Re: [OSM-talk] OSM TIGER-based map quality

2008-04-04 Thread Christopher Schmidt
On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 08:29:56AM +, Jonathan W. Lowe wrote:
> When overlaying OSM with the recently available TIGER 2007 shapefile
> data for Census Blocks in Alameda County (California), I'm encountering
> both an offset and difference in relative position of the linework.  In
> short, OSM's data looks a lot more accurate and consistent -- streets
> that should be straight actually look straight in OSM, but often zig-zag
> in the TIGER 2007 edges and tabblock shapefiles.  For a visual, visit:
> http://www.giswebsite.com/demos/tiger_overlays.html

Um, isn't this the whole point of OSM? The TIGER data was imported so
that it could be improved manually by users. This doesn't include just
the geometry either: attributes have been changed as well. (See
http://crschmidt.net/osm/history.html?type=way&id=21456366)

> Any observations or ideas about where the misalignment might come from?

This misalignment is common in TIGER: It's designed for 1:10
accuracy. Anything more than that (you're at about 1:7500 there) is not
going to be accurate. (Or at least likely to not be.)

> Though it smells partially like a datum problem, that path hasn't
> yielded any solutions yet.

Doubtful. You'd have a more significant shift.

This is the real power of OSM at work. See it, and marvel in its glory.
:)

Regards,
-- 
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MetaCarta

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Re: [OSM-talk] OSM TIGER-based map quality

2008-04-04 Thread Jonathan W. Lowe
On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 07:05 -0400, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 08:29:56AM +, Jonathan W. Lowe wrote:
> > When overlaying OSM with the recently available TIGER 2007 shapefile
> > data for Census Blocks in Alameda County (California), I'm encountering
> > both an offset and difference in relative position of the linework.  In
> > short, OSM's data looks a lot more accurate and consistent -- streets
> > that should be straight actually look straight in OSM, but often zig-zag
> > in the TIGER 2007 edges and tabblock shapefiles.  For a visual, visit:
> > http://www.giswebsite.com/demos/tiger_overlays.html
> 
> Um, isn't this the whole point of OSM? The TIGER data was imported so
> that it could be improved manually by users. This doesn't include just
> the geometry either: attributes have been changed as well. (See
> http://crschmidt.net/osm/history.html?type=way&id=21456366)

Thanks, Chris -- are you suggesting that the TIGER 2007 reissue from the
US Census is not lining up with OSM in some (rather extensive) areas
because the geometry in those areas has been completely improved
manually since the upload of TIGER completed earlier this year.  Yes,
obviously, such a major improvement in accuracy from manual attention is
one of the (many) wonderful benefits of OSM -- I guess I'm just
surprised that so much manual editing could have been accomplished for
such an extensive area given the short time TIGER has been available for
editing in OSM.  Is there any existing interface for visualizing which
features have changed in OSM for a given area?

If that is indeed the case, since the Census Blocks come from the same
topologic source as the streets do, I wonder if there's any existing
routine that would enable me to run the same edits on the Census Blocks
geometries, or use the OSM streets to derive Census Block boundaries and
then conflate the Block identifiers.  Thinking out loud here...
> 
> > Any observations or ideas about where the misalignment might come from?
> 
> This misalignment is common in TIGER: It's designed for 1:10
> accuracy. Anything more than that (you're at about 1:7500 there) is not
> going to be accurate. (Or at least likely to not be.)

I may not be communicating the scenario clearly enough -- TIGER
misalignment is common with other non-TIGER data certainly, but TIGER
data is not misaligned with other TIGER data of the same issue.  I'm
encountering what I thought was the latter case.

TIGER data models both visible physical features such as streets, but
also invisible census data collection boundaries such as blocks and
tracts.  The block and tract boundaries and the street centerlines are
derived from the same single topologic source, so when viewed together,
line up perfectly unless one or the other has been altered independently
since original release.  The 2007 shapefile issue confirms this --
linestrings in the "edges" shapefile perfectly match the polygon
boundaries in the "tabblock" shapefile.  But neither match the OSM
geometry, at least using the conversion and display methods I've used
within Berkeley's geographic extents.  Since all the data has the same
parentage, I initially thought there would be a tighter match between
TIGER 2007 and OSM TIGER, but not if the editing to OSM TIGER has been
as extensive as you seem to be suggesting.
> 
> > Though it smells partially like a datum problem, that path hasn't
> > yielded any solutions yet.
> 
> Doubtful. You'd have a more significant shift.

Experimenting with NAD27 to NAD83 conversions actually produces a
similar shift, depending on the region.  But I agree -- it seems to be
something else.  Hm.
> 
> This is the real power of OSM at work. See it, and marvel in its glory.
> :)
Yes, marvelous it most certainly is.  I currently use OSM (via an
OpenLayers client) with multiple existing customers and have supported
the whole ethos of open-source in published articles, starting with one
on PostGIS, since 2001, so am no stranger to the glory.  (You and I met,
Chris, at FOSS4G2006 in Switzerland, where you introduced yourself as
"Boy Genius".)
> 
> Regards,


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Re: [OSM-talk] OSM TIGER-based map quality

2008-04-04 Thread Christopher Schmidt
On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 01:53:24PM +0100, Jonathan W. Lowe wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 07:05 -0400, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> > On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 08:29:56AM +, Jonathan W. Lowe wrote:
> > > When overlaying OSM with the recently available TIGER 2007 shapefile
> > > data for Census Blocks in Alameda County (California), I'm encountering
> > > both an offset and difference in relative position of the linework.  In
> > > short, OSM's data looks a lot more accurate and consistent -- streets
> > > that should be straight actually look straight in OSM, but often zig-zag
> > > in the TIGER 2007 edges and tabblock shapefiles.  For a visual, visit:
> > > http://www.giswebsite.com/demos/tiger_overlays.html
> > 
> > Um, isn't this the whole point of OSM? The TIGER data was imported so
> > that it could be improved manually by users. This doesn't include just
> > the geometry either: attributes have been changed as well. (See
> > http://crschmidt.net/osm/history.html?type=way&id=21456366)
> 
> Thanks, Chris -- are you suggesting that the TIGER 2007 reissue from the
> US Census is not lining up with OSM in some (rather extensive) areas
> because the geometry in those areas has been completely improved
> manually since the upload of TIGER completed earlier this year.  Yes,
> obviously, such a major improvement in accuracy from manual attention is
> one of the (many) wonderful benefits of OSM -- I guess I'm just
> surprised that so much manual editing could have been accomplished for
> such an extensive area given the short time TIGER has been available for
> editing in OSM.  Is there any existing interface for visualizing which
> features have changed in OSM for a given area?

That is exactly what I am suggesting, based on an examination of the
objects in the area you're looking at: all of them have been updated
several times (as the history URL above demonstrates) by a single user
in what seems to clearly be a cleanup effort. (This was based on using
an OpenLayers map to select 10 different streets based on the lonlat I
observed in your JOSM instance and view the history for each.)

> > > Any observations or ideas about where the misalignment might come from?
> > 
> > This misalignment is common in TIGER: It's designed for 1:10
> > accuracy. Anything more than that (you're at about 1:7500 there) is not
> > going to be accurate. (Or at least likely to not be.)
> 
> I may not be communicating the scenario clearly enough -- TIGER
> misalignment is common with other non-TIGER data certainly, but TIGER
> data is not misaligned with other TIGER data of the same issue.  I'm
> encountering what I thought was the latter case.

No: what you're encountering is TIGER misalignment with reality. OSM is
much closer to reality in this instance than TIGER.

> TIGER data models both visible physical features such as streets, but
> also invisible census data collection boundaries such as blocks and
> tracts.  The block and tract boundaries and the street centerlines are
> derived from the same single topologic source, so when viewed together,
> line up perfectly unless one or the other has been altered independently
> since original release.  The 2007 shapefile issue confirms this --
> linestrings in the "edges" shapefile perfectly match the polygon
> boundaries in the "tabblock" shapefile.  But neither match the OSM
> geometry, at least using the conversion and display methods I've used
> within Berkeley's geographic extents.  

Right. Because TIGER is wrong :)

> Since all the data has the same
> parentage, I initially thought there would be a tighter match between
> TIGER 2007 and OSM TIGER, but not if the editing to OSM TIGER has been
> as extensive as you seem to be suggesting.

That is correct.

> > > Though it smells partially like a datum problem, that path hasn't
> > > yielded any solutions yet.
> > 
> > Doubtful. You'd have a more significant shift.
> 
> Experimenting with NAD27 to NAD83 conversions actually produces a
> similar shift, depending on the region.  But I agree -- it seems to be
> something else.  Hm.

I would have expected it to be more significant by a factor of about
two, from observation, but I could be mis-guessing the scale here: I'm
used to working in Cambridge, rather than SF. In any case, the
misalignment is just a standard misalignment of TIGER data to reality:
OSM is much closer to reality, despite the initial import being from
TIGER.

> > This is the real power of OSM at work. See it, and marvel in its glory.
> > :)
> Yes, marvelous it most certainly is.  I currently use OSM (via an
> OpenLayers client) with multiple existing customers and have supported
> the whole ethos of open-source in published articles, starting with one
> on PostGIS, since 2001, so am no stranger to the glory.  (You and I met,
> Chris, at FOSS4G2006 in Switzerland, where you introduced yourself as
> "Boy Genius".)

I'm now "Meta Ninja", since I have to manage other ninjas, and Leslie
Hawthorn (Summer of Code org

Re: [OSM-talk] OSM TIGER-based map quality

2008-04-04 Thread Dan Putler
Dave,

>From what I've seen, yes. Or at least for Santa Clara County,
California. To bolster this, the main "edge" files do not contain street
address ranges in the 2007 data, but the US Census Bureau gives as one
of the two possible options of adding this information to the file is
taking the address ranges from the 2006 TIGER/Line data by matching on
the tlid field. A pretty good indication that the tlid fields match.

Dan

On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 10:31 -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 09:12 -0400, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> > That is exactly what I am suggesting, based on an examination of the
> > objects in the area you're looking at: all of them have been updated
> > several times (as the history URL above demonstrates) by a single user
> > in what seems to clearly be a cleanup effort. (This was based on using
> > an OpenLayers map to select 10 different streets based on the lonlat I
> > observed in your JOSM instance and view the history for each.)
> 
> If this is true, then we can probably go back and fix it.  We have all
> of the TIGER tlid (unique ids) for all of the uploaded data.  Have those
> remained the same in the new TIGER data?
> 
> -- Dave
> 
> 
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Sauder School of Business
University of British Columbia


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Re: [OSM-talk] OSM TIGER-based map quality

2008-04-04 Thread Christopher Schmidt
On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 10:31:11AM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 09:12 -0400, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> > That is exactly what I am suggesting, based on an examination of the
> > objects in the area you're looking at: all of them have been updated
> > several times (as the history URL above demonstrates) by a single user
> > in what seems to clearly be a cleanup effort. (This was based on using
> > an OpenLayers map to select 10 different streets based on the lonlat I
> > observed in your JOSM instance and view the history for each.)
> 
> If this is true, then we can probably go back and fix it.  We have all
> of the TIGER tlid (unique ids) for all of the uploaded data.  Have those
> remained the same in the new TIGER data?

Fix... what? OSM is correct here... perhaps you mean "We can improve
TIGER 2007 with OSM data"?

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta

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Re: [OSM-talk] OSM TIGER-based map quality

2008-04-04 Thread Dave Hansen

On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 13:51 -0400, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 10:31:11AM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> > On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 09:12 -0400, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> > > That is exactly what I am suggesting, based on an examination of the
> > > objects in the area you're looking at: all of them have been updated
> > > several times (as the history URL above demonstrates) by a single user
> > > in what seems to clearly be a cleanup effort. (This was based on using
> > > an OpenLayers map to select 10 different streets based on the lonlat I
> > > observed in your JOSM instance and view the history for each.)
> > 
> > If this is true, then we can probably go back and fix it.  We have all
> > of the TIGER tlid (unique ids) for all of the uploaded data.  Have those
> > remained the same in the new TIGER data?
> 
> Fix... what? OSM is correct here... perhaps you mean "We can improve
> TIGER 2007 with OSM data"?

Did I misunderstand what's going on?

I assumed that the TIGER '07 data is better than the TIGER '05 (or so)
data that we populated OSM with.  If it is better, we can update OSM
from TIGER '07.

-- Dave


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Re: [OSM-talk] OSM TIGER-based map quality

2008-04-04 Thread Dave Hansen
On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 09:12 -0400, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> That is exactly what I am suggesting, based on an examination of the
> objects in the area you're looking at: all of them have been updated
> several times (as the history URL above demonstrates) by a single user
> in what seems to clearly be a cleanup effort. (This was based on using
> an OpenLayers map to select 10 different streets based on the lonlat I
> observed in your JOSM instance and view the history for each.)

If this is true, then we can probably go back and fix it.  We have all
of the TIGER tlid (unique ids) for all of the uploaded data.  Have those
remained the same in the new TIGER data?

-- Dave


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Re: [OSM-talk] OSM TIGER-based map quality

2008-04-04 Thread Dan Putler
Dave,

Not all counties have been improved through the MAF/TIGER Accuracy
Improvement Project (MTAIP). Here is a link to the counties that have
not been improved in the 2007 TIGER data:
http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tgrshp2007/tgrshp07nomtaip.txt

Dan

On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 10:53 -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 13:51 -0400, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> > On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 10:31:11AM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 09:12 -0400, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> > > > That is exactly what I am suggesting, based on an examination of the
> > > > objects in the area you're looking at: all of them have been updated
> > > > several times (as the history URL above demonstrates) by a single user
> > > > in what seems to clearly be a cleanup effort. (This was based on using
> > > > an OpenLayers map to select 10 different streets based on the lonlat I
> > > > observed in your JOSM instance and view the history for each.)
> > > 
> > > If this is true, then we can probably go back and fix it.  We have all
> > > of the TIGER tlid (unique ids) for all of the uploaded data.  Have those
> > > remained the same in the new TIGER data?
> > 
> > Fix... what? OSM is correct here... perhaps you mean "We can improve
> > TIGER 2007 with OSM data"?
> 
> Did I misunderstand what's going on?
> 
> I assumed that the TIGER '07 data is better than the TIGER '05 (or so)
> data that we populated OSM with.  If it is better, we can update OSM
> from TIGER '07.
> 
> -- Dave
> 
> 
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-- 
Dan Putler
Sauder School of Business
University of British Columbia


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Re: [OSM-talk] OSM TIGER-based map quality

2008-04-04 Thread Christopher Schmidt
On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 10:53:43AM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 13:51 -0400, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> > On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 10:31:11AM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 09:12 -0400, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> > > > That is exactly what I am suggesting, based on an examination of the
> > > > objects in the area you're looking at: all of them have been updated
> > > > several times (as the history URL above demonstrates) by a single user
> > > > in what seems to clearly be a cleanup effort. (This was based on using
> > > > an OpenLayers map to select 10 different streets based on the lonlat I
> > > > observed in your JOSM instance and view the history for each.)
> > > 
> > > If this is true, then we can probably go back and fix it.  We have all
> > > of the TIGER tlid (unique ids) for all of the uploaded data.  Have those
> > > remained the same in the new TIGER data?
> > 
> > Fix... what? OSM is correct here... perhaps you mean "We can improve
> > TIGER 2007 with OSM data"?
> 
> Did I misunderstand what's going on?
> 
> I assumed that the TIGER '07 data is better than the TIGER '05 (or so)
> data that we populated OSM with.  If it is better, we can update OSM
> from TIGER '07.

The images that were shared in this thread demonstrate that OSM is *way*
better than TIGER '05 or '07.

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta

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Re: [OSM-talk] OSM TIGER-based map quality

2008-04-04 Thread Dave Hansen
On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 11:04 -0700, Dan Putler wrote:
> Not all counties have been improved through the MAF/TIGER Accuracy
> Improvement Project (MTAIP). Here is a link to the counties that have
> not been improved in the 2007 TIGER data:
> http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tgrshp2007/tgrshp07nomtaip.txt

Cool, thanks for the pointer. 

That looks like ~1100 of the ~3500 total counties in the US.  

-- Dave


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Re: [OSM-talk] OSM TIGER-based map quality

2008-04-04 Thread Jonathan W. Lowe
On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 14:08 -0400, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 10:53:43AM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> > 
> > On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 13:51 -0400, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> > > On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 10:31:11AM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> > > > On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 09:12 -0400, Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> > > > > That is exactly what I am suggesting, based on an examination of the
> > > > > objects in the area you're looking at: all of them have been updated
> > > > > several times (as the history URL above demonstrates) by a single user
> > > > > in what seems to clearly be a cleanup effort. (This was based on using
> > > > > an OpenLayers map to select 10 different streets based on the lonlat I
> > > > > observed in your JOSM instance and view the history for each.)
> > > > 
> > > > If this is true, then we can probably go back and fix it.  We have all
> > > > of the TIGER tlid (unique ids) for all of the uploaded data.  Have those
> > > > remained the same in the new TIGER data?
> > > 
> > > Fix... what? OSM is correct here... perhaps you mean "We can improve
> > > TIGER 2007 with OSM data"?
> > 
> > Did I misunderstand what's going on?
> > 
> > I assumed that the TIGER '07 data is better than the TIGER '05 (or so)
> > data that we populated OSM with.  If it is better, we can update OSM
> > from TIGER '07.
> 
> The images that were shared in this thread demonstrate that OSM is *way*
> better than TIGER '05 or '07.

...that's true of Berkeley, Chris, but in any US geography where nobody
has yet edited the original TIGER upload, OSM is equivalent to TIGER '05
in all but storage format, and therefore may not be as accurate as TIGER
'07.
> 
> Regards,


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