from:"openstreetmap"

I've just noticed (changeset 18037116) someone using this Land
Registry data search tool to actually populate, rather than simply
flag for re-survey postcode data.  Given that the Land Registry
require a copyright notice, and, unlike OS Open Data, there is no such
copyright notice on OSM, is this usage actually legal?

I also note that the source is only given as a changeset comment, not
a source tag.

-- Reply Message --
Nick Allen nick.allen.54 at gmail.com
Thu Sep 13 10:29:23 BST 2012

Matt,

Thanks for your work on this.

I've had a little play  it looks ideal for my purpose  you should
see an improvement in the BR8 area as a direct result.

If your not doing it already, could you put somewhere on the front
page when the data was updated. My initial plan is to have one session
a month correcting  adding postcodes, but you may get other views.

Regards

Nick (Tallguy)
Sent from my HTC

- Reply message -
From: Matt Williams lists at milliams.com
To: Talk-GB at openstreetmap.org talk-gb at openstreetmap.org
Subject: [Talk-GB] Land Registry postcode tool now running
Date: Thu, Sep 13, 2012 01:00


Hi all,

During the discussion about the Land Registry 'Price Paid' database
discussions I promised that I'm put together a tool to make it more
useful. As such I've now got working (to a state I'm happy with) a
sub-website on my Postcode Finder to provide an interface to that
data.

Currently running at
http://milliams.dev.openstreetmap.org/postcodefinder/landregistry/
(there's no public link to it yet so you'll have to bookmark it) it
does the following:

Given a postcode (or postcode fragment) it finds all the houses in the
Land Registry database and tries to match each of them up to an
address in my Postcode Finder database.
If it finds a match it classifies it into one of three classes:
 - The postcode matches between OSM and the Land Registry
 - The postcode doesn't match
 - There's no postcode

If you perform a search (like
http://milliams.dev.openstreetmap.org/postcodefinder/landregistry/search/?postcode=CV4+8)
you see that I've sorted the classes by 'importance' order so wrong
postcodes are first, followed by missing postcodes. Then the ones that
couldn't be matched to any address and finally the perfect matches.

Give it a try yourself. It should be able to handle anything from
CV4 level (will take around 10 seconds to load (probably more for
big cities like Birmingham and London) down to CV4 8DU. It will
almost certainly struggle if you try to put in B or something big
like that. If you want to search for all the B1 postcodes but
exclude B10, B11 etc (since that would be a very slow query) then
just put a space after it in the search box (B1 ) or a plus in the
URL (?postcode=B1+). It's probably best to only give it as specific
a postcode as is possible (XXN N is quite quick) to keep the load
low on the dev server.

There's still some things I want to do with it but it's now in a
workable state. The data from the OSM database is a few days old now.
I'll wait for Geofabrik's ODbL extracts to be released before I update
again.

It should also be possible for me to extend the service to include and
data source which contains house number; street name; postcode so
I'll look into that in the future.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] Land Registry postcode tool now running

On 28 September 2013 20:45, Rob Nickerson rob.j.nicker...@gmail.com wrote:
 == Quote ==
I've just noticed (changeset 18037116) someone using this Land
Registry data search tool to actually populate, rather than simply
flag for re-survey postcode data.  Given that the Land Registry
require a copyright notice, and, unlike OS Open Data, there is no such
copyright notice on OSM, is this usage actually legal?
 == End Quote ==

 Hi,

 Short answer= Yes, its fine, no problems.

 Long Answer=
 I was expecting that changeset to be mine, but pleased to see that other
 people are now using Matt's postcode tool.

 To answer your question:- The data is available under the standard Open
 Government Licence (just like the ONS Postcode Centroids that I am also
 using if it is right above a house), and can therefore be used with

The view has been expressed, recently, on this list that the ONS
postcode centroids are still encumbered by the Post Office copyrights.

 attribution. The attribution is on the Contributors page [1] and has been
 since 31 August 2012. Only a very select few sources are also attributed on
 the Copyright page [2] and the page makes it clear that you should see the
 Contributors page for the other sources.

I must admit that I missed that, but I'm not convinced that LR will be
happy with such a contorted trail.  I think they would like a
prominent notice in any place where the data is used.  In particular,
I can see people creating navigation tools and third party databases
without making their uses adequately aware of the sources.  Reading
the LR FAQ, it is not just about the attribution, but about ensuring
that people only make acceptable use of the data, as it is fairly
clear that some people have objected to the price component of the
data being published.

This sort of information isn't being contributed by people actively
agreeing to its use by OSM, so you can't really cover it by the and
its contributors clause.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] Land Registry postcode tool now running

On 28 September 2013 23:50, Nick Allen nick.allen...@gmail.com wrote:


 Anyway, if you're looking for a project in OSM, adding addresses is easily
 accomplished. Personally I currently use Keypad-Mapper 3  OSMTracker to do
 my surveying, and the exercise does me the world of good.

 If anyone fancies joining in, I've outlined how I carry out the process at
 http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Tallguy

That's how I started back on OSM.  However, I am coming to have
reservations about the use of GPS for that purpose. I found that I had
to re-align everything to Bing for it to be useful, and, as I was
mapping front door nodes, rather than buildings, I had to make a
second pass to note the layout of the houses and to check for semis
versus detached (the latter because of the GPS wander).

Although it hasn't come back to the top of my list, I'm considering
whether to dispense with the technology for the next tranche and just
make notes to allow me to match up with Bing.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] Land Registry postcode tool now running

On 28 September 2013 20:52, Rob Nickerson rob.j.nicker...@gmail.com wrote:
 Oh I should add that I am a fan of source tags on the objects myself so I
 add a source:postcode=Land Registry 'Price Paid' data tag (or =ONS
 Postcode Centroids) to my edits. Not everyone agrees that source tags should
 be added to the objects, preferring instead to add them to the changeset
 comment.

I use a mixture of both, depending on the context.

Both are flawed, though.

Adding to objects doesn't work well when different tags have different
sources, and the geometry may have a different one too.  It is also
very vulnerable to people replacing the whole source with theirs.

Adding it to changeset comments means it doesn't survive splits and
merges.  The database has no knowledge that these actually happened
and doesn't record the audit trail necessary to find the true
provenance of a node, way or relation.  (For this reason, any
mechanical redaction is likely to be quite flawed.)

This lack of good traceability does worry me, as I see one of the
biggest threats to a cloud sourced project like this is people getting
over enthusiastic and importing copyright data, possibly in such small
individual amounts that no alarms sound, but when aggregated, enough
to get a copyright owner angry.  My feeling is that the upcoming
generation of contributors isn't so steeped in the concept of a map
that is untainted by material with restrictive copyrights, so will use
the easiest way of getting the data they want added.

The most important reason for sources may be to limit what has to be
taken down when a take down notice is received.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] User with long list of slow vandalism

2013-09-23 Per discussione OpenStreetmap HADW

On 23 September 2013 11:39, Tom Chance t...@acrewoods.net wrote:


 I'm trying to get this user account suspended/banned:
 http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Quercus1/edits

Whilst, if they fail to respond to a direct approach, such steps may
be needed...


 I have tried contacting him/her to no avail. All these edits are bogus and
 many involve the deletion of features.

The edits seem to be seriously incompetent, rather than actually
bogus, or malicious.  They seem to be an attempt to micro-map against
Bing without understanding what they are doing.  Looking at changeset
17769888, what they are doing is trying to plot individual plots,
buildings and the actual carriageway and  pavement boundaries, but
without providing any tags and without closing areas.

At a guess, they are doing a presentational markup in JOSM, possibly
in wire frame mode, and don't realise you need to double trace shared
edges, and that you must map carriageways and sidewalks as areas, if
you are going to micro-map them to this level.  (I'd also argue that
the level of micro-mapping of the pavement and carriageway is
excessive and will only clutter the map, even if done properly.)

It's not clear why they wouldn't set attributes, unless they intend to
come back later.

The building and plot additions are repairable.  I would, personally,
want the road/pavement changes backed out.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] User with long list of slow vandalism

2013-09-23 Per discussione OpenStreetmap HADW

On 23/09/13 14:08, Tom Chance wrote: On 23 September 2013 12:27,
OpenStreetmap HADW osmh...@gmail.com
 mailto:osmh...@gmail.com wrote:

 The edits seem to be seriously incompetent, rather than actually
 bogus, or malicious.


 I'm not sure, they are strange edits. On the one hand there are some
 outlines of actual features, on the other hand there are

 * random nodes and ways not corresponding to anything in the aerial imagery
 * changesets with the same comment that doesn't correspond with the
 thing they have traced, like This is a House

Unfortunately, like subjects on many PC support forums, the average
 contributor doesn't seem to be able to make useful changeset comments.
Whilst they are not useful comments, I'm not sure they are any worse
than maybe the majority.

 * lots of features deleted, in a way that doesn't look like an accident

I only looked in detail at one.  The road appeared to be deleted in order
 to make way for the detailed but incomplete tracing of both edges of
the sidewalks.  Most of the ways that weren't buildings, or kerb edges,
could be interpreted either as fences, or an attempt to complete the
plot boundary, in a presentational way.  The one, way that couldn't
really match to anything visible in Bing was probably the edge of
a private drive.

I did wonder, given the way that one feature was clipped, and the
fact that they are in multiple locations, whether these were custom
maps, being made for people, but what would they use to render
them?  I did think about estate agents, but some claim to be NHS
sites. and I'm not sure why an estate agent would be interested in
detailed mapping of them.

Whilst I can easily see people clicking through JOSM validation
warnings, I always check the standard Mapnik rendering, so I don't
understand why they would have added so much detailed geometry,
but not noticed that it wasn't rendering.

Unfortunately, there is so much valid, detailed, geometry, that simply
reverting is probably not the right approach, so if they can't be made
to see the light, someone is going to have their time cut out tagging
the good bits and undoing the bad ones.

The example I looked at had been traced off Bing, but possibly with
a local survey. for details like drives.  The alignment error to Bing
was unmeasurable.

At least they haven't put in any probable copyright violations.


 Plus the user hasn't responded to messages.


I think they should be blocked, but I don't think there is sufficient
evidence of mens reus.

Incidentally, is there any easy way of rendering a before image of
a change?  The simple, online tools, just report deleted for
deletions and show the after image for changes.  That's not all
that useful when checking a questionable edit.

On 23 September 2013 14:08, Tom Chance t...@acrewoods.net wrote:
 On 23 September 2013 12:27, OpenStreetmap HADW osmh...@gmail.com wrote:

 The edits seem to be seriously incompetent, rather than actually
 bogus, or malicious.


 I'm not sure, they are strange edits. On the one hand there are some
 outlines of actual features, on the other hand there are

 * random nodes and ways not corresponding to anything in the aerial imagery
 * changesets with the same comment that doesn't correspond with the thing
 they have traced, like This is a House
 * lots of features deleted, in a way that doesn't look like an accident

 Plus the user hasn't responded to messages.

 Regards,
 Tom


 --
 http://tom.acrewoods.net   http://twitter.com/tom_chance

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] User with long list of slow vandalism

2013-09-23 Per discussione OpenStreetmap HADW

On 23 September 2013 18:47, Peter Oliver p.d.oli...@mavit.org.uk wrote:


 Didn't someone mention that this user was using JOSM?  JOSM pre-populates
 the comment field with the previously submitted comment.


The other thing it does is to add to an existing changeset, and the
changeset is left with the last comment used (this has occasionally
caught me out (I do like the open changeset concept, as I can add
afterthoughts and review the rendering).  If they were committing
every small change, you might only be left with the last comment.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] Using store locator as source

On 16 September 2013 16:14, Andy Allan gravityst...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 16 September 2013 14:18, Adam Hoyle adam.li...@dotankstudios.com wrote:

 If there is no license on their website regarding the information, then 
 shouldn't it be considered public domain?

 Err, no. That's not how the law works - either on copyright or on
 database rights.


As well as full copyright restrictions being the default position, it
is not possible to get copyright material into the pubic domain early
in the UK, or Europe in general.  (Even in the US, there is some doubt
as to whether anyone but the government to do so, and even whether
government produced material is public domain outside the USA.)

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] Using store locator as source

On 16 September 2013 19:18, David Earl da...@frankieandshadow.com wrote:
 On 16/09/2013 17:35, Adam Hoyle wrote:

 On 16 Sep 2013, at 16:14, Andy Allan gravityst...@gmail.com wrote:


 Almost all retail sites will claim blanket copyright in every page of their
 websites. Just to take one at random, I went to http://www.boots.com/ . See
 the bottom of the page, and you'll see the copyright statement.

It would be difficult to find any commercial or large business that
doesn't.  In this case, Asda do.


 Furthermore, any maps or use of postcode location they use may also be
 copyright to someone else, like Royal Mail.

Asda certainly look as though they must have used postcode centres, as
their marker is at the back of the site and so far off the actual
store that Bing's icon for store is outside the frame!  However, basic
postcode centre locations are part of the OS OpenData releases.  What
is still kept under lock and key by the Post Office is the allocation
of street addresses to postcodes and the, detailed, Walksort(TM) level
codes used in the bar codes on mail from institutions.

Providing an interface to add a business by postcode might actually be
a useful way of getting a first cut set of data without risking an
inexperienced marketing person using copyright mapping data.


 copyright to do that, as long as they understand the implications, that the
 specific information referred would be released under the ODbL. I'd have
 thought most stores would be only too glad for their locations to be
 published, but because of the blanket copyright claimed, they'd each need to
 be asked.

The best approach would be to encourage them to submit the information
directly to OSM, so that they go through the standard OSM licence
grant process.  The problem may be in getting a share out o what may
be a very small marketing budget for maintaining the store locator.
Of course, the benefit to them may be that they get detailed mapping
of the correct geometry of their site out of OSM, at the slight risk
of occasional vandalism and good intentions gone wrong.  OSM gets the
risk that they may not really understand the licence, although I fear
that the latest generation of mappers may have the same problem.


 The caveat is that they may not be in a position to give you permission if
 the data is itself tied up in copyright to someone else - for example if it
 is derived using the Royal Mail postcode to location database. Depending who

As noted above, getting postcodes rather than full geo-refs would
reduce the risk of third party copyright breaches.  In the Asda case,
the OSM mapping doesn't seem to have used the store locator mapping.


 The kind of stores we're talking about are in sizeable places, and the
 numbers aren't huge, so doing it on foot is surely perfectly do-able and

Unfortunately, OSM is becoming an armchair exercise.  I don't know if
the existing car park, at Asda, was armchair mapping, but in some
areas, any place where two or more cars gather together gets mapped as
a car park, without any access restrictions.

 quicker and easier than approaching every chain for a complicated permission
 which they may themselves get wrong. Doing it on the ground means you get
 them all, systematically, in one place too irrespective of size or whether
 they have an online branch finder.

You also get the right information, not what the marketing department
thought they knew.  I recently mapped a PFI for NHA health centre
which had both a sketch map and one of the standard online maps
identifying a building on the wrong side of the service road as the
centre (it is hosted within a sport centre).

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] Using store locator as source

On 17 September 2013 09:01, Robert Whittaker (OSM lists)
robert.whittaker+...@gmail.com wrote:
s.

 Unfortunately, CodePoint Open is the one dataset in the OS OpenData
 collection that hasn't been cleared for use in OSM. See
 https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2013-July/015028.html


Fortunately I haven't used it, although I thought I'd seem some
postcode centroids actually on the map.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] Using store locator as source

On 17 September 2013 09:15, SK53 sk53@gmail.com wrote:
 Just a general point about shops. There is a perfectly good OPEN data source
 containing address ( postcode centroid as lat/lon) available for all food
 outlets covering most UK local authorities.

Aren't the postcode centroids subject to the Post Office rights?

 This is the Food Standards Agency's Food Hygiene Rating Scheme. I don't in
 general use it for armchair mapping (the exceptions being places I used to
 know well, where I have used FHRS to verify that a pub/restaurant/cafe is
 still in business), but it is very powerful for a) finding places to survey;
 and b) adding address data.

 It is certainly likely to cover major chains such as : Tesco, Morrison,
 Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Asda, Boots, Superdrug, W.H. Smith.

Interestingly the local Sainsbury's and Asda hypermarkets are missing
(as seem to be Tesco and Morrisons)!  (On the other hand church halls
and small businesses which are not basically food related did come
up.)  Many of the local/express variants of the big ones do turn
up (I wonder if these are actually franchises).

 Like most data sources it's not perfect: I've encountered a few omissions
 (including the banqueting hall mentioned in an earlier thread) as well as
 out-of-date information.

There seems to be quite a high omission and error rate in my borough.
From the confusion an initial report  produced, I'm not sure the
council is actually set up to cope with intelligence about food
businesses not produced by the businesses themselves, except, possibly
if there is a complaint.

On the other hand, in the case of the store locator mapper, they
missed an existing node that had an FHRS address that is more
plausible than the one they hads (might be an Id problem - they had
15, the original one had 1-5;  maybe Id wants pure numbers), and
one of their that I corrected came up with a more detailed address in
FHRS.

 License info on the FHRS site is somewhat opaque, but Open Data gov provides
 this search.

 So there is no need to even think about using Store Locator stuff on
 proprietary websites.

Unfortunately, the new breed of mappers probably know about locators,
but not about FHRS, and they are probably not that aware of how all
pervasive copyright is, and how damaging infringements could be.


___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

2013-09-15 Per discussione OpenStreetmap HADW

On 15 September 2013 11:27, ael law_ence@ntlworld.com wrote:


 It is a few years since I looked at any of this, but it had not occurred
 to me that any copyright issue could arise. They are essentially modern
 trig points. There is a mark on the ground, and their website publishes
 the coordinates. Using these coordinates to position a node on osm
 would constitute republishing? I thought very small extracts of
 copyrighted material were permitted in any case.

It is the standard copyright issue for maps.  There is a relatively
new sort of copyright
called database rights.  Normally for copyright you need to have some
creative input.
Things like addresses and telephone numbers do not have any creative
input.  However
database copyrights mean that the PAF (postcode address file) is
copyright, as is your
 local telephone directory.

With a map, the printed form may be covered by a copyright on the typographical
arrangement, but the individual coordinates of the corners of a
building are matters of fact
and can't, individually be copyrighted.  Nonetheless, once you start
plotting many buildings,
the work involved in compiling the information is recognized by a
database copyright.
 Without database copyrights, there would be on copyright blocks on
converting printed
format maps to vector format.

If you extract a single address from the PAF, to send letter, or a
single number, from the
phone book, to make a call, you are extracting the fact.  If you
create a directory, you
are copying the database.  The former is unrestricted (except by any
contract for confidentiality).
The latter is a copyright infringement.

The OS owns the database copyright on its list of passive stations.
Using the location of one
of them for an isolated survey is just using a fact.  Adding large
numbers of them to OSM is
a copyright infringement unless there is a licence that permits it.
Doing so piecemeal still
creates an infringement (if that were not the case, almost all use of
commercial maps would
be fair game, for a crowd sourced map).

There are hints that the intent was an intent to licence with at most
the equivalent of CC BY,
but I've not seen anything that makes that explicit.

On the other hand some of the references to OSTN02, which is actually
a larger database,
explicitly assert the database copyright, but also seem to release
under a BSD licence, which,
 at most, would require some slight tweaking of copyright
attributions. Please do not do
 anything based on this interpretation without verifying it yourself.

(The copyright on OSM itself is essentially a database copyright.)


 Depending on exactly which ground feature represents the station,

 That one is a small stud at ground level on a small concrete block
 all surrounded by a rectangular metal fence maybe 30cm high, roughly 1m by
 1/2m. I must dig out a photograph.

Having seen OS' photograph, I'm fairly sure this is the feature at
5.2m from the GPS
plot, when viewed on the local Bing datum.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

[Talk-GB] Using store locator as source

2013-09-15 Per discussione OpenStreetmap HADW

I'm pretty sure that store locators pages on chain store web sites are
not safe sources, but can someone confirm this.

I've just come across a, recently added feature, purporting to be an
Asda supermarket building, way 237818118.  As its only purported
source it quotes the URL of the store locator page for that store on
Asda's corporate web site.

In fact, it seems to show mapping details that could not have come
from that site (which uses a Bing map, which is, itself, actually
somewhat misleading), so I don't believe that page is the only source
used.  (On OSM, it has been mapped wrongly in ways that are not
relevant here.)

I've left a message pointing out that it has been incorrectly mapped,
and expressing concern about the source claimed,and also set a fixme,
but I wanted to double check that the source is generally unsafe (the
Bing map it contains is certainly unsafe, but may not actually have
been used).

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] Using store locator as source

2013-09-15 Per discussione OpenStreetmap HADW

On 15 September 2013 22:24, Dave F. dave...@madasafish.com wrote:
 On 15/09/2013 21:41, OpenStreetmap HADW wrote:

 I'm pretty sure that store locators pages on chain store web sites are
 not safe sources, but can someone confirm this.


 What do mean by safe? Inaccurate? Unlawful?

Likely to be an infringement of the operator's copyrights (a store
locator will have database rights, like a map), and if a map had
actually been used from the site, which seems unlikely in this case,
of the rights in the map (store locators often have rather better maps
than the Bing one used in this case).  If it is OK to use store
locators, I can see people exporting all the big name store locators
into the map.

 There's nothing really wrong with the closed polygon that can't be fixed by

These are side issues.  The issue I was consulting on here was the
copyright one.

 removing the building tag. The mapper's clearly used the Bing aerial
 background imagery to trace the area  used Asda's website for other data.
 Seeing the car park originates from '09, I'm going to guess the supermarket
 polygon was expanded from a POI. I can't think of any data being more

I can't remember.  However the current mapper has left at least two
POIs behind when they have mapped buildings, so I have a feeling it
wasn't mapped at all.  Also, I seem to remember thinking about mapping
this myself, but holding back because I would have had to use the weak
source, local_knowledge, to identify it as Asda, so I would have
wanted to re-visit it on the ground, first.  The reasons I didn't just
remove building=yes were:

- I felt uncomfortable about building on something that might have
come from a copyright map (I was half expecting a usable map of the
site on Asda's web site);

- the site outline is wrong.  It takes in a health centre and
community centre and some blocks of flats  that are not part of the
Asda site - I felt getting that right was something for another day;

- getting the mapper to fix it would be more likely to avoid the same
mistake being made again, and get them to fix their other instances -
I know of at least one other with the building tag on a site

Incidentally, the building tag may be an Id issue.  JOSM doesn't set
building by default on shops.

 accurate than the operator's web page. I'm not sure why you so concerned
 about this instance. Nothing in OSM is completely accurate. If you know ways
 to improve the data, do so.

However, the accuracy is a side issue, that can be handled offline.
My concern is about the principle of whether store locators are a
special case of a database that is exempt from the normal rule about
not importing databases, even piecemeal.  If they are, I would expect
a source code of something like store_locator, rather than the full
URL, or, if the full URL for that store were visible on geographic
site, simply website.

(In this case, I suspect the real sources were survey (by eye, not
GPS), Bing, and then only using the web site for phone numbers,
website and address.  Although they didn't have opening hours at all,
those should have been available on site.)

(What made me look at it was that it was local and had no changeset comment.)

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

2013-09-14 Per discussione OpenStreetmap HADW

On 13 September 2013 19:59, ael law_ence@ntlworld.com wrote:

No one has mentioned the OS gps (passive) stations: for example
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/472420260
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/help-and-support/navigation-technology/os-net/surveying.html

Can we not use them at least for some reference points?

Interesting. Unfortunately it looks as though OS Net slipped past
their commercial people as they use the term freely available on
their web site without giving a precise legal definition of what that
means. Given the intended use (all high accuracy surveys in the UK)
there seems to be an implication that they aren't claiming a database
copyright, but OSM will probably need a clearer legal statement.
OSTN02 seems to have the same licensing uncertainty.

I would note that even if a relatively restrictive licence were to
apply, OS allow checking of accuracy, as long as you don't use the
measured error to correct the inaccurate data.

Depending on exactly which ground feature represents the station, BIng
datum), Bing and the consumer grade GPS survey differ by between 5.2
and 6.2m. Bing and StreetView agree quite well at that point, but
diverge towards the West. The BIng error in the typical range, at
this point.

Are the ETRS89 coordinates given on the monument itself, as they would
be individual statements of fact, much like an individual address with
postcode? (OS Net allows for movement, so the highest accuracy values
will not be fixed.)

Without survey quality GNSS receivers, these points are probably
mainly of use for calibrating imagery.

It's a pity they aren't all clearly visible on the aerial view, my
local one, which appears to be within centimetres of Bing, is only
identifiable because OS have measured the distance from the local
trees. When the rain stops, I'll have a look at what is on the
ground, and try for a long average GPS reading. I'll also try and get
on the ground measurements from the trees in case the station
coordinates are considered fair game, but the sketch map details
aren't (looks like a surveyor's tape is on the shopping list - I
guess class III, at about 0.05% is good enough, compared with GPS).

I note that a lot of them are on private land and require permission
from the landowner to gain physical access.

PS. The OSTN02 conversion tool, which presumably contains the table,
has a BSD Licence, according to
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/help-and-support/navigation-technology/os-net/grid-inquest.html.
If that is correct, I can see no reason why the os.openstreetmap
tiles should not be rectified based on OSTN02. The data also seems to
be available in lat/long to lat/long forrmat, also with a BSD licence.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

On 10 September 2013 10:09,  o...@k3v.eu wrote:

 This has been discussed on the list before. Bing image alignment can be
 quite poor

One unfortunate consequence of this is that there are areas of the map
where the majority of features are out of position by 15 or more feet,
because people have added large numbers of buildings, from Bing,
whilst treating the Bing locations as gospel.

A couple of days ago, I walked a footpath, which turned out, along
with the preceding private road, to be a PROW on foot.  As I wanted to
detail map it to show steps, I first calibrated Bing against OS
StreetView, and moved both the road and path accordingly.  The result
is that it now goes right though the last building to actually be
mapped on the road where the path ends.  Looking at all the,
un-sourced, (another gripe is the amount of material going in with no
source and often no comment, but often quite extensive) buildings in
the area, they seem to align perfectly with uncorrected Bing images.

It is easy to perpetuate such problems by using the existing buildings
to calibrate further additions.

I'm reluctant to correct such bulk errors unless I can find somewhere
to safely sit a GPS for several hours, with a clear view of the sky
and good landmarks on  aerial imagery photographs, to get absolute
proof of the error.  (I don't plan to hire a DGPS receiver!).  Also,
without an explicit source, everything needs carefully checking to
make sure that it is consistent with the same flawed source.

Often the main roads are more accurate in these areas, because they
come from older sources, although I sometimes wonder what those were,
too.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

On 13 September 2013 12:31, Colin Smale colin.sm...@xs4all.nl wrote:
 Which is the higher priority, consistency or accuracy? Is it better to have
 an internally consistent map, where everything is topologically correct but
 possibly a little displaced by a uniform vector, or is it better to have
 some of the objects positioned with high accuracy, despite the apparent
 conflicts with the rest?

The case in question is not internally consistent!  The main roads are
more correctly placed than the buildings.  This doesn't stand out like
a sore thumb because the roads and pavements are wide enough to take
up the slack.  However, a 1m wide footpath, sandwiched between two
buildings, and displaced by about 6m does stand out.

The other risk is of a gradual, but not as gradual as continental
drift, creep as features get added relative to misplaced features
placed relative to misplaced features.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

On 13 September 2013 12:55, Chris Hill o...@raggedred.net wrote:
 Why do you suppose OS Streetview is correct? I find that compared to multiple 
 GPS tracks it is not always well aligned and more recent Bing imagery is 
 often better.

I did consider that possibility, but I did a search for that  and it
came up suggesting StreetView was mostly good to about 1m (although I
can't re-find that reference).  On the other hand, that is a reason
for requiring more evidence before correcting things which assume zero
offset for Bing.

As noted elsewhere on this thread, Bing clearly shows parallax errors,
and it looks like it hasn't been corrected for height variations, at
least not on a local scale.

I don't think I would trust commercial GPS much below 5m unless it was
averaged over at least an hour, with a clear  view of the sky
(reflections off builidngs could systematically distort the position
solution - see http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Accuracy#Systematic_errors).
 Where I've looked into calibrating against GPS I've tended to find
that there are good places that are accurately locatable on Bing where
you can sit with GPS for a long time without looking suspicious, and
which are near to  points of interest and have a clear view of the
sky.

On the other hand, pre-OpenData specifications for StreetView suggest
worst case errors of 4.1m
www.centremapslive.co.uk/files/street_view_userguide.pdf, so, maybe
 I'm still going to have to do long averaged GPS calibrations.

That still doesn't mean that unsourced BIng tracings, with zero
offsets are good things.

Fortunately, OSM hasn't been around enough for continental drift to
become a severe problem.  Even the error since 1984 should be less
than about one foot.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

On 13 September 2013 14:46, Tom Hughes t...@compton.nu wrote:
 On 13/09/13 14:28, OpenStreetmap HADW wrote:

 How does one find that out for the tiles served by
 os.openstreetmap.org, and if they are not using the high accuracy
 conversions, why not?  (OS' own online viewer also uses WGS84
 coordinates to label their tiles - suggesting that they should be
 using the high quality WGS-84 calibration.)


 They are produced using mapserv from a gdal vrt with the source projection

Does mapserv use OSTN02?

 defined by:

 PROJCS[OSGB 1936 / British National Grid,

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] Urban Mixed Access Ways and Barriers (restricted to motor vehicles, open to foot)

2013-09-12 Per discussione OpenStreetmap HADW

On 7 September 2013 21:41, SomeoneElse li...@mail.atownsend.org.uk wrote:
 OpenStreetmap HADW wrote:

 In practice, there is only one renderer for general users


 That's a statement that could provoke some discussion, I suspect.

 If you have a look at the questions on help.osm.org you'll see lots of why
 doesn't X do Y type questions, but it isn't always immediately obvious what
 X is. Sometimes it's one of the four main layers on www.osm.org, but if so
 very often it's the Cycle Map rather than the standard layer.  Sometimes

Most of these ultimately use Mapnik as the render, and therefore have
its limitation imposed on them.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

[Talk-GB] OSM Evangelism Opportunity in Burnt Oak

2013-09-12 Per discussione OpenStreetmap HADW

If anyone is able to attend a club meeting in Burnt Oak, Edgware
between 8 and 10 this evening with evangelism materials for
OpenStreetMap, ideally a live demo, could they contact me off list.  I
didn't check the club programme until I was in the office, so won't be
able to collect any any materials myself, but they are having a
meeting entitled Maps and Atlases Evening with members
participation.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] bing image alignment

2013-09-09 Per discussione OpenStreetmap HADW

On 9 September 2013 20:05, Lester Caine les...@lsces.co.uk wrote:
 I'm currently playing in an area where the highest resolution imagery is
 still an older view, while as I zoom out we step to newer imagery which is
 some distance off from the map tracks. I'm fairly happy with the map as I
 have had some older gps tracks which it follows, and I'll run over in the
 morning and gather a new track as a cross reference, but are people in
 general finding that these new images are out of alignment with what is
 currently mapped? Can I assume that they need realigning before using them?



I find that current BIng is usually mis-allgned by two or three metres
relative to OS StreetView, which I believe is good to better than 1
metre.

One reason for this is parallax error, because the images aren't taken
square on to the ground (that may be because the camera is taking in
quite a large area.  You can see this with building, you can end up
with a metre or more difference depending on whether you use the top
or bottom of the building.  It also presumably means that alignment
changes with the height of the land.

On the the other hand, individual GPS points usually have larger error
than this.  With commercial grade GPS, you probably need several hours
averaging to get down to a metre accuracy.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

[Talk-GB] Urban Mixed Access Ways and Barriers (restricted to motor vehicles, open to foot)

I keep coming across cases where marking the access to a way based on
primary category will imply that the way is not suitable for use on
foot.  That becomes particularly interesting with barriers, as in
those cases, the sidewalk may bypass the barrier.

For concrete examples, I'll use Northwick Park and Northwick Part Tube
station, in North West London.

At the North end, there is a stub road
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/6134854.  This is gated off,
almost permanently, where it joins the local public road, but has
sidewalks and there are gaps in the barrier for each sidewalk.

At the station end, it leads to a permanently open foot tunnel, which
exits to Proyer's Path, which is signposted as mixed foot and cycle,
and was recently re-laid explicitly to make it suitable for mixed use.
 There are also foot routes into Westminster University and Northwick
Park Hospital, from the end of the tunnel.

It seems to me that the stub road has private status for motor
vehicles, and as it is in the form of a road for such vehicles, that
is its primary status.  Is must have destination status on foot and
dismounted bicycles, for the tube station.  The junction with Proyers
Path suggests that it should have at least yes status for foot and
cycle.

At the moment, I've coded it as access=private; foot=yes, which should
result in correct routing decisions, but will cause it not to show as
passable to pedestrians on normal map renderings.

The gate is more of a problem, as my reading of the access rules for
gates is that they specify what can pass when the gate is open, so
don't allow you to specify categories for which the gate effectively
doesn't exist (pedestrians, in this case).  Gates possibly need a way
of indicating types of traffic for which they are really entrances.
(Possibly foot=entrance, or, with more backward compatibility
problems, motor_vehicle=gate.)

At the other end of Proyers path, is a car park, and a roadway leads
South from there, to another gate
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/370154648, which is open to
authorised vehicles only (as signed on the driveway, beyond the gate,
so really not an attribute of the gate).  The gate is bypassed by
people on the pavement on the public road, but is open from 8am to
nominal dusk.  To add complications, just inside the gate is a PROW
public footpath sign, for a footpath to the park, so, although the
scope of this is very unclear, the bypass probably has PROW status.

Authorised vehicles are, I suspect, ones using the pavilion, by the
car park, but the main reason is probably to stop its use as a station
car park, by long distance commuters.

The road has cycle markings, so there is some presumption that it is
always open to cycles.

If I mark the gate with opening hours and access, it implies these
restrictions apply to pedestrians and cyclists, which they don't.  If
I mark the driveway as private or destination, it will be shown as
that on the standard map, even if the restriction is removed by the
use of foot and cycle keys.

Whilst one could break out the sidewalk paths on each side of the
gate, as explicit features, that will clutter the map (as a side note,
I already see some areas of the map being cluttered by having every
private path and car park).  It doesn't help with the driveway through
the park, as that has no sidewalks, once you get past the gate.

What are peoples thoujghts on the best way of getting the data model
correct, whilst also producing something useful to people using the
standard map rendering, particularly for barriers.

PS There are yellow padlocks on the second gate, so even the opening
hours are not valid for emergency vehicles.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

[Talk-GB] Wish LIst for Mapnik Stylesheet (overmapping of private features)

Is there a mechanism for getting requests onto the wish list for the
Open Street Map Mapnk style sheets?

The particular issue is that now that people can trace quite small
features, some areas are getting overloaded with private foot paths
and private car parks (not to mention alleys and driveways),
particularly where apartment blocks are involved.  These make it
difficult to find public ones and pollute the landuse colouring.

I've added a comment to the access Wiki page, but comments on wiki
pages don't seem to get looked at.  What I'd like to do is to get onto
the wish list that private features like this should require a higher
zoom level, before they render, than equivalent public ones. (A thin,
dotted footpath can be difficult to spot in a sea of dashed ping
lines.

(A secondary problem is that people map these all with no access
restriction, or name them Private, but that can be fixed in the source
data without destroying information - the only problem is that it
needs verifying on the ground, whereas they can map, particularly car
parks, from aerial imagery.)

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] Urban Mixed Access Ways and Barriers (restricted to motor vehicles, open to foot)

On 7 September 2013 14:46, Philip Barnes p...@trigpoint.me.uk wrote:


 Streetmaps do tend to be abstractions of the real world, and
 openstreetmap ceased to be be a mere streetmap several years ago, and is
 a far far better map than a mere streetmap can ever be. The word
 streetmap implies urban, cities.


OS maps are abstractions even when not dealing with streets.

The other problems with micro-mapping are:

- the transition between higher and lower levels of abstraction.  I
have considered mapping certain road areas as areas, because the line
approximation loses important information, but,  unless a road joins
an area perpendicularly, this doesn't work well in the transition
region;

- with things like sidewalks, there is usually a fixed distance
between the two pedestrian ways and the vehicle way, but the current
data structure cannot represent that, and the current tooling doesn't
support it very well, so if everyone started mapping sidewalks
explicitly, there would be big maintenance problems (I've just seen a
transition case where a road both has a separate footpath, with cycle
access and the road itself is marked as having parallel cycle tracks);

- routing software can no longer just operate on a network of edges
and nodes, but needs to know that your can normally cross from one
sidewalk to the other, at arbitrary places. (currently I have seen
explicit footway crossings, where no physical features exists, being
inserted to get round this one.  Basically, the abstraction is adding
value, by showing that the the sidewalks are related.

___
Talk-GB mailing list
Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb

Re: [Talk-GB] Urban Mixed Access Ways and Barriers (restricted to motor vehicles, open to foot)