Open Street Map expansion project

Aard · 25-05-2010 1:13pm

Would any OSM contributers be able to recommend an 'entry-level' GPS? I'm thinking of getting one purely for the purposes of OSM-contributing, so I don't necessarily need the extras like route calculation, fancy displays, and the likes.

Sponge Bob · 25-05-2010 1:15pm

Jomcc wrote: »

Thanks for that.........if I were to PM you the link to the info, would you know it it looks correct or not?

The data was fine except that it was a string of points at a location.

It could have been a river or a road or a power line and therefore it was not showing. You did not tell the OSM what the string of points represented.

I went in with the online editor, clicked on the dropdown box and selected Road Tertiary and saved.

Hopefully it now shows that trace as a road.

Sometimes you get extra options if you go away and come back. It is a bit odd that way. When I came back I got the option to name it so I called it ****s Road

I can add other tags with a hack. Overwrite the word REF with a name tag

name:en english name

click on Road Tertiary on the dropdown and it brings back the ref tag overwrite again

name:ga irish name

click on Road Tertiary on the dropdown and it brings back the ref again overwrite it

loc_name Local name like paddys path

click again back comes ref

alt_name Another Local Name like the New Bog Road

Eventually i gave it a ref

also note tracktype tag if it is a track not a road

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Map_Features

Sponge Bob · 25-05-2010 1:27pm

Somebody needs to write a tagging guide for Ireland

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tagging

eg Croatia has one...even if it is a tad wrong.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Croatian_roads_tagging

IrlJidel · 25-05-2010 1:40pm

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Somebody needs to write a tagging guide for Ireland

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tagging

eg Croatia has one...even if it is a tad wrong.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Croatian_roads_tagging

Tagging for Irish roads is available on the Ireland Project page.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Ireland#Highway

Note that highway=boreen does not exist, use highway=unclassified ;-)

trap4 · 25-05-2010 1:44pm

Some of you might be interested in attending 3Dcamp at Institute of Technology, Tallaght on Saturday where Richard Cantwell will give a talk on the OpenStreetMap project. It's free to attend, just register on the site.

IrlJidel · 25-05-2010 1:46pm

Sponge Bob wrote: »

I can add other tags with a hack. Overwrite the word REF with a name tag

If you use the 'Online Editor' ie Potlatch you can add additional tags that are not in the presets by pressing the + symbol at bottom right hand side of editor.

There's a video introduction to Potlatch available here

undo · 25-05-2010 2:13pm

Aard wrote: »

Would any OSM contributers be able to recommend an 'entry-level' GPS? I'm thinking of getting one purely for the purposes of OSM-contributing, so I don't necessarily need the extras like route calculation, fancy displays, and the likes.

The Garmin eTrex series is inexpensive and very popular with OSMers. I have an eTrex myself as do many other OSM contributors.

However, you might really want to rethink the "no fancy displays" part. It is very useful to be able to see the current map so that you can decide where to go next based on what is still missing.

The cheapest eTrex models will have no map display. More expensive ones will with the eTrex Vista HCx being the current top-of-the-line. This is what I have and what other OSM users tend to choose. It should cost around €150.

If you want something cheaper, you could get a pure data logger. This is a device without a screen that you throw into your backpack and which just keeps track of where you went. No more, no less. I have played with the Holux M-241 for that purpose before and its seemed to get the job done.

Sponge Bob · 25-05-2010 2:15pm

IrlJidel wrote: »

Note that highway=boreen does not exist, use highway=unclassified ;-)

If a Boreen has an L name it is a Tertiary , if not it is Unclassified.

Many boreens END in a bog and are partially classified and partially unclassified ( after the last house usually)

Note that lots of these ghost estates are not taken in charge and are undesignated. However they are drivable. These are highway=residential

There is no such thing as a DRIVABLE public highway that is not classified. However some classified highways have been abandoned ......often where they end in bogs....and are not maintained and are not drivable. Therefore these sections are best not marked highway=tertiary if clearly abandoned and maybe highway=unclassified is best.

Your council local area engineer will give you all the classifications to the metre , possibly even in a spreadsheet for ease and would set you right on abandonments too. I know of two classified abandonments in Barna near Galway.

Finally

<pedantry> local roads have two classifications</pedantry>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Roads_in_Ireland

The Local Primary roads are numbered from L1000 - L4999. Local Secondary Roads are numbered from L5000 - L8999. Local Tertiary roads are numbered from L9000 - L89999. Local Roads are divided into segments of 2 kilometres to 3 kilometres maximum. For this reason they serve a limited function as the applicable L road number generally ends at junctions with other local roads. The numbering systems are not widely known to the public. However they must be made available to the public on request in accordance with section 10 of the Roads Act 1993.

The problem comes from the numbering.

The L1000 is a local primary and is also known as the LP1000
The L5000 is a local secondary and is also known as the LS5000
The L9000 is a local tertiary and is also known as the LT9000

Potlatch will not allow two ref tags but supports alt_ref

Use L1000 in the Ref ( ref=L1000)
and LP1000 in the alt_ref (alt_ref=LP1000)

Then use name for its most commonly used name loc_name for its second usual name and alt_name for whatever other name it is called. That way the tags are consistent.

Do remember (eg) that the R348 could be called

The Ballinasloe Road ....in Athenry
The Athenry Road .....in Ballinasloe
The Galway Road....in New Inn
The Dublin Road .....in Kiltulla
The Galway road and The Dublin Road ....depending...in Kilconnell.

and is

so don't go absolutely mad on the alt_name tags even though you may add any amount of them

GeneHunt · 25-05-2010 2:17pm

Thanks Mackerski, for all that info.

I've tried the Andrew McCarthy website before, but my Nuvi would just freeze sometimes. I'll try it again, maybe the file didn't download correctly onto the Nuvi or something.

undo · 25-05-2010 2:27pm

GeneHunt wrote: »

I've tried the Andrew McCarthy website before, but my Nuvi would just freeze sometimes.

When making maps from OSM data, you have a lot of choice in the level of detail you want to produce. By default, the maps will be far more detailed than stock Garmin ones. This is an advantage (you get a better representation of the would out there) but also a disadvantage (slower redrawing, slower route calculation)... It might be that Andrew's map is a bit overwhelming for your Nuvi. That said, I know mackerski uses OSM on his Nuvi so it is definitely possible to do so. I also have Andrew's maps on my Vista HCx.

undo · 25-05-2010 2:31pm

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Your council local area engineer will give you all the classifications , possibly in a spreadsheet for ease.

This could be problematic from a legal point of view. Copying information from street name signs is OK. Copying an entire Excel sheet would seem like copyright infringement.

Use L1000 in the Ref and LP1000 in the Name .

No, please do not do that. The road's reference number, as seen on the ground, is L1000. There is an alternative reference (if you really want to tag it, make up a corresponding tag such as alt_ref). The alternative reference, however, is not a road name and should never end up in the name tag. In general, just ref=L1000 will be perfectly sufficient. It is easy enough to derive LP1000 from that if need be.

Then use loc_name for its usual name and alt_name for whatever other name it is called. That way the tags are consistent.

You should use name for the name. loc_name and alt_name are really only useful in very special cases. Most streets have name and/or ref only.

Sponge Bob · 25-05-2010 2:40pm

undo wrote: »

This could be problematic from a legal point of view. Copying information from street name signs is OK. Copying an entire Excel sheet would seem like copyright infringement.

tush . like the wiki article says

However they must be made available to the public on request in accordance with section 10 of the Roads Act 1993.

I edited my post to clarify name and ref

undo · 25-05-2010 2:47pm

Sponge Bob wrote: »

However they must be made available to the public on request in accordance with section 10 of the Roads Act 1993.

Tricky again. Just because something is available for you to see, this does not mean it is free of copyright. An example would be planning applications/permissions and associated drawings: You are free to go to your local CC and inspect these. But when they are based on OSi maps (and they always are), you still must not copy them.

The same goes for "freedom of information" type laws. It may well be possible to get an insight into normally "closed" data. But just because you can see it does not mean you can copy it.

All of the above is one hell of a frustrating can of worms. If you really want to get involved with untangling the legal mess - excellent, we could very much use that. On the other hand, you might just prefer to stick to mapping what is on the ground and safe to use.

IrlJidel · 25-05-2010 2:48pm

Sponge Bob wrote: »

If a Boreen has an L name it is a Tertiary , if not it is Unclassified.

Many boreens END in a bog and are partially classified and partially unclassified ( after the last house usually)

No. Just because it has an L-ref doesn't make it highway=tertiary

"A public road, other than a national road or a regional road, shall be a local road."

All local roads are required to have an L-road designation. So all 'boreens' that are public roads should have an L-road ref.

However, in the osm schema there isn't enough disignations to handle all the irish road cases when we get down to local-road level.

If you feel a local road would be more important to route traffic along, use highway=tertiary ( this would probably be a local-primary road). Any other local roads should be highway=unclassified.

Note that lots of these ghost estates are not taken in charge and are undesignated. However they are drivable. These are highway=residential

Agreed, these are residential roads. Just no-one is living there (yet).

Finally

<pedantry> local roads have two classifications</pedantry>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Roads_in_Ireland

The problem comes from the numbering.

The L1000 is a local primary and is also known as the LP1000
The L5000 is a local secondary and is also known as the LS5000
The L9000 is a local tertiary and is also known as the LT9000

Potlatch will not allow two ref tags.

Use L1000 in the Ref and LP1000 in the Name .

Then use loc_name for its usual name and alt_name for whatever other name it is called. That way the tags are consistent.

Are these rules for local primary/secondary/tertiary number ranges published anywhere?

The first rule of osmclub is 'map what's on the ground'

All road signs I've ever seen only refer to LXXXX rather that LPXXXX,LSXXXX,LTXXXX
so you should tag with just ref=LXXXX

Second rule of osmclub is 'always talk about osm' - we need more mappers

undo · 25-05-2010 2:49pm

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Do remember (eg) that the R348 could be called

The Ballinasloe Road ....in Athenry
The Athenry Road .....in Ballinasloe
The Galway Road....in New Inn
The Dublin Road .....in Kiltulla
The Galway road and The Dublin Road ....depending...in Kilconnell.

and is

so don't go absolutely mad on the alt_name tags even though you may add any amount of them

Why not put the above names into the name tag? I do not see a need for alt_name here.

mackerski · 25-05-2010 2:52pm

Sponge Bob wrote: »

If a Boreen has an L name it is a Tertiary , if not it is Unclassified.

No, this is not the case. All roads have a local road number, whether signed or not. We have had many discussions about which local roads should be tertiary and which unclassified.

I have updated the Project Page tagging guidelines to better reflect our consensus to date. You'll see that the middle grade of local road is falling between unclassified and tertiary - we need to learn a little more about how significant these roads are.

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Your council local area engineer will give you all the classifications , possibly in a spreadsheet for ease.

Unlike undo, I think it can be permissible to use such a spreadsheet, but only if you have cleared our use with the council (and that really needs to be a person in authority, not just somebody who happens to be privy to the data).

Sponge Bob · 25-05-2010 2:57pm

IrlJidel wrote: »

No. Just because it has an L-ref doesn't make in highway=tertiary

"A public road, other than a national road or a regional road, shall be a local road."

All local roads are required to have an L-road designation. So all 'boreens' that are public roads should have an L-road ref.

However, in the osm schema there isn't enough disignations to handle all the irish road cases when we get down to local-road level.

If you feel a local road would be more important to route traffic along, use highway=tertiary ( this would probably be a local-primary road). Any other local roads should be highway=unclassified.

Yes but not every public road is tarred, many bog roads are public roads and I would not fancy driving on them except with a tractor. Tertiary should be L roads taken in charge and maintained and tarred.

Start with the local area engineer and get a full list emailed out with northings an eastings .

If you want to BULK convert northings and eastings to Long and Lat then use a program called Franson Co Ord trans which is great at converting Irish Grid to Long and Lat to get start points and end points of roads etc.

Convert ITM Projection 95 to WGM84 ( have them in a txt file ready)

mackerski · 25-05-2010 3:07pm

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Yes but not every public road is tarred, many bog roads are public roads and I would not fancy driving on them except with a tractor. Tertiary should be L roads taken in charge and maintained and tarred.

This won't be a problem if you follow the tagging guidelines I've linked to - they advocate using tertiary only for Local roads up to L4999. I wouldn't expect bog roads or abandoned roads to carry numbers this low (though if I'm proved wrong we'll certainly need to factor this into our thinking).

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Start with the local area engineer and get a full list emailed out with northings an eastings .

If you want to BULK convert northings and eastings to Long and Lat then use a program called Franson Co Ord trans which is great at converting Irish Grid to Long and Lat to get start points and end points of roads etc.

Convert ITM Projection 95 to WGM84 ( have them in a txt file ready)

If using this software (particularly the evaluation version) make sure that there are no restrictions on the use of co-ordinates derived using it. The only reason for OSM to exist is to create a map unencumbered by the usual copyright baggage.

And once again, no information source, including the local council, should be assumed legitimate for import into OSM without a sound declaration of the terms of use of the data you are being given.

If this seems anal or paranoid remember that a lot of us spend a lot of our free time creating work that we don't want to see undermined by future legal challenges to its source. We'd all love to see the road numbers in the map and are proud to be working on the only Irish map with local road numbers on it. So let's of course work on getting every source made available to us. But make sure of the legality rather then jumping in feet first.

Sponge Bob · 25-05-2010 3:08pm

Mackerski, the local authority gives you start point data that you must then check and trace yourself. WE the taxpayers own that data. You are ENTITLED to know what your local road is called and that is in 1993 act.

The only difference between a local secondary and a local tertiary is that a local tertiary comes to a dead end and a secondary does not...

L numbers between 1000 and 8999 come out _somewhere_ BUT they may not always be tarred and should not be driven...or classified in a manner that _imputes_ drivability.

mackerski · 25-05-2010 3:18pm

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Mackerski, the local authority gives you start point data that you must then check and trace yourself. WE the taxpayers own that data. You are ENTITLED to know what your local road is called and that is in 1993 act.

We may or may not own it. We certainly paid for it, as we paid for the copyrighted data the OSI owns. But I will personally administer wedgies to whatever nutter negates my mapping work by infringing OSI maps and getting the project admins sued.

Ideologically I'm with you here. I also expect that the council's info can be deemed clean for us to use. But it isn't automatically so, we have to find out first. A pain? Certainly, but here we are recreating a map from scratch. Nobody ever said it would be easy.

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The only difference between a local secondary and a local tertiary is that a local tertiary comes to a dead end and a secondary does not...

L numbers between 1000 and 8999 come out _somewhere_ BUT they may not always be tarred and should not be driven...or classified in a manner that _imputes_ drivability.

In our tagging schema the pavement of a road (and lane count and width) are all separately taggable and are independent of the highway tag. Tagging guidelines today say that numbers lower than L5000 should be tagged as tertiary, but if an unsurfaced and barely passable bog road should emerge in the range I expect that the guideline will be reconsidered.

But in the meantime it's a good guideline that reflects how we've been doing this up till now.

IrlJidel · 25-05-2010 3:38pm

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Yes but not every public road is tarred, many bog roads are public roads and I would not fancy driving on them except with a tractor.

For these roads accessible only by tractor or jeeps I'd suggest highway=track and tracktype

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:tracktype

BluntGuy · 25-05-2010 4:46pm

Could somebody familiar with OSM possibly write up maybe a quick little getting started guide with maybe a basic explanation of OSM and links to tutorials and the like, so that we could edit it into the first post of this thread and then make a sticky.

It would be very much appreciated. If one of ye gets the time to do it, just PM to one of the mods or post it here and we can edit the first post to include it.

Keep up the great work.

***

PS: Would the "Tom Tom" brand of sat nav be able to produce GPS traces? I have one of those sat navs.

mackerski · 25-05-2010 5:00pm

BluntGuy wrote: »

Could somebody familiar with OSM possibly write up maybe a quick little getting started guide with maybe a basic explanation of OSM and links to tutorials and the like, so that we could edit it into the first post of this thread and then make a sticky.

The overall "how to get started" instructions are currently fairly fragmented - there's the general, globally, relevant newbie pages about the project goals, data model, tools etc. There are even video clips demoing tools. These are of differing ages, something that's particularly noticeable where editor documentation is concerned.

Then there's the Irish project page and its associated sub-pages, which generally try to avoid restating the general stuff, but rather seek to make it relevant to local conditions.

A central "how to get going" is a worthy goal, but not something that can be easily done in an afternoon. The quickest start in mapping is usually to collaborate with an experienced mapper and ask questions - in particular, every new mapper will have different instincts and will "get" some concepts instantly while having difficulty with others.

With this in mind, while we, the old fart mappers try to get a quick start guide together (which we should), it might be worthwhile for prospective new mappers to identify themselves and their locations - with enough people in a general area, we might be able to arrange an introductory mapping party.

BluntGuy wrote: »

PS: Would the "Tom Tom" brand of sat nav be able to produce GPS traces? I have one of those sat navs.

On the Tom Tom, in addition to the link I posted a few posts back, this one provides what looks like a useful answer to your question about track logging. But do note the remarks on how to avoid having it log the copyrighted map rather than the actual recorded device position.

undo · 25-05-2010 5:07pm

BluntGuy wrote: »

Could somebody familiar with OSM possibly write up maybe a quick little getting started guide

There are tons of tutorials covering all the tools and steps involved... but their quality varies, some are out of date, others make recommendations that do not really work well in Ireland. My personal tip would be:

Visit the IRC channel

A number of the most active mappers are hanging out on the IRC channel 24/7. Anyone wanting to give OSM a go or with any questions about it whatsoever is welcome to join and ask. No question is too simple or seemingly stupid to ask. Seriously, we would much rather answer a question early on than having go through the data and correct mistakes manually later on.

Sponge Bob · 25-05-2010 7:24pm

My big problem with only mapping the local primary ( sub L5000) range is that in my parish we have about 3 miles of R road and 3 Miles of Local Primary numbered L5000 or less.

The rest of it is LS or LT, at least 20 miles of it. May I point out this wiki factoid

The Republic has an extensive network of public roads connecting all parts of the country. As of 31 December 2007, there was a total of 5,427.58 km of national roads: 2,743.606 km of national primary routes (including motorways) and 2,683.974 km of national secondary routes.[10] In addition to national roads, the Republic also has an extensive network of other public roads: there are 11,630 kilometres of regional roads and 78,972 kilometres of local roads.

It is fair to say that the mapping project has so far delivered an excellent rendition of N and R roads , all 17,000km of them just about.

But the glaringly missing bits are the L roads, 79000km to do, I would guesstimate the LP network at around 20,000km and the secondary and tertiary local roads at about 59,000km out of that........

Shall we simply ignore the other 60,000km altogether ......despite being 50% greater than all the Motorway/National/Regional and Local Primary Network together which are around 40,000km combined ?????

mackerski · 25-05-2010 7:28pm

Sponge Bob wrote: »

My big problem with only mapping the local primary ( sub L5000) range is that in my parish we have about 3 miles of R road and 3 Miles of Local Primary numbered L5000 or less.

I think there's been a misunderstanding here. Nobody is suggesting confining the map to the local primary roads. Quite the contrary - we want to map every cow track and footpath.

The discussion, as I understood it, was whether a particular class of local road should be mapped as tertiary or unclassified. All of them should be mapped. Those below L5000 as tertiary, those above as unclassified.

Sponge Bob · 25-05-2010 7:32pm

mackerski wrote: »

Those below L5000 as tertiary, those above as unclassified.

But the problem is that they ARE classified

undo · 25-05-2010 7:34pm

Sponge Bob wrote: »

But the problem is that they ARE classified

The highway classes in OSM do not correspond directly to Irish road types. We have agreed on a mapping and use that throughout. The - unfortunately named - "unclassified" stands for the lowest grade of generally usable road. Hence, highway=unclassified makes sense for local L-roads.

mackerski · 25-05-2010 7:36pm

Sponge Bob wrote: »

But the problem is that they ARE classified

Doesn't matter. In the UK, non-primary A roads are mapped as highway=primary. The names correspond to a hierarchy of road types that have in places diverged from the apparent meanings.

highway=unclassified is simply a road even less important than a tertiary, generally shown in white (and not at low zoom) but assumed passable by cars unless stated otherwise.

Sponge Bob · 25-05-2010 8:05pm

mackerski wrote: »

highway=unclassified is simply a road even less important than a tertiary, generally shown in white (and not at low zoom) but assumed passable by cars unless stated otherwise.

This means all the road network around Galway City needs doing again

Open Street Map expansion project

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