, we need to put data in there that is likely to be usable. Agreed. Usable by applications like renderers, routers, search engines, etc. In this case, the user wants advice on should they use the track in question. The end user, yes. But the map should not DIRECTLY offer advice, because advice is a function of the map that we all must share (i.e. representing the state of the world on the ground) PLUS a user's preferences. There's no sense muddling the two up when entering tags. Compare that to the alternative, no information, a map user assumes every track shown is suitable for them to drive ! Dangerous indeed. That's a straw man argument. The alternative is entering observable facts, either directly or in the form of summary tags with objective definitions in the wiki. I'm really only repeating what has already been said here - please read it if you haven't yet: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
I think in parts of this discussion we are confusing grouping and categorisation of facts with subjectivity and information loss. For example, ski runs are categorised into Green/Blue/Black runs. A run may be classified as black if it exceeds a certain narrowness, or a certain roughness, or a certain gradient, or a certain length/duration. That doesn't make the classification scheme subjective. It can be a largely objective classification, based on specific facts that are verifiable, leading to a higher level classification. Information is lost in the categorisation, but this doesn't make it unverifiable. Cartography is necessarily a simplification and categorisation of what is on the ground, otherwise in the extreme case we end up with just a 3D image of the road. Good cartography is preserving the right information. At the highest level we've chosen to classify roads as primary/secondary, etc. We could perhaps have instead use number of lanes, average traffic speed, average traffic capacity, etc and left the classification to an algorithm based on those facts. The answer here seems to be that we need to have a classification scheme based on verifiable criteria. I think the classifications being proposed largely meet this. We also need to have the corresponding tags to identify (at least) those input criteria so we can capture the extra information when possible. I see this as a particular issue with 4wd tracks, where one trip through with a grader or rain can make a huge difference to road condition. Ian. ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 10:51 PM, Ken Self kens...@optusnet.com.au wrote: Just jumping in here with some ideas. If you have an objective tag it is a function of the track. But if you have a subjective tag then it is a function of the user of the road/track. A tag that is true for some and not true for others is not a good tag. e.g. 4WD_Suitability=Recommended may be true for some daring driver but not for some other cautious driver. What I'm saying has been said many times before -- please see http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability. This guideline is well-established and makes perfect sense to me. ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 6:59 PM, kristy van putten kristy.vanput...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Aussie OSM people! I would like to introduce myself, my name is Kristy Van Putten and I am currently living and working for the Australian Government in Indonesia as a the Spatial Analyst. Over the last 2 years I have been managing the implementation of OSM across Indonesia in partnership with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. We have had amazing success, with ~1,000,000 buildings mapped in 2 years and well over 500 people trained. This initiative is based on finding out where people live in order to understand the impact of disasters. We also have the national mapping agency looking into ways to use the OSM data as part of their One Map Policy. To drag us back on topic, particularly with regard to *understanding the impact of disasters *I did a bit of work last weekend to mash together various country fire authorities with open street map data. Writeup @ http://clockwerx.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/consuming-georss-and-querying.html Code @ https://github.com/CloCkWeRX/burning-down I don't have it running on a server at the moment, but I thought it was a good, simple example of how systems can leverage open data - getting a * rough* idea of 1) For a fire, what's near by? Forest, aka a bunch of fuel? Houses? Water? (Dams on property?) Can I get a route from My Location to nearest Water Source? (I didn't build this bit yet) Sure a lot of this is possible with satellite imagery or a geospatial team directly supporting firefighters given enough preparation; but why not stick this on a smartphone like device - small, dimly intelligent applications that sanity check a tired firefighter's judgement call? 2) Given an incremental feed of fires, construct a database. This sort of thing seems useful for insurance companies (has the asset my customer is talking about caught on fire? Should I get someone to check that?) and other companies that want to know about the condition of buildings. I'm sure there have to be other uses of disaster related information meeting open map data, beyond those commercial applications. My question to you: What disaster data would you find most useful? How would you use it? ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
Verifiability is another topic altogether. My point was in relation to the tags themselves. My point is that information that is subjective, and targets a subset of users, must be built into the tag and not the values. The tag must clearly identify the population that it is relevant to. Whether that be 4WD drivers or Daring 4WD drivers. But subjective information in the tag values that is relevant to a subset of the population is a bad idea because the values are not necessarily mutually exclusive, as in your example. So rather than a tag such as Suitability = Conventional Car; SUV; 4WD the tags should be along the lines of Conventional_car_suitability=Y/N; SUV_suitability=Y/N; 4WD_suitability=Y/N Both subjective and objective tags could be verifiable or unverifiable as verifiability is a functon of the tag values rather than the tag. For a subjective tag, verifiability is more difficult and would normally be statistical e.g. Recommended or Yes could be defined as, say, 95% of the target population successfully pass through. Assuming of course such information is avaialble. For objective tags, verifiability can sometimes be easy like Width and others more statistical e.g. a River could be defined in terms of its long term annual flow rate -Original Message- From: waldo000...@gmail.com [mailto:waldo000...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, 16 May 2013 8:01 AM To: kens...@optusnet.com.au Cc: David Bannon; OSM Australian Talk List Subject: Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 10:51 PM, Ken Self kens...@optusnet.com.au wrote: Just jumping in here with some ideas. If you have an objective tag it is a function of the track. But if you have a subjective tag then it is a function of the user of the road/track. A tag that is true for some and not true for others is not a good tag. e.g. 4WD_Suitability=Recommended may be true for some daring driver but not for some other cautious driver. What I'm saying has been said many times before -- please see http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability. This guideline is well-established and makes perfect sense to me. ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
Ah, waldo00, I guess I may have jumped the gun a bit, sorry ! I initially misread your message as saying subjective tags are a no-no. Can I paraphrase you ? Use objective tags if possible, then, if necessary, subjective ones determined by some sound guidelines documented on the wiki ? We are marching side by side so far However, I don't think we have suitable, sound guidelines on the wiki ! I tried to get some support for extending tracktype= ( http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Davo ) but not enough people were interested. I did not consider it a great solution but was one that would work. Then tried to get some other consensus solution, again, not enough interest. So, its just http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Australian_Tagging_Guidelines#Unsealed_and_4wd_Roads Sigh David On Tue, 2013-05-14 at 15:47 +1000, waldo000...@gmail.com wrote: David, to me your response seems to be mostly in agreement with what I said. On what point, exactly, do you disagree? Do you at least agree that a useful tag is one whose meaning is either 1) immediately obvious (e.g. like width=*) OR 2) clearly/objectively described in the wiki? On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 2:09 PM, David Bannon dban...@internode.on.net wrote: I am not sure I agree with you Waldo.. (???). Its useful in my opinion when ever storing data (of any nature) to think about how that data will be used. While we will often find other use cases later on, addressing the primary one is important. I think very few users of map data are prepared to, eg, install mapnik or grep through the downloaded data relating to a particular road they may consider using. Instead, they want to get a idea of just how passable a road might be. They are asking a very subject question and expect a subject answer. They want to know if its a sealed or not. If not, they will ask if its suitable for a conventional car, an SUV, a 4wd, a blood and guts 4wd. Armed with that info, they look at their own car and their willingness to take risks and/or have some fun. Thats all very subjective ! My point is, most of that process is, of necessity, completely subjective, not just the tagging we are talking about here. The smoothness= tag ( http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:smoothness ) tries to address this, but smoothness is quite often not the issue and the values given to smoothness= are simple horrible (pun intended). (I suggested, in the past, we should alias something like 'drivability' to 'smoothness'). Anyway, smoothness= has all those subjective problems, its there and usable. If I could get over the idea of calling my favorite tracks 'horrible', I'd use it ! So, at the risk of being called politically incorrect, I think we need to collect data that can and will be used. David On Tue, 2013-05-14 at 07:58 +1000, waldo000...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 9:37 PM, Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com wrote: Sometimes people think that it's better to slice up information into lots of little objective facts, like (in the case of mountain bike trails), width, surface, grade, etc, rather than a subjective fact like trail rating. But in practice, it's impractical to collect that much information, and it's impractical to combine it back into a usable form for data consumers, so we lose twice. The important point is that a subjective tag at least needs an objective definition. See e.g. the pretty good definitions on http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Grade. The subjective tag tracktype=grade1, according to the definition Paved track or heavily compacted hardcore could easily be replaced with the objective tags surface=paved or surface=compacted. I would argue that entering objective facts (e.g. surface=* in the previous example) is a much better option than subjective tagging. It requires no more information than you already have, and is no less practical for data consumers. It's actually more powerful, specific, clear, verifiable
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
Just jumping in here with some ideas. If you have an objective tag it is a function of the track. But if you have a subjective tag then it is a function of the user of the road/track. So a subjective tag needs to be from the perspective of the user e.g 4WD_Suitability: Yes (unconditional); No (unconditional) and any number of conditions (seasonal, weather, water level, ground clearance, winch required) 2WD_Suitability: similar to above but other sorts of conditions and so on for bicycles, horses, motorbikes, foot Also one could substitute Recommended and Not recommended for Yes and No and treat the conditions as recommendations My $0.02 Ken -Original Message- From: David Bannon [mailto:dban...@internode.on.net] Sent: Tuesday, 14 May 2013 9:42 PM To: waldo000...@gmail.com Cc: OSM Australian Talk List Subject: Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government Ah, waldo00, I guess I may have jumped the gun a bit, sorry ! I initially misread your message as saying subjective tags are a no-no. Can I paraphrase you ? Use objective tags if possible, then, if necessary, subjective ones determined by some sound guidelines documented on the wiki ? We are marching side by side so far However, I don't think we have suitable, sound guidelines on the wiki ! I tried to get some support for extending tracktype= ( http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Davo ) but not enough people were interested. I did not consider it a great solution but was one that would work. Then tried to get some other consensus solution, again, not enough interest. So, its just http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Australian_Tagging_Guidelin es#Unsealed_and_4wd_Roads Sigh David On Tue, 2013-05-14 at 15:47 +1000, waldo000...@gmail.com wrote: David, to me your response seems to be mostly in agreement with what I said. On what point, exactly, do you disagree? Do you at least agree that a useful tag is one whose meaning is either 1) immediately obvious (e.g. like width=*) OR 2) clearly/objectively described in the wiki? On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 2:09 PM, David Bannon dban...@internode.on.net wrote: I am not sure I agree with you Waldo.. (???). Its useful in my opinion when ever storing data (of any nature) to think about how that data will be used. While we will often find other use cases later on, addressing the primary one is important. I think very few users of map data are prepared to, eg, install mapnik or grep through the downloaded data relating to a particular road they may consider using. Instead, they want to get a idea of just how passable a road might be. They are asking a very subject question and expect a subject answer. They want to know if its a sealed or not. If not, they will ask if its suitable for a conventional car, an SUV, a 4wd, a blood and guts 4wd. Armed with that info, they look at their own car and their willingness to take risks and/or have some fun. Thats all very subjective ! My point is, most of that process is, of necessity, completely subjective, not just the tagging we are talking about here. The smoothness= tag ( http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:smoothness ) tries to address this, but smoothness is quite often not the issue and the values given to smoothness= are simple horrible (pun intended). (I suggested, in the past, we should alias something like 'drivability' to 'smoothness'). Anyway, smoothness= has all those subjective problems, its there and usable. If I could get over the idea of calling my favorite tracks 'horrible', I'd use it ! So, at the risk of being called politically incorrect, I think we need to collect data that can and will be used. David On Tue, 2013-05-14 at 07:58 +1000, waldo000...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 9:37 PM, Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com wrote: Sometimes people think that it's better to slice up information into lots of little objective facts, like (in the case of mountain bike trails), width, surface, grade, etc, rather than a subjective fact like trail rating. But in practice, it's impractical to collect that much
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
Hi All As a mad mapper I have been following this debate with interest. I own one of the fast graders. By that a standard family sedan setup for road performance so understand that not all gravel roads are equal. I bushwalk and the access to the walk governs the vehicle we take. I would support a classification system that enables people to identify, car gravel roads, high suspension gravel roads, 4WD gravel roads and extreme 4WD roads at least. A scale 1 to 10 has an attraction with renders choosing if they render 1-3, 4-7, and say 8-10 as different lines but understand that there are only so many line types that can be dreamed up. For me at the end of the day it is what my Garmin can show and not sure on its rendering limitations. Anyway good debate and one that has brought a question to my mind. How and who votes on what is the method to adopt? I can fully understand that a city mapper might be very interested in defining a subway rendering while for a country mapper vehicle and walking tracks are the critical items. I would hate to think that one group would win at the disadvantage of another. Also rather aware as a member of a bushwalking forum that many people just want their ideas to win rather than the best practical solution. All I want is to be able to map the best that I can given the limitations on rendering. I must admit I have struggled with OSM definitations with something a simple as mapping a large lake causing confusion with me. One Google search had me ready to use coastline until another mentioned multipolygons. Ok maybe I am slow but it took me a lot of head banging to understand mulitpolygons and in a way was forced into using JOSM rather than Polatch. I would like to see a simple sandpit of OSM where the preferred ways are used so I can repeat the methods. To understand multipolygon lakes I picked on the big USA lakes to see how they were done to get an understanding and also received great help from the OSM community. It is a pity that some of the online help is rather abstract or missing logical steps. Though having written that I understand that it is a huge volunteer effort so grateful to those that have contributed to the help project. Anyway how do we get the process rolling and more importantly an understanding if all the effort can actually be rendered on the most common mapping GPS types. Cheers Brett Russell Date: Fri, 10 May 2013 15:48:21 +1000 From: dban...@internode.on.net To: kristy.vanput...@gmail.com CC: talk-au@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government Kristy, you have spotted the problem, no clear acceptance of any one standard when it comes to 4wd tracks. And while its being done a number of different ways (or not done at all) we have little chance of getting the rendering people to listen to us. In western Europe, little interest, complete lack of understanding of the need. The US does have some great 4wd tracks but they are more recreational in nature, you go somewhere, drive a great track and then go home. They also don't understand our model of using these tracks to get to somewhere really interesting ! Asia, (far) eastern Europe, get it but don't seem to want to support the ideas. I believe (strongly) we need a multi level tag that indicates a track is somewhere between a bit dodgy right through to Oh wow. That, by its very nature means its subjective, you and I might well disagree with at what stage a typical SUV and inexperienced driver should be warned off. We cannot help that, 4wds are all different, drivers are different in their skills and willingness to take risks. The 4wd_only tag is 'official' and was a good try. But not used very much outside of Oz. And its a yes/no and life is never a yes/no situation. Further, so much OSM data ends up in a psql database, one column per tag. Believe it or not, psql does not like having column names start with numerals. It can be worked around but I suspect that's one reason mapnik (or more correctly, its slippery map) won't show 4wd_only. I prefer an extension to the tracktype= tag, its already widely used internationally and, somewhat, rendered on the slippery map. We can add three more levels to it (grade6, grade7, grade8) being possibly not suitable for conventional car, 4wd stuff and 4wd extreme. I currently use both 4wd_only= and tracktype= But I would support any new, sufficiently flexible proposal. I don't really this a physical meet up is necessary, be surprised if we could agree on a convienant location ! David . Kristy Van Putten kristy.vanput...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Matt, I think your conclusions is right, that we need to put an Australian standard together. It sounds like the ground work has been done (maybe even multiple times) but there has not been a clear acceptance of any particular schema. How do you think we should go
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 7:28 AM, Ian Sergeant inas66+...@gmail.com wrote: But your overall point is surely that as long as we have the basics, if some group of people want the extra information and are willing to gather it, and some other group of people want to use the information and are willing to render/route it, then all is good. Yeah, absolutely. As long as we have the basics, which I'm assuming means a couple of tags with a couple of well defined meanings (like 2WD, 4WD etc). Then people can go nuts adding extra information, as long as it doesn't conflict. Sometimes people think that it's better to slice up information into lots of little objective facts, like (in the case of mountain bike trails), width, surface, grade, etc, rather than a subjective fact like trail rating. But in practice, it's impractical to collect that much information, and it's impractical to combine it back into a usable form for data consumers, so we lose twice. We're here to use our data in new an innovative ways, right? Absolutely :) Steve ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 9:37 PM, Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com wrote: Sometimes people think that it's better to slice up information into lots of little objective facts, like (in the case of mountain bike trails), width, surface, grade, etc, rather than a subjective fact like trail rating. But in practice, it's impractical to collect that much information, and it's impractical to combine it back into a usable form for data consumers, so we lose twice. The important point is that a subjective tag at least needs an objective definition. See e.g. the pretty good definitions on http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Grade. The subjective tag tracktype=grade1, according to the definition Paved track or heavily compacted hardcore could easily be replaced with the objective tags surface=paved or surface=compacted. I would argue that entering objective facts (e.g. surface=* in the previous example) is a much better option than subjective tagging. It requires no more information than you already have, and is no less practical for data consumers. It's actually more powerful, specific, clear, verifiable (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability), and reduces the dependency of mappers and consumers on the wiki to make sense of the data. Point is: if you insist on using subjective tags as a short-cut, please, please at least ensure they have objective definitions in the wiki. ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
I am not sure I agree with you Waldo.. (???). Its useful in my opinion when ever storing data (of any nature) to think about how that data will be used. While we will often find other use cases later on, addressing the primary one is important. I think very few users of map data are prepared to, eg, install mapnik or grep through the downloaded data relating to a particular road they may consider using. Instead, they want to get a idea of just how passable a road might be. They are asking a very subject question and expect a subject answer. They want to know if its a sealed or not. If not, they will ask if its suitable for a conventional car, an SUV, a 4wd, a blood and guts 4wd. Armed with that info, they look at their own car and their willingness to take risks and/or have some fun. Thats all very subjective ! My point is, most of that process is, of necessity, completely subjective, not just the tagging we are talking about here. The smoothness= tag ( http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:smoothness ) tries to address this, but smoothness is quite often not the issue and the values given to smoothness= are simple horrible (pun intended). (I suggested, in the past, we should alias something like 'drivability' to 'smoothness'). Anyway, smoothness= has all those subjective problems, its there and usable. If I could get over the idea of calling my favorite tracks 'horrible', I'd use it ! So, at the risk of being called politically incorrect, I think we need to collect data that can and will be used. David On Tue, 2013-05-14 at 07:58 +1000, waldo000...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 9:37 PM, Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com wrote: Sometimes people think that it's better to slice up information into lots of little objective facts, like (in the case of mountain bike trails), width, surface, grade, etc, rather than a subjective fact like trail rating. But in practice, it's impractical to collect that much information, and it's impractical to combine it back into a usable form for data consumers, so we lose twice. The important point is that a subjective tag at least needs an objective definition. See e.g. the pretty good definitions on http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Grade. The subjective tag tracktype=grade1, according to the definition Paved track or heavily compacted hardcore could easily be replaced with the objective tags surface=paved or surface=compacted. I would argue that entering objective facts (e.g. surface=* in the previous example) is a much better option than subjective tagging. It requires no more information than you already have, and is no less practical for data consumers. It's actually more powerful, specific, clear, verifiable (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability), and reduces the dependency of mappers and consumers on the wiki to make sense of the data. Point is: if you insist on using subjective tags as a short-cut, please, please at least ensure they have objective definitions in the wiki. ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
David, to me your response seems to be mostly in agreement with what I said. On what point, exactly, do you disagree? Do you at least agree that a useful tag is one whose meaning is either 1) immediately obvious (e.g. like width=*) OR 2) clearly/objectively described in the wiki? On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 2:09 PM, David Bannon dban...@internode.on.netwrote: I am not sure I agree with you Waldo.. (???). Its useful in my opinion when ever storing data (of any nature) to think about how that data will be used. While we will often find other use cases later on, addressing the primary one is important. I think very few users of map data are prepared to, eg, install mapnik or grep through the downloaded data relating to a particular road they may consider using. Instead, they want to get a idea of just how passable a road might be. They are asking a very subject question and expect a subject answer. They want to know if its a sealed or not. If not, they will ask if its suitable for a conventional car, an SUV, a 4wd, a blood and guts 4wd. Armed with that info, they look at their own car and their willingness to take risks and/or have some fun. Thats all very subjective ! My point is, most of that process is, of necessity, completely subjective, not just the tagging we are talking about here. The smoothness= tag ( http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:smoothness ) tries to address this, but smoothness is quite often not the issue and the values given to smoothness= are simple horrible (pun intended). (I suggested, in the past, we should alias something like 'drivability' to 'smoothness'). Anyway, smoothness= has all those subjective problems, its there and usable. If I could get over the idea of calling my favorite tracks 'horrible', I'd use it ! So, at the risk of being called politically incorrect, I think we need to collect data that can and will be used. David On Tue, 2013-05-14 at 07:58 +1000, waldo000...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 9:37 PM, Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com wrote: Sometimes people think that it's better to slice up information into lots of little objective facts, like (in the case of mountain bike trails), width, surface, grade, etc, rather than a subjective fact like trail rating. But in practice, it's impractical to collect that much information, and it's impractical to combine it back into a usable form for data consumers, so we lose twice. The important point is that a subjective tag at least needs an objective definition. See e.g. the pretty good definitions on http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Grade. The subjective tag tracktype=grade1, according to the definition Paved track or heavily compacted hardcore could easily be replaced with the objective tags surface=paved or surface=compacted. I would argue that entering objective facts (e.g. surface=* in the previous example) is a much better option than subjective tagging. It requires no more information than you already have, and is no less practical for data consumers. It's actually more powerful, specific, clear, verifiable (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability), and reduces the dependency of mappers and consumers on the wiki to make sense of the data. Point is: if you insist on using subjective tags as a short-cut, please, please at least ensure they have objective definitions in the wiki. ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
Hi all, This is a really interesting discussion, and thanks for the insights about Australia vs Europe vs US. A few comments: 1) I think TileMill/MapBox will be a game changer for the rendering guys won't listen to us problem. I suspect it will soon be much, much easier to have lots of different map views out there, and we can create Australian-specific maps easily. So we should continue to work out the best tagging system and use that - even if it's not currently supported by any rendering styles. 2) If we do use tags that are essentially unique to Australia, we should consider still doubling up with standard tags where convenient. If 4wd_only means you shouldn't attempt this track without a 4 wheel drive, even if this particular section is ok, then we can still add track_type tags to the relevant sections, if known. 3) There are decades of practice in cartography to learn from. We might as well go with existing practice in current 4WD maps. The standard distinctions seem to be something like 4WD/2WD/dirt/sealed, and sometimes one more category indicating something like possibly impassable. So no need for the 10 point roughness/tracktype scale - it's too hard. 4) And yes, we should have simple tags that correspond to existing cartography practice: MVO, (subject to seasonal closure) and 4WD only. Steve On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 3:48 PM, David dban...@internode.on.net wrote: Kristy, you have spotted the problem, no clear acceptance of any one standard when it comes to 4wd tracks. And while its being done a number of different ways (or not done at all) we have little chance of getting the rendering people to listen to us. In western Europe, little interest, complete lack of understanding of the need. The US does have some great 4wd tracks but they are more recreational in nature, you go somewhere, drive a great track and then go home. They also don't understand our model of using these tracks to get to somewhere really interesting ! Asia, (far) eastern Europe, get it but don't seem to want to support the ideas. I believe (strongly) we need a multi level tag that indicates a track is somewhere between a bit dodgy right through to Oh wow. That, by its very nature means its subjective, you and I might well disagree with at what stage a typical SUV and inexperienced driver should be warned off. We cannot help that, 4wds are all different, drivers are different in their skills and willingness to take risks. The 4wd_only tag is 'official' and was a good try. But not used very much outside of Oz. And its a yes/no and life is never a yes/no situation. Further, so much OSM data ends up in a psql database, one column per tag. Believe it or not, psql does not like having column names start with numerals. It can be worked around but I suspect that's one reason mapnik (or more correctly, its slippery map) won't show 4wd_only. I prefer an extension to the tracktype= tag, its already widely used internationally and, somewhat, rendered on the slippery map. We can add three more levels to it (grade6, grade7, grade8) being possibly not suitable for conventional car, 4wd stuff and 4wd extreme. I currently use both 4wd_only= and tracktype= But I would support any new, sufficiently flexible proposal. I don't really this a physical meet up is necessary, be surprised if we could agree on a convienant location ! David . Kristy Van Putten kristy.vanput...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Matt, I think your conclusions is right, that we need to put an Australian standard together. It sounds like the ground work has been done (maybe even multiple times) but there has not been a clear acceptance of any particular schema. How do you think we should go forward with this? My suggestion is that we make a weekend of it, where we come together - where there are plenty of different types of 4WD tracks - and try and test the schema already made. I know I am still living outside of the country, so for me this maybe hard over the next couple of months. I am home in July for a couple of weeks and I am sure I could convince someone to lend me a 4WD. However it is winter, so it won't be the warmest weather! Maybe we could wait till summer? Would anyone be keen? Cheers On 06/05/2013, at 4:22 PM, Matt White mattwh...@iinet.com.au wrote: I'm also very interested in 4wd trails - it's what 80% of my mapping consists of I think (that, and house numbers in the inner north of Melbourne) The current 4wd_only tag was one of the tags I proposed a few years ago - there was a massive barney at the time over the smoothness=* and surface=* tags, and all I wanted to do was mark roads that were clearly tagged as 4wd only (proper 4wd as in low range, high clearance). The surface/smoothness debate was interesting, but got in the way of the larger problem. I've come to the conclusion that the Australian mappers pretty much have to go it alone in this area - what the
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
On 10/05/13 17:01, Steve Bennett wrote: 1) I think TileMill/MapBox will be a game changer for the rendering guys won't listen to us problem. I suspect it will soon be much, much easier to have lots of different map views out there, and we can create Australian-specific maps easily. So we should continue to work out the best tagging system and use that - even if it's not currently supported by any rendering styles. This is an excellent point. From a cartography perspective, excluding unneeded detail is essential for producing a usable map. I've long felt the official OSM rendering is far, far too detailed - it's basically grey goop at a distance and a riot up close. People really shouldn't be lobbying for more features to be added to official tilesets, instead what is needed is many more additional, more specialised tilesets, and for desktop/web/mobile apps to let people easily make use of them. //Mike -- ⊨ Michael Gratton, Percept Wrangler. ⚙ http://mjog.vee.net/ signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
From: David [mailto:dban...@internode.on.net] Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2013 10:48 PM Subject: Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government Further, so much OSM data ends up in a psql database, one column per tag. Believe it or not, psql does not like having column names start with numerals. It can be worked around but I suspect that's one reason mapnik (or more correctly, its slippery map) won't show 4wd_only. Column names beginning with numerals are fine in PostgreSQL. You have to quote them, but that's not a big issue. You have to quote the natural column too as natural is a reserved word in SQL. The technical issues preventing styling based on 4wd_only on tile.osm.org, the default osm.org layer, are threefold: 1. To add a column to the database on yevaud (the tile.osm.org rendering server) would require a database reload. The hstore feature can now be used to avoid this, but hstore is relatively new and not enabled on yevaud. It could be enabled, but again this would require a database reload. I think the last database reload was in 2011. 2. The mapnik stylesheet (osm.xml) used for tile.osm.org is horrendously hard to edit and does not have a maintainer. I guess this isn't really a technical issue, but it's tied up with the next one 3. The tile.osm.org stylesheet has been ported to carto, an easier language to write stylesheets in. Unfortunately, it is slower and deploying this new stylesheet is waiting on a hardware upgrade. This is also related to the database reload. Two non-technical issues are 1. There is no cartographer maintaining the osm.org stylesheet. Deciding what to include and what not to include takes a design skill that I know I don't have. 2. Unlike other layers, the tile.osm.org layer has a strong influence on how mappers tag. For this reason care needs to be used when adding new tags, because what's rendered is much more likely to be tagged. For what it's worth, if I was maintaining the tile.osm.org style and a patch came in adding some kind of indication of 4wd status to it, I don't know if I'd accept it. I've traveled the 4wd roads in Australia so I know how their terrain matters, and I've also studied it at work, the problem is the style already shows too much information. Thankfully, it's not up to me as I don't have cartographic design skills. Of course if no one proposes a change to the stylesheet with a patch, we'll never have that discussion and there's no chance of adding it then. ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
On 10 May 2013 17:01, Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com wrote: 3) There are decades of practice in cartography to learn from. We might as well go with existing practice in current 4WD maps. The standard distinctions seem to be something like 4WD/2WD/dirt/sealed, and sometimes one more category indicating something like possibly impassable. So no need for the 10 point roughness/tracktype scale - it's too hard. But your overall point is surely that as long as we have the basics, if some group of people want the extra information and are willing to gather it, and some other group of people want to use the information and are willing to render/route it, then all is good. We're here to use our data in new an innovative ways, right? On this topic, we seem to have some people who are keen to build apps with 4wd data, and other people who would like to add the 4wd tags to specific data. Both sides seem to be looking to the Wizard of OSM for the answer, but they appear to be wearing ruby slippers. Ian. ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
Kristy, you have spotted the problem, no clear acceptance of any one standard when it comes to 4wd tracks. And while its being done a number of different ways (or not done at all) we have little chance of getting the rendering people to listen to us. In western Europe, little interest, complete lack of understanding of the need. The US does have some great 4wd tracks but they are more recreational in nature, you go somewhere, drive a great track and then go home. They also don't understand our model of using these tracks to get to somewhere really interesting ! Asia, (far) eastern Europe, get it but don't seem to want to support the ideas. I believe (strongly) we need a multi level tag that indicates a track is somewhere between a bit dodgy right through to Oh wow. That, by its very nature means its subjective, you and I might well disagree with at what stage a typical SUV and inexperienced driver should be warned off. We cannot help that, 4wds are all different, drivers are different in their skills and willingness to take risks. The 4wd_only tag is 'official' and was a good try. But not used very much outside of Oz. And its a yes/no and life is never a yes/no situation. Further, so much OSM data ends up in a psql database, one column per tag. Believe it or not, psql does not like having column names start with numerals. It can be worked around but I suspect that's one reason mapnik (or more correctly, its slippery map) won't show 4wd_only. I prefer an extension to the tracktype= tag, its already widely used internationally and, somewhat, rendered on the slippery map. We can add three more levels to it (grade6, grade7, grade8) being possibly not suitable for conventional car, 4wd stuff and 4wd extreme. I currently use both 4wd_only= and tracktype= But I would support any new, sufficiently flexible proposal. I don't really this a physical meet up is necessary, be surprised if we could agree on a convienant location ! David . Kristy Van Putten kristy.vanput...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Matt, I think your conclusions is right, that we need to put an Australian standard together. It sounds like the ground work has been done (maybe even multiple times) but there has not been a clear acceptance of any particular schema. How do you think we should go forward with this? My suggestion is that we make a weekend of it, where we come together - where there are plenty of different types of 4WD tracks - and try and test the schema already made. I know I am still living outside of the country, so for me this maybe hard over the next couple of months. I am home in July for a couple of weeks and I am sure I could convince someone to lend me a 4WD. However it is winter, so it won't be the warmest weather! Maybe we could wait till summer? Would anyone be keen? Cheers On 06/05/2013, at 4:22 PM, Matt White mattwh...@iinet.com.au wrote: I'm also very interested in 4wd trails - it's what 80% of my mapping consists of I think (that, and house numbers in the inner north of Melbourne) The current 4wd_only tag was one of the tags I proposed a few years ago - there was a massive barney at the time over the smoothness=* and surface=* tags, and all I wanted to do was mark roads that were clearly tagged as 4wd only (proper 4wd as in low range, high clearance). The surface/smoothness debate was interesting, but got in the way of the larger problem. I've come to the conclusion that the Australian mappers pretty much have to go it alone in this area - what the Americans and Europeans call a 4wd track would be a national highway for us (and we actually have a few legitimate highways and primary roads that are 4wd/seasonal closure type roads. I'm not a massive fan of the tracktype=* tag - it's a random number that is too subjective. There was an attempt in Victoria a while ago to class various tracks around the place as 4wd - the DSE/Parks Vic had a program where various 4wd club members were trained in what constituted an green, blue, black and double black road (very ski-trail), and got people out mapping that, but it all went to pot when it turned out that the DSE/Parks Vic guys were taking those results from the 4wd guys, and then either closing the roads to management vehicles only, or grading them so they were rated green. Pretty soon after that, the 4wd clubs got suitably annoyed, and stopped supporting the initiative. To the best of my knowledge, we still don't have a decent subject to seasonal closure tagging schema either - believe that Liz was at one time proposing something, but I think she's given up on OSM post license change. I'd be more than happy to help put together an AU only/AU based 4wd mapping set of rules and tags that we can use - if we can agree on something, I can also mod the hi-res/4wd maps I crank out for the Garmin devices to suit, and possibly even learn the Mapnik rendering stuff to implement the
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
Hi David, Thanks for sending me to the website it was an interesting read. I like the 8 divisions, and think it should be explored and socialised more. One way of fixing the rendering problem is to render it specially for 4WD and or Cycle. http://www.opencyclemap.org/. We could agree on a style using all the grades and produce a rendered map. One option I have been toying with is trying to get some space in an Australian 4WD magazine to start advertising the use of OSM. However it would be best if we had the guidelines ready to go, and some great applications that they can jump to, to begin using straight away. As well as a HowTo guide to put their own favourite tracks in. I would really like to discuss this further, are you thinking of attending the SoTM this year in UK? It would be a good lightening talk to find out if there are these same concerns across the world. Cheers On 01/05/2013, at 7:28 AM, David Bannon dban...@internode.on.net wrote: On Tue, 2013-04-30 at 16:29 +0700, kristy van putten wrote: .. has anyone thought of 4WD trails in OSM? I would also be keen to find out if there are any Ozzy teaching OSM to schools or scout groups etc? Kristy, I have a particular interest in 4wd trails and OSM. I am particularly concerned how 4wd roads are recorded and typically displayed. The difficulty is that we all seem to use a range of standards and generally, the rendering people ignore them all. Perhaps not unreasonably. Just before christmas, I lead a bit of a campaing to get some clear standards in place for defining 4wd tracks, the idea being, consistent with OSM guidelines, that highway= be used to signify the purpose of the road and tags such as tracktype= be used to describe the likely state its in. Tracktype= already has grade1 to grade5 but 4wd tracks, needed, IMHO 6,7 and 8. Sadly, while everyone agreed something needed to be done, I did not see enough support for that idea to get past the OSM voting model. It therefore just a recommendation on http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Australian_Roads_Tagging 4wd_only is another option, it is at least official. However, it has only one 'level' and apparently the rendering community don't like tags that begin with a numeral, makes postqress column names messy. Trouble is that much of europe and the US don't really understand 4wd tracks/roads, unless there is a widely used stand way of describing them, the renderers will ignore it, mapers won't see any results and won't bother. The poor old motorist will find themselves in serious trouble every now and again ! David Looking forward to talking to you all Cheers -- Kristy Van Putten Spatial Analyst, Data Manager Australia-Indonesia Facility Disaster Reduction Mb: +62 811 987 573 ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
Hi Steve, Thanks for your insight, I knew Australia was one of the hardest hit when the licensed changed over, but glad to see that there are people out there willing to continue mapping! Licensing is a big issue, and will be definitely one of the top things I will need to consider when I get back to Aus! Cheers On 05/05/2013, at 7:05 PM, Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 7:29 PM, kristy van putten kristy.vanput...@gmail.com wrote: On a personal note I would be interested in hearing more about the OSM Australia activities, and people current goals with OSM. I have read about the Bicentennial National Trail team, has anyone thought of 4WD trails in OSM? I would also be keen to find out if there are any Ozzy teaching OSM to schools or scout groups etc? Hi Kristy, For my part, I've done a lot of mapping in and around Melbourne, but am now shifting attention to rural areas, particularly since Bing imagery has improved a lot. I do a lot of cycle touring, and a bit of hiking, and have quite an interest in having good data in OSM to support those activities. There's also a big crossover between the needs of 4WD-ers and the kind of cycle touring I like to do, so I'm interested in the issues David Bannon raised. Right at the moment, though, I'm remapping some areas along the Goulburn (southwest of Shepparton) that got lost in the licence change. My take on where the Australian OSM community is at is that we're still a bit scarred from the hugely disruptive licence changeover, and the leaving of some of the rather abrasive individuals in the process. I'd love to see more discussion about goals for the community, individual projects etc. Steve ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
I'm also very interested in 4wd trails - it's what 80% of my mapping consists of I think (that, and house numbers in the inner north of Melbourne) The current 4wd_only tag was one of the tags I proposed a few years ago - there was a massive barney at the time over the smoothness=* and surface=* tags, and all I wanted to do was mark roads that were clearly tagged as 4wd only (proper 4wd as in low range, high clearance). The surface/smoothness debate was interesting, but got in the way of the larger problem. I've come to the conclusion that the Australian mappers pretty much have to go it alone in this area - what the Americans and Europeans call a 4wd track would be a national highway for us (and we actually have a few legitimate highways and primary roads that are 4wd/seasonal closure type roads. I'm not a massive fan of the tracktype=* tag - it's a random number that is too subjective. There was an attempt in Victoria a while ago to class various tracks around the place as 4wd - the DSE/Parks Vic had a program where various 4wd club members were trained in what constituted an green, blue, black and double black road (very ski-trail), and got people out mapping that, but it all went to pot when it turned out that the DSE/Parks Vic guys were taking those results from the 4wd guys, and then either closing the roads to management vehicles only, or grading them so they were rated green. Pretty soon after that, the 4wd clubs got suitably annoyed, and stopped supporting the initiative. To the best of my knowledge, we still don't have a decent subject to seasonal closure tagging schema either - believe that Liz was at one time proposing something, but I think she's given up on OSM post license change. I'd be more than happy to help put together an AU only/AU based 4wd mapping set of rules and tags that we can use - if we can agree on something, I can also mod the hi-res/4wd maps I crank out for the Garmin devices to suit, and possibly even learn the Mapnik rendering stuff to implement the rendering side in Mapnik (seeing as DIY often appears as the only way the renderer gets changed). I wrote up some surface tagging concepts ages ago I thought might fly for handling the surface issue for 4wd tracks, as well as some general rules for tagging roads (eg: when off the beaten track, it's critical to mark the entire stretch of road as 4wd only or similar if there are no turns you can make to get off the road - often once you are on a 4wd road, you tend to be committed to going forwards...) Matt On 1/05/2013 10:28 AM, David Bannon wrote: On Tue, 2013-04-30 at 16:29 +0700, kristy van putten wrote: .. has anyone thought of 4WD trails in OSM? I would also be keen to find out if there are any Ozzy teaching OSM to schools or scout groups etc? Kristy, I have a particular interest in 4wd trails and OSM. I am particularly concerned how 4wd roads are recorded and typically displayed. The difficulty is that we all seem to use a range of standards and generally, the rendering people ignore them all. Perhaps not unreasonably. Just before christmas, I lead a bit of a campaing to get some clear standards in place for defining 4wd tracks, the idea being, consistent with OSM guidelines, that highway= be used to signify the purpose of the road and tags such as tracktype= be used to describe the likely state its in. Tracktype= already has grade1 to grade5 but 4wd tracks, needed, IMHO 6,7 and 8. Sadly, while everyone agreed something needed to be done, I did not see enough support for that idea to get past the OSM voting model. It therefore just a recommendation on http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Australian_Roads_Tagging 4wd_only is another option, it is at least official. However, it has only one 'level' and apparently the rendering community don't like tags that begin with a numeral, makes postqress column names messy. Trouble is that much of europe and the US don't really understand 4wd tracks/roads, unless there is a widely used stand way of describing them, the renderers will ignore it, mapers won't see any results and won't bother. The poor old motorist will find themselves in serious trouble every now and again ! David Looking forward to talking to you all Cheers -- Kristy Van Putten Spatial Analyst, Data Manager Australia-Indonesia Facility Disaster Reduction Mb: +62 811 987 573 ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
Hi Matt, I think your conclusions is right, that we need to put an Australian standard together. It sounds like the ground work has been done (maybe even multiple times) but there has not been a clear acceptance of any particular schema. How do you think we should go forward with this? My suggestion is that we make a weekend of it, where we come together - where there are plenty of different types of 4WD tracks - and try and test the schema already made. I know I am still living outside of the country, so for me this maybe hard over the next couple of months. I am home in July for a couple of weeks and I am sure I could convince someone to lend me a 4WD. However it is winter, so it won't be the warmest weather! Maybe we could wait till summer? Would anyone be keen? Cheers On 06/05/2013, at 4:22 PM, Matt White mattwh...@iinet.com.au wrote: I'm also very interested in 4wd trails - it's what 80% of my mapping consists of I think (that, and house numbers in the inner north of Melbourne) The current 4wd_only tag was one of the tags I proposed a few years ago - there was a massive barney at the time over the smoothness=* and surface=* tags, and all I wanted to do was mark roads that were clearly tagged as 4wd only (proper 4wd as in low range, high clearance). The surface/smoothness debate was interesting, but got in the way of the larger problem. I've come to the conclusion that the Australian mappers pretty much have to go it alone in this area - what the Americans and Europeans call a 4wd track would be a national highway for us (and we actually have a few legitimate highways and primary roads that are 4wd/seasonal closure type roads. I'm not a massive fan of the tracktype=* tag - it's a random number that is too subjective. There was an attempt in Victoria a while ago to class various tracks around the place as 4wd - the DSE/Parks Vic had a program where various 4wd club members were trained in what constituted an green, blue, black and double black road (very ski-trail), and got people out mapping that, but it all went to pot when it turned out that the DSE/Parks Vic guys were taking those results from the 4wd guys, and then either closing the roads to management vehicles only, or grading them so they were rated green. Pretty soon after that, the 4wd clubs got suitably annoyed, and stopped supporting the initiative. To the best of my knowledge, we still don't have a decent subject to seasonal closure tagging schema either - believe that Liz was at one time proposing something, but I think she's given up on OSM post license change. I'd be more than happy to help put together an AU only/AU based 4wd mapping set of rules and tags that we can use - if we can agree on something, I can also mod the hi-res/4wd maps I crank out for the Garmin devices to suit, and possibly even learn the Mapnik rendering stuff to implement the rendering side in Mapnik (seeing as DIY often appears as the only way the renderer gets changed). I wrote up some surface tagging concepts ages ago I thought might fly for handling the surface issue for 4wd tracks, as well as some general rules for tagging roads (eg: when off the beaten track, it's critical to mark the entire stretch of road as 4wd only or similar if there are no turns you can make to get off the road - often once you are on a 4wd road, you tend to be committed to going forwards...) Matt On 1/05/2013 10:28 AM, David Bannon wrote: On Tue, 2013-04-30 at 16:29 +0700, kristy van putten wrote: .. has anyone thought of 4WD trails in OSM? I would also be keen to find out if there are any Ozzy teaching OSM to schools or scout groups etc? Kristy, I have a particular interest in 4wd trails and OSM. I am particularly concerned how 4wd roads are recorded and typically displayed. The difficulty is that we all seem to use a range of standards and generally, the rendering people ignore them all. Perhaps not unreasonably. Just before christmas, I lead a bit of a campaing to get some clear standards in place for defining 4wd tracks, the idea being, consistent with OSM guidelines, that highway= be used to signify the purpose of the road and tags such as tracktype= be used to describe the likely state its in. Tracktype= already has grade1 to grade5 but 4wd tracks, needed, IMHO 6,7 and 8. Sadly, while everyone agreed something needed to be done, I did not see enough support for that idea to get past the OSM voting model. It therefore just a recommendation on http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Australian_Roads_Tagging 4wd_only is another option, it is at least official. However, it has only one 'level' and apparently the rendering community don't like tags that begin with a numeral, makes postqress column names messy. Trouble is that much of europe and the US don't really understand 4wd tracks/roads, unless there is a widely used stand way of describing them,
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 7:29 PM, kristy van putten kristy.vanput...@gmail.com wrote: On a personal note I would be interested in hearing more about the OSM Australia activities, and people current goals with OSM. I have read about the Bicentennial National Trail team, has anyone thought of 4WD trails in OSM? I would also be keen to find out if there are any Ozzy teaching OSM to schools or scout groups etc? Hi Kristy, For my part, I've done a lot of mapping in and around Melbourne, but am now shifting attention to rural areas, particularly since Bing imagery has improved a lot. I do a lot of cycle touring, and a bit of hiking, and have quite an interest in having good data in OSM to support those activities. There's also a big crossover between the needs of 4WD-ers and the kind of cycle touring I like to do, so I'm interested in the issues David Bannon raised. Right at the moment, though, I'm remapping some areas along the Goulburn (southwest of Shepparton) that got lost in the licence change. My take on where the Australian OSM community is at is that we're still a bit scarred from the hugely disruptive licence changeover, and the leaving of some of the rather abrasive individuals in the process. I'd love to see more discussion about goals for the community, individual projects etc. Steve ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
[talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
Hi Aussie OSM people! I would like to introduce myself, my name is Kristy Van Putten and I am currently living and working for the Australian Government in Indonesia as a the Spatial Analyst. Over the last 2 years I have been managing the implementation of OSM across Indonesia in partnership with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. We have had amazing success, with ~1,000,000 buildings mapped in 2 years and well over 500 people trained. This initiative is based on finding out where people live in order to understand the impact of disasters. We also have the national mapping agency looking into ways to use the OSM data as part of their One Map Policy. I will be heading back to Geoscience Australia at the end of the year and there is some interest in trying to implement similar things in Australia. I have been asked to start thinking about putting a concept together, before I start formulating this concept I would be keen to draw on the Australian OSM community knowledge, and see what has already been tried, or thought of and how we can use this to shape a general concept for discussion. On a personal note I would be interested in hearing more about the OSM Australia activities, and people current goals with OSM. I have read about the Bicentennial National Trail team, has anyone thought of 4WD trails in OSM? I would also be keen to find out if there are any Ozzy teaching OSM to schools or scout groups etc? Looking forward to talking to you all Cheers -- *Kristy Van Putten* Spatial Analyst, Data Manager Australia-Indonesia Facility Disaster Reduction** Mb: +62 811 987 573 ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Re: [talk-au] OpenStreetMap in Government
Hi, I work in the property valuation industry, and have a strong interest in mapping buildings, leisure areas like swimming pols or tennis courts and more... How did you sell the idea of mapping buildings in your recent project? I have done what I can, but it is a hard slog to map my own city (adelaide), let alone most metro areas - australians dont seem as interested. I am looking at mashing up osm data with psma data sets to answer real world questions, but it seems like I am out on my own here. Are there others in gov using the geo commons? On Apr 30, 2013 6:59 PM, kristy van putten kristy.vanput...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Aussie OSM people! I would like to introduce myself, my name is Kristy Van Putten and I am currently living and working for the Australian Government in Indonesia as a the Spatial Analyst. Over the last 2 years I have been managing the implementation of OSM across Indonesia in partnership with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. We have had amazing success, with ~1,000,000 buildings mapped in 2 years and well over 500 people trained. This initiative is based on finding out where people live in order to understand the impact of disasters. We also have the national mapping agency looking into ways to use the OSM data as part of their One Map Policy. I will be heading back to Geoscience Australia at the end of the year and there is some interest in trying to implement similar things in Australia. I have been asked to start thinking about putting a concept together, before I start formulating this concept I would be keen to draw on the Australian OSM community knowledge, and see what has already been tried, or thought of and how we can use this to shape a general concept for discussion. On a personal note I would be interested in hearing more about the OSM Australia activities, and people current goals with OSM. I have read about the Bicentennial National Trail team, has anyone thought of 4WD trails in OSM? I would also be keen to find out if there are any Ozzy teaching OSM to schools or scout groups etc? Looking forward to talking to you all Cheers -- *Kristy Van Putten* Spatial Analyst, Data Manager Australia-Indonesia Facility Disaster Reduction** Mb: +62 811 987 573 ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au ___ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
