On 11/28/06, Sam Kome <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I _love_ the idea of openstreetmap, but truly doubt that it will retain enough dedicated participants over time. Initial capture is not enough; eternal vigilance is needed to recapture the data everytime a bulldozer appears or a planning committee renumbers the addresses.
I disagree, I'm not a GIS-ologist, but my assumptions is that OpenStreetmap, or a similar project, will continue to grow slowly until: a) GPS devices become ubiquitous, as does the technology to streamline and facilitate the acquisition and syncronisation of 'tagging' info. b) Some corporate or governmental agency acquires the rights to place such streetmap data into the public domain. Likely a result of widespread GPS adoption (a). You are right in that if you look at who is creating these uploads, it is mostly a small subset of devotees.. however for all the towns and cities I've lived in, the actual street layouts and names don't change terribly often. One thing the Neo1973 should be able to do easily, which would differentiate it somewhat, is that it could time its GPS acquisitions to fill in the missing datapoints, by comparing existing datapoints - if a road takes a sharp bend, the extent of which is not picked up by the first pass: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | @ | Then the Neo could compare its own vectors, and the timestamps for the first pass.. and flesh out the missing corner, add a few more passes and you've boosted your accuracy. Dedicated participants, as you say, are only required at the early-adoption stage because they are the ones who end up creating the mechanisms which the masses end up using? Richard _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/community
