Open Street Map expansion project

Amtmann

http://www.openstreetmap.org/

Is there anything that the Infrastructure forum can do to help with this? I wouldn't be opposed to a special OSM thread for each county if necessary, where mappers can post requests for trace uploads, road numbers, etc.

This seems a good time to launch a special OSM thread, since readership will rocket towards the end of the week with the opening of the M7/M8 and the M3 a week later. It's a good time to promote the site on boards, methinks.

So, if the OSM mappers (Chris, Mackerski, larryone et al) would like to tell us how this forum can assist with expanding OSM's Irish coverage, we'll see what we can do.

Stinicker

Alot of the roads around where I live are not mapped on OSM, I have a Garmin Nuvi 265W. If someone could explain to me how to capture the route and then upload it I would happily be able to add anything up to 50kms of currently unmapped road over the next month!

Aard

I'm a minor OSM contributer. I find that outside the Dublin region, the yahoo imagery available is too blurry to map. As a result, as the above poster noted, it's difficult to map outside major cities.


EDIT:
Also, Furet, I'd think that because the OSM community is small, one thread for all OSM-related stuff would suffice. Maybe make a sticky of it down the line?

Amtmann

A sticky is envisaged. I've been getting a lot of PMs about OSM, so I just reckon this thread can serve as a clearing house and maybe attract new users, or existing OSM users who mightn't already be familiar with this forum. Either way, I think it's a good thing to have.

nordydan

I would happily export south/mid Down from a Garmin nuvi 200w but I don't know how. I updated the software on the unit and it doesn't seem to trace anymore!

Sponge Bob

Furet wrote: »

http://www.openstreetmap.org/

Is there anything that the Infrastructure forum can do to help with this? I wouldn't be opposed to a special OSM thread for each county if necessary, where mappers can post requests for trace uploads, road numbers, etc.

RATHER than have a roads sub forum there should be a Collective Mapping sub forum where all sorts of infrastructure mapping can be discussed and implemented not just roads.

Chris_5339762

Trouble is that forum would be more or less dead I reckon Having it in here lets everyone see it without that extra few clicks.

Stinicker

So this afternoon with nothing else to do I figured out how to get my Garmin Nuvi to trace routes and drove for ten minutes on an side road that is unmapped by OSM and have now converted the trace file to .gpx and am getting ready to upload! I had to pull in to let a tractor pass and another car but having compared my trace to other maps I can say that OSM is the most accurate out there!

Sponge Bob

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Trouble is that forum would be more or less dead I reckon Having it in here lets everyone see it without that extra few clicks.

Shoehorn in a few tutorials on GPX traces etc early in the thread and sticky it so.

NedNew2

As Sponge Bob suggests, a few tutorials or links to same would be great help. I bought a Garmin Nuvi 1300 and I've no idea yet how to upload updates/OSM maps to it or how to trace.

I'm sure there would be a new wave of enthusiasts once we get over the learning curve.

Sponge Bob

NedNew2 wrote: »

As Sponge Bob suggests, a few tutorials or links to same would be great help.

You need this program to prepare the data Ned

http://www.gpsbabel.org/

Some tutorials on their website , you need to produce a GPX file for upload to OSM. OSM will also allow public footpaths and untarred boreens to be entered ( if flagged properly) so maybe start with a small one of them rather than a motorway

http://www.gpsbabel.org/tips/

Then create username on Open Street Map.

And see the video tutorials in the OSM wiki

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Video_tutorials

Stinicker

Yesterday I went from knowing nothing at all about OSM or sat-nav tracking to capturing a route and posting it to OSM.

Having a Garmin Nuvi myself, I found this guide extremely helpful as it showed me how to capture the track using the hidden menu accessed via the combination of finger taps. The raw track capture from the satnav must then be converted to the .gpx standard because of all the various format by the different manufacturers and OSM only accepts .gpx files. Converting is easy and no software is even required as it can be done online.

Useful links to help build the eventual sticky.

http://www.gpspassion.com/upload2/HiddenTrackLogHowTo.pdf

http://www.gpsvisualizer.com

http://www.anpo.republika.pl/download.html#nutrak
a free piece of software to convert the gps.bin files into .gpx files if you dont want to use gpsvisualizer to convert them online, the site is in Polish but the software installs in English. Use Google translator to translate the site.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Main_Page
OSM Wiki, tonnes of info in there

GeneHunt

Great idea for a tread, Furet.

I started mapping on the OSM last year, firstly you need to register with OSM and read the Beginners’ Guide, This is a good place for a beginner to start.

I tend not to upload the .gpx file from my Garmin unit to OSM site, I instead use the Java OpenStreetMap Editor (JOSM) (which is one of many types of software you can download to edit OSM) and I open my .gpx file with JOSM, zoom in the area where you have traced (drove/walked with your GPS unit) then download the backround map for that zoomed area from OSM (which is very easy). Then trace you way along the new route and then upload that area back onto OSM, I then go to OSM site itself and do the final editing there, like added the road name or reference, etc. However, I think a broadband connect is necessary.

If some folk out there don’t want to be mappers, but would like to upload their routes, that’s great, but how would this best work? Because, if someone uploads a route to OSM it could be days, weeks or even months before a mapper traces the route on OSM.

Maybe could this work – someone uploads their route on OSM and that post a post here with a link to the location on OSM. However that could lead to two mappers trying to trace the same route at the same time, but we'll cross that bridge if we come to it.

Sponge Bob

JOSM is too advanced for starters , fabulous for Metadata.....eg a road can have an official name/slang name/irish name/designation such as L29168 and also LT29168 townland etc etc

But first get the basic traces up there , metadata can be added later with JOSM

Good time of year to do footpaths for hillwalkers too...not every road needs to be driven.

Chris_5339762

The basic Potlatch editor would be fine for 90% of OSMers.

But its not just the regions of the country without coverage that's needed. Go out to the area round your house and map absolutely everything. Shops, petrol stations, pubs, electricity lines, EVERYTHING that can be digitised to OSM. Compared to the quality of the coverage in say, Munich, even OSM in Dublin is lacking.

L1011

Someone's already done my local area obsessively.

However from memory there is absolutely nothing on the island back home, might see if I can get it in the can in a day when I'm there in two weeks.

johnbk

I have used Trails app on iphone for some roads in the Kilkenny area and successfully added them to OSM.

Is the iphone accurate enough for OSM?

Also, can I trace over aerial pictures that are on the Kilkenny co co website or the OSI website and cross check them with my iphone journeys before adding them to OSM?

Finally, I have some autocad maps with roads on them, can I trace over these (The have co-ordinates) and add them to OSM?

PS. I think that alot of people will be interested is this topic.

Harps

MYOB wrote: »

Someone's already done my local area obsessively.

However from memory there is absolutely nothing on the island back home, might see if I can get it in the can in a day when I'm there in two weeks.

Theres nothing on the island at all aside from place names, could give you a hand if I had a good idea how its done.

The whole of Donegal is empty for that matter aside from N and R roads, even Letterkenny has very little coverage

larryone

My start with OSM was with JOSM editor.
I pulled traces off a GPS device, opened them in JOSM, and went right at it.
I found it fine for beginners, and I'm not fond of Potlatch at all.
You dont need gpsbsbel to convert traces to any different format, you dont need to upload your traces to OSM, and I found it intuitive anough to use.

All credit to Furet for starting this thread =0)

mackerski

It's great to see interest picking up in OSM, and I absolutely agree that the kind of people we have here on the forum can contribute strongly to the project.

On the question of whether iphones (or other smartphones) are up to the task of logging, I'd have to say that their GPS chipsets are generally a lot less accurate than "real" (meaning higher power-consumption) ones, but if it's the difference between having a road mapped or not mapped, I'd say "go for it". Remember that a coarsely mapped road can always be cleaned up later.

Folks who have devices that were built to log should ideally configure them to log one point per second. That way, important curve detail, ramps and roundabouts will be logged in a usable fashion. On roundabouts, even though it looks very odd, you should ideally drive a full 360 so that the true shape and size emerges in the trace.

I do have a strong warning about Garmin Nuvis and other devices that have pre-loaded maps. Keep in mind that, in contributing to OSM, you have to avoid taking data from copyrighted sources. This includes, for instance, not copying road names from Google maps or other sat nav devices (they are often incorrect anyway). But it also means that we may not trace existing commercial maps.

The snag: Many GPS devices that have routable maps can be configured to "snap" your measured position to a mapped road (often called "lock on road"). They do this to assist in areas of poor coverage - the reasoning is that if you are driving a car, you are probably on the road rather than 10m into the field alongside it. The huge snag: car-oriented devices like the Nuvi often don't allow this mode to be disabled. So if you drive along, say, the M7 with lock-on-road enabled, your trace and the resulting OSM data will match absolutely the commercial map data you already have on your device. This is bad for data quality (our driven surveys usually produce more precise maps than the commercial stuff) and it taints the OSM data in a way that could require large areas of the map to be deleted in response to a legal challenge.

So if you have a device where this is likely to be a problem, please experiment. A good test is to drive along a road that is mapped on your device, then turn into a side road. If your trace shows you remaining on the main road for a while, then suddenly jumping some distance onto the side road, then you suffer from the problem. On Garmin devices, a good solution may be to disable the built-in map altogether, which you can do under settings.

Ask here on this thread if you need more tips on this - I'd love to see more of you helping to fill the gaps.

ceret

I'm an OSM fan and I gotta say, I like Potlatch. You can do (just about) everything in Potlatch that you can do in JOSM. Use whatever you work best with. JOSM can be handy cause you work off local GPS traces, and just draw away. If you wanna add simple things (there's a pub here, this road is called this), then potlatch can be quick and easy.

GeneHunt

ceret wrote: »

I'm an OSM fan and I gotta say, I like Potlatch. You can do (just about) everything in Potlatch that you can do in JOSM. Use whatever you work best with. JOSM can be handy cause you work off local GPS traces, and just draw away. If you wanna add simple things (there's a pub here, this road is called this), then potlatch can be quick and easy.

+1:)

undo

If anyone has ever taken a ferry into or out of Dublin and would like to contribute their knowledge to OpenStreetMap, I recently started this thread to ask for such info. I can do all the mapping - I just need to know which road connects to which, what is a one-way and so on...

Also, if anyone wants to starts mapping and would like a quick crash course in central Dublin, I live in D1 and would be happy to help get new mappers started. Just PM me.

radagast

If anyone is in the north tipperary or adjacent areas and would similarly like a crash course in OSM please contact me privately as 'radagast' here or as 'kenguest' on osm.org and I'll try to help.

royan

We also have occasional meetups/mapping parties - you just barely missed one last Wednesday.

The online editor (Potlatch) is as others have said great for 90% of the basic work, and you can upload your traces and work off those; don't feel you have to move to JOSM or any other editor in a hurry. It does have rather more features, plugins etc, and is way faster interactively once you've downloaded a chunk of map data, but of course you have to learn a new interface.

Remember you don't have to do everything - if you can trace some accurate new roads from gps but don't know the names, someone else who has no gps can tag those later.

Another tool worth noting from the start is the data browser - part of the OSM site, this lets you review the submitted changesets and their nodes and ways, the tags.on those, and the change history. e.g. http://www.osm.org/browse/way/60009458 which I left "unknown" hoping that someone can fill it in (or that next time I'll spy a hidden overgrown sign...)

Jomcc

Stinicker wrote: »

Yesterday I went from knowing nothing at all about OSM or sat-nav tracking to capturing a route and posting it to OSM.

After reading this thread, I tried playing with openstreetmap last night. I uploaded a small road close to where I live and all seemed to go well. Does it take long to become visible on the map?
I've saved all of my tracks from my Garmin Zumo over past 2 years so I would have a huge amount of data that I could upload. If my first one works ok, I could see this becoming an almost obsessive hobby.

Sponge Bob

You may not have saved or 'committed' the data at the end. It should appear straight away once you do ( sometime you need to zoom in a bit to see "tertiary" roads which is what is missing from OSM in Ireland. The primary ( N) and secondary (R) roads are up there already.

GeneHunt

Has anyone found a good place for downloading OSM maps (.img file), here's where I'm currently getting my maps or here too. I've used others sites for OSM maps, but they caused my Garmin to take an age to calculate a route.

Anyway the reason for asking is before I used the OSM maps my Garmin (Nuvi 760) would show the max speed on the LHS of the screen, so has anyone found a site with OSM maps with max speed included or is this an impossible dream to have max speed showing from OSM maps on my Garmin? Do the newer Garmin's do it maybe?

PS Is there any way to get OSM maps for a TomTom? (a friend of mine is looking for his TomTom)

Jomcc

Sponge Bob wrote: »

You may not have saved or 'committed' the data at the end. It should appear straight away once you do ( sometime you need to zoom in a bit to see "tertiary" roads which is what is missing from OSM in Ireland. The primary ( N) and secondary (R) roads are up there already.

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

mackerski

GeneHunt wrote: »

Has anyone found a good place for downloading OSM maps (.img file)

Try http://andrewmccarthy.ie/osm/

These maps are generated daily.

GeneHunt wrote: »

Anyway the reason for asking is before I used the OSM maps my Garmin (Nuvi 760) would show the max speed on the LHS of the screen, so has anyone found a site with OSM maps with max speed included or is this an impossible dream to have max speed showing from OSM maps on my Garmin? Do the newer Garmin's do it maybe?

My Nuvi is capable of displaying speed limits and does so for Garmin's own maps. My OSM maps don't display the limits. Mkgmap (the tool we use to make Garmin maps) does use the maxspeed tag in OSM, but may not know how to encode it in such a way that the limit will display. Keep in mind that Garmin does not publish its map file format and that what we use is the result of reverse-engineering.

Another possibility is that the speed limit display is only available the newer NT format maps. NT format is not currently understood at all. So don't expect to see this any time soon.

Users should also note that, depending on your Garmin device, address search will either not work at all or will be hit and miss. Cracking this problem is a priority for the developers of mkgmap, but it's taking a while. You can use the maps for routing, but you may have to point to your destination on the map.

GeneHunt wrote: »

PS Is there any way to get OSM maps for a TomTom? (a friend of mine is looking for his TomTom)

Not in the way you'd probably hope - the map format is proprietary and not yet reverse-engineered. But the hardware could theoretically be cannibalised, more here.

mackerski

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?

If you PM me your OSM username I can check your edits and see if things look reasonable. All edits for a user are visible under a link like this (mine):

http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/mackerski/edits

Aard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.