On 11 December 2011 18:46, Tim François <sk1pp...@yahoo.co.uk> > The entire process took a long, long time (we're talking many hours), as > the OS data is all fragmented and needs joining up. > > This is one where it is certainly possible to import the data, but to do it manually is going to be a huge amount of effort, and I wonder if it is really worth the effort?
I see the main benefit of OSM in providing 'added value' geographic data that is not available in other freely available sources. Last time I made a map of an outdoor area, I found that the OS Vector Map District (VMD) water features added a lot to it, because the OSM data was pretty plain. In the end I actually made the map from a mixture of OSM and VMD Data, with SRTM generated contours. I certainly used OSM footpaths and route relations (because they are not in any of the other data sets) - as I wanted to highlight a walking route. I used VMD waterways because they were far more complete than OSM. I think that for the area I was working on (Weardale) I used VMD roads too, because there are still a lot missing from OSM. Where I struggled was in woodland areas - you get a lot more if you use VMD, but I also know that quite a lot have been felled, which can be changed in OSM, but not VMD, so this was a difficult choice. (You can see the output here<https://github.com/jones139/Mapnik-OSM-Styles/raw/master/weardale_way/image_vmd_fc.png> (but there is something wrong with the grid on the version on that server, sorry!....and the rendering style is not as pretty as the main OSM one). I wonder if a more productive use of our efforts would be in developing tools to make it easier to make such merged data maps and highlight the 'value added' bits from OSM that make it stand out from a Land Ranger map? [Things like showing all the industrial archeology, real ale pubs etc.]. I am working (very slowly) on a tool that will pull together the required data to produce these sort of things and render it at high resolution for printing. It is not at the sort of state that I would publish it and recommend that someone just tries it (no nice front end), but it is getting there and I can make maps from it when I want to. I would be happy to put more effort into it if there was interest (or anyone interested in helping!). One final thing is that if we do say that we will not import the VMD data into OSM, this means that it will not appear on the main OSM web site map. We could show off what is possible though by making a 'osm-uk' site with a web map that combines the various data sources in a web map? Regards Graham. -- Graham Jones Hartlepool, UK.
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