Re: [Talk-us] Mapping for emergency services
Mike N writes: >> If you consider an urban search and rescue team's mission, and a large >> scale event, buildings on a map can be extremely helpful for planning >> and operations where the accountability of many directed searches of >> structures is imperative. > > That's good information - I sometimes wonder if there's a use for > buildings in OSM other than GIS queries for average household square > footage. In Massachusetts, we have basically full building coverage from an import several years ago (with a large number of us checking data before uploading) of LIDAR-derived outlines from MassGIS. They have been much more useful than I thought they would be; you can spot missing roads (not so much now as they've been added) and tell what areas are houses and what appears empty. Driveways going to houses can be used for navigation and now we have addresses on a lot of buildings. They are useful for orientation when in the woods and you can see them. (And agreed that it's great that different people add different things; around me OSM is the best overall dataset if you don't care about finding random business POIs.) ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Mapping for emergency services
> On Feb 5, 2020, at 12:32 PM, Mike N wrote: > > On 2/5/2020 9:49 AM, Eric Christensen via Talk-us wrote: > >> For the record, my team(s) has many cartographic resources at our >> fingertips that we can use for search and rescue including, but not >> limited to: USGS 7.5' maps, National Park Service maps, OSM, Google >> maps, state and local GIS data, and several options for aerial imagery. > > It's great to hear from a data consumer! It would seem to be useful to be > able to create some sort of meta-marking about regions of data quality in > OSM, meaning that "This area has excellent detail", "this area has road > geometry only", and "this area hasn't been detailed and minor roads are known > to have poor road geometry", which would somehow be indicated in your app. As a consumer and mapper, my opinion is that the areas popular with hikers, trail runners and mountain bikers are much better mapped in OSM than in other maps. Excluding the non-topographic Apple and Google maps, the current computer generated US Topos are the worst (current US Topos credit TomTom for roads, no credit for trails and since nearly all trails are missing I guess it makes sense that there is no attribution). The second best is probably a tie between the current USFS topos and the old manually generated USGS topos. But OSM based topographic maps are by far the best for off road use in my area. I actually got started in OSM by looking around for a way to create an updated printed backcountry ski map for the forest area I volunteer at. I can assure you that the OSM data for that area is best of the lot. With respect to search and rescue, I’ve seen that a number of teams that we interact and train with have started using SarTopo [1], both the website and the new smartphone app. If you look, the default layer for the SarTopo maps are using OSM data. So while those teams and the county sheriffs they work with may not know it, they are using OpenStreetMap data. And it is relied upon for many (maybe even most) of the backcountry searches in my area. I also do a fair amount of mapping for areas I hike and while I usually find a place to improve here and there, it seems that there are other OSM hikers who have done pretty good work before I got there. But things change so I keep making updates. Example: Between last Wednesday and today a “social” or “informal” trail has been blocked off in the Laguna Coast Wilderness area. Noticed that today so I need to make an edit after I send this email. Cheers, Tod [1] https://sartopo.com/map.html#ll=34.37745,-118.05908&z=8&b=mbt signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Mapping for emergency services
On 2/5/2020 9:49 AM, Eric Christensen via Talk-us wrote: For the record, my team(s) has many cartographic resources at our fingertips that we can use for search and rescue including, but not limited to: USGS 7.5' maps, National Park Service maps, OSM, Google maps, state and local GIS data, and several options for aerial imagery. It's great to hear from a data consumer! It would seem to be useful to be able to create some sort of meta-marking about regions of data quality in OSM, meaning that "This area has excellent detail", "this area has road geometry only", and "this area hasn't been detailed and minor roads are known to have poor road geometry", which would somehow be indicated in your app. If you consider an urban search and rescue team's mission, and a large scale event, buildings on a map can be extremely helpful for planning and operations where the accountability of many directed searches of structures is imperative. That's good information - I sometimes wonder if there's a use for buildings in OSM other than GIS queries for average household square footage. I say all this to really say to all those that go the extra mile to map a trail (and determine if it's just a walking trail or maybe something big enough to get an ATV, vehicle, or horse through), add a stream, outline a dangerous cliff, add a building, align a roadway, mark the bathrooms at your local park, and so many other tedious, small things that seem to be totally innocuous... thank you! I'm really happy that some local outdoor /history enthusiasts have been exploring and detail mapping all the dirt roads and trails in the nature reserve-rich parts of our county. If the rest of our group adds the rest of the buildings and driveways, it will be a great resource for the area. ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Mapping for emergency services
On 2/3/20 9:57 AM, Mike Thompson wrote: > The > exception was a search and rescue group that used OSM to help locate > missing people in the back country because OSM contains trails that no > other source has. I was just sitting down to discuss how I use OSM in wilderness search and rescue when I saw this in your message; perfect timing! For the record, my team(s) has many cartographic resources at our fingertips that we can use for search and rescue including, but not limited to: USGS 7.5' maps, National Park Service maps, OSM, Google maps, state and local GIS data, and several options for aerial imagery. (This is a USA-centric perspective.) I encourage the use of OSM data, wherever possible, including OSM-derivatives for several reasons including: * generally provides the best on-the-ground data, * can be updated quickly with GPS tracks and aerial imagery if the area isn't complete, * provides a good alternative to aerial imagery, which tend to be very bandwidth-intensive, if the mapping is complete and thorough enough to include ground cover and everything that can be seen in the imagery, * works well with our tools for planning and operations, * contains POIs that we are interested in, depending on the type of person we're looking for (structures, water (pools and natural), etc). If you consider an urban search and rescue team's mission, and a large scale event, buildings on a map can be extremely helpful for planning and operations where the accountability of many directed searches of structures is imperative. I say all this to really say to all those that go the extra mile to map a trail (and determine if it's just a walking trail or maybe something big enough to get an ATV, vehicle, or horse through), add a stream, outline a dangerous cliff, add a building, align a roadway, mark the bathrooms at your local park, and so many other tedious, small things that seem to be totally innocuous... thank you! It really does help us plan search missions and, operationally, helps us avoid hazards, search more effectively, and know where to setup our base camps (near those bathrooms!). I've spent many hours updating the ares where we train so if you, by chance, get lost in one of those areas I have full faith that our maps will be good to go. Unfortunately, people seem to go missing in a variety of areas, including in their own neighborhoods, so don't feel like there are areas that shouldn't be mapped! :) R, Eric "Sparks" ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] Mapping for emergency services
On 2/4/2020 9:57 AM, Paul Johnson wrote: . Oddly enough, for the rural firefighters? Osmand with Microsoft Earth imagery as the background is their most popular pick because it works brilliantly offline and we have better map data than the state itself does. It is useful to learn what works elsewhere and that there are other locations already doing this. Osmand on IOS is a study in frustration of almost working. I suppose that means that I should contribute to that project to bring it on par with the Android app. ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
