Thanks Nick,
Glad I pitched in - I nearly deleted my post as an outsider...
I have found and been pointed to (by you & others) a load of useful info
- there is not necessarily a shortage of info, just that it's in
disparate places & I think this is the key issue. In constructing this
reply, I have found much of what I need to know but each strand isn't
quite complete in itself & you need to find enough strands. Ideally all
the info would be in one place, in a coherent house style but that
probably isn't possible. I could have a go at that but I'd need a bit
more mapping experience under my belt first.
Re your link - on the whole it is very helpful. First off, I would
prefer the font to be a tad larger as there is a lot of text & I'm
pushing 50 (I saw another older respondent as well so I'm not alone) &
my eyes aren't what they were.
What I haven't found is much about the value judgements in interpreting
the imagery for disaster purposes. Less of an issue for those with
formal GIS/remote sensing training probably. I think I am quite good at
interpreting aerial imagery, but my experience is English Landscape
(character) and heritage. This is very helpful:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Bgirardot/West_African_HOT_Mapping_Tips
To me, it would seem important to know whether a track can take vehicles
but I do not feel qualified to guess at this - some tips on interpreting
rural tracks etc might be useful. This could be a valuable use of a
small amount of time for someone experienced in this, as it would enable
newcomers like me to make a more useful contribution.
In general terms, it would be helpful to have a concise "Executive
Summary" about the aims of HOT - in terms of map quality & accuracy (in
metres) and maybe some of the "woollier" aspects like whether it is OK
to make an informed but subjective guess etc.
I've just seen this
https://datameet.hackpad.com/Nepal-Earthquake-Mapping-YDjLauUK0Ek
which addresses a number of the issues I think, in that it is a
user-friendly, concise guide to resources. Good work by the authors!
It may be that there is just a lot to learn! To some extent I thought
"I can do GIS", I can do this, but in reality cartography is a
discipline in its own right & it is somewhat presumptious to assume that
a layman can do it just because they want to help (without any
training): It might be useful to make this point, in a friendly way to
deter would-be mappers who come in & lock squares but don't achieve much.
Hope I haven't waffled on too much - I've been exploring whilst I write
this and consequently my position has changed a bit. But newcomers still
face the task of finding the information strands.
Happy to help if I can
Regards
Jonathan
--
Jonathan Webb
Freelance GIS Specialist
07941 921905
http://www.jwebbgis.co.uk
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/jwebbgis
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