Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Nate Wessel]

I certainly hope I'm not doing the Toronto import alone :-)

Sorry if I didn't report back to this list - I had suggested on the OSM 
Canada Toronto Slack channel that we seemed to be ready to start a soft 
launch of the import to see if we found any major problems etc. So far, 
I haven't heard of any big problems or encountered any myself. We only 
have about 20/300 tasks finished at the moment.


I've had some help from DannyMcD on this and others are certainly 
encouraged to join in!


http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/175

Regarding import accounts - good catch Daniel. I have indeed been using 
my standard account. I remember having to reconfigure my user ID in JOSM 
settings when importing in the past. I need to do that again this time! 
I will also make a note on the import instructions for Toronto. 
Personally, I don't think it's a HUGE problem to have the wrong account 
associated, though it's definitely preferable to isolate the import 
changes to some degree from standard contributions.


Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

On 2020-04-23 3:38 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:


Hi all,

I just completed the task #173 (Squamish - Building Import) benchmark. 
The import procedure seems OK. So I think anyone interested in 
completing the import for other areas is welcome, as long as the 
procedure is respected.


Regarding the Squamish area, the presence of numerous GPS tracks 
really made a difference. ODB buildings were (too) often badly 
positioned and not to scale, something I could not have seen or 
confirmed without these tracks. I then encourage everyone to upload 
their GPS tracks in OSM! The Import Status for Squamish has been 
updated to “Completed” [1].


Regarding task #175 - Toronto Building Import, I understand that Nate 
Wessel is going to the complete the job alone? I updated the Import 
Status for Toronto but Nates’ import account is not identified yet [2].


A lot of tasks are still waiting for us so good mapping!

Daniel

[1] 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada_-_The_Open_Database_of_Buildings#British_Columbia


[2] 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada_-_The_Open_Database_of_Buildings#Ontario



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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Well, looking at the Squamish import, I just found out that I imported 
everything using my standard account, not my import account :-(
The problem is that many years ago I configured JOSM to use OAuth-based 
authentication and did not change it. I thought that the task manager was going 
to use my import account to interact with JOSM's remote control (because I used 
my import account to log into the task manager), which does not seem to be the 
case.
It is therefore important to ensure that the account used is the correct one. I 
modified the import procedure to ask users to check the account used in JOSM 
prior to import data. I will use basic authentication for better control during 
the next import. If it were possible to change the data contributor a 
posteriori I would do so, but I don't think it is possible. That is bad.

Daniel

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Hi all,
I just completed the task #173 (Squamish - Building Import) benchmark. The 
import procedure seems OK. So I think anyone interested in completing the 
import for other areas is welcome, as long as the procedure is respected.

Regarding the Squamish area, the presence of numerous GPS tracks really made a 
difference. ODB buildings were (too) often badly positioned and not to scale, 
something I could not have seen or confirmed without these tracks. I then 
encourage everyone to upload their GPS tracks in OSM! The Import Status for 
Squamish has been updated to “Completed” [1].

Regarding task #175 - Toronto Building Import, I understand that Nate Wessel is 
going to the complete the job alone? I updated the Import Status for Toronto 
but Nates’ import account is not identified yet [2].

A lot of tasks are still waiting for us so good mapping!
Daniel

[1] 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada_-_The_Open_Database_of_Buildings#British_Columbia
[2] 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada_-_The_Open_Database_of_Buildings#Ontario

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Lol

Sent from Galaxy S7


From: Tim Elrick 
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2020 6:49:48 PM
To: Daniel @jfd553 
Cc: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org 
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Hi Daniel,

I agree with you. I didn't pay attention to the fact that Squamish is
located in a hilly area.

Greetings from Quebec's flatlands,
Tim

On 2020-03-22 14:16, Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
Hi all, sorry for this long Email.

Thanks to Tim to have comment! He wrote: “I [...] found that you can
either align the hospital with the underlying imagery or the houses to
the right of the task, but not both at the same time. [...]  If we
assume that the aerial imagery data is the correctly projected [...], we
would have to correct the position of all the buildings according to the
underlying aerial imagery.”

Well, you are right. Actually, I did not align most of the buildings to
the image! Why? Because unless proven otherwise, ODB data should be more
accurate (XY) than most images available, especially in hilly areas.
Municipalities generally use aerial photos to create their maps (ODB
data). Because these aerial photos provide multiple views of the same
area, they can be used to compute digital elevation models (DEMs)
showing even buildings’ height. Only once done, they can create accurate
ortho-images (orthographic view [1]). Without an accurate DEM, objects
location on an image is not accurate either, because we are in a
perspective view [1].
The DEMs used to create available OSM images generally do not have a
sufficient accuracy in mountainous areas. This is the case of the
Squamish area where the image shows many examples of perspective views
[1]. In flat areas, this effect is minimal, which makes it possible to
adjust an image over a large region with a great accuracy. The only
visible effect is then related to buildings’ height.

Regarding the hospital, it is located on a hill between two plateaus.
The image can be adjusted with a good accuracy on the flat area near the
river, or on the plateau on the top of the hill (potentially with
another offset), but it is more difficult in between. I tried to adjust
its geometry (details) from its original ODB location.

I adjust the image to surrounding buildings when I need to map a new one
or add details to an existing one. I may also look at available GPS
tracks to confirm general ODB data location.

Thanks again. Comments?
Daniel

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthophoto

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Tim Elrick]

Hi Daniel,

I agree with you. I didn't pay attention to the fact that Squamish is 
located in a hilly area.


Greetings from Quebec's flatlands,
Tim

On 2020-03-22 14:16, Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
Hi all, sorry for this long Email.

Thanks to Tim to have comment! He wrote: “I [...] found that you can 
either align the hospital with the underlying imagery or the houses to 
the right of the task, but not both at the same time. [...]  If we 
assume that the aerial imagery data is the correctly projected [...], we 
would have to correct the position of all the buildings according to the 
underlying aerial imagery.”


Well, you are right. Actually, I did not align most of the buildings to 
the image! Why? Because unless proven otherwise, ODB data should be more 
accurate (XY) than most images available, especially in hilly areas.
Municipalities generally use aerial photos to create their maps (ODB 
data). Because these aerial photos provide multiple views of the same 
area, they can be used to compute digital elevation models (DEMs) 
showing even buildings’ height. Only once done, they can create accurate 
ortho-images (orthographic view [1]). Without an accurate DEM, objects 
location on an image is not accurate either, because we are in a 
perspective view [1].
The DEMs used to create available OSM images generally do not have a 
sufficient accuracy in mountainous areas. This is the case of the 
Squamish area where the image shows many examples of perspective views 
[1]. In flat areas, this effect is minimal, which makes it possible to 
adjust an image over a large region with a great accuracy. The only 
visible effect is then related to buildings’ height.


Regarding the hospital, it is located on a hill between two plateaus. 
The image can be adjusted with a good accuracy on the flat area near the 
river, or on the plateau on the top of the hill (potentially with 
another offset), but it is more difficult in between. I tried to adjust 
its geometry (details) from its original ODB location.


I adjust the image to surrounding buildings when I need to map a new one 
or add details to an existing one. I may also look at available GPS 
tracks to confirm general ODB data location.


Thanks again. Comments?
Daniel

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthophoto


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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Hi all, sorry for this long Email.

Thanks to Tim to have comment! He wrote: “I [...] found that you can either 
align the hospital with the underlying imagery or the houses to the right of 
the task, but not both at the same time. [...]  If we assume that the aerial 
imagery data is the correctly projected [...], we would have to correct the 
position of all the buildings according to the underlying aerial imagery.”

Well, you are right. Actually, I did not align most of the buildings to the 
image! Why? Because unless proven otherwise, ODB data should be more accurate 
(XY) than most images available, especially in hilly areas. 
Municipalities generally use aerial photos to create their maps (ODB data). 
Because these aerial photos provide multiple views of the same area, they can 
be used to compute digital elevation models (DEMs) showing even buildings’ 
height. Only once done, they can create accurate ortho-images (orthographic 
view [1]). Without an accurate DEM, objects location on an image is not 
accurate either, because we are in a perspective view [1]. 
The DEMs used to create available OSM images generally do not have a sufficient 
accuracy in mountainous areas. This is the case of the Squamish area where the 
image shows many examples of perspective views [1]. In flat areas, this effect 
is minimal, which makes it possible to adjust an image over a large region with 
a great accuracy. The only visible effect is then related to buildings’ height. 

Regarding the hospital, it is located on a hill between two plateaus. The image 
can be adjusted with a good accuracy on the flat area near the river, or on the 
plateau on the top of the hill (potentially with another offset), but it is 
more difficult in between. I tried to adjust its geometry (details) from its 
original ODB location. 

I adjust the image to surrounding buildings when I need to map a new one or add 
details to an existing one. I may also look at available GPS tracks to confirm 
general ODB data location.

Thanks again. Comments?
Daniel

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthophoto
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Thank,
I'll have a look at that tomorrow. I'll get back to you for further comments an 
changes to the procedure if required.
Daniel

Sent from Galaxy S7


From: Tim Elrick 
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2020 6:23:59 PM
To: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org 
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Hi Daniel,

I had a brief look at project #173, task #20 and found that you can
either align the hospital with the underlying imagery or the houses to
the right of the task, but not both at the same time (Bing and ESRI bear
the same effect). This might have to do with different
projections/coordinate reference systems used by the data provider of
the buildings and the one used by the aerial imagery provider.
If we assume that the aerial imagery data is the correctly projected (as
we do as default in OSM, at least for Bing imagery), we would have to
correct the position of all the buildings according to the underlying
aerial imagery.

Furthermore, the buildings to be imported seem to have an odd level of
detail. Some are pretty detailed, some are missing details at all. I did
not only look at task #20 which you have already worked on, but also
task #21. Not sure if they were automatically collected or if a bored
intern had to do this - that would explain the varying quality.

Apart from the location of the buildings, you did a great job, I think.

Unfortunately, I am still working on two other projects in the tasking
manager at the moment, so, I most probably won't be of much help on
#173, but who knows, we are all grounded at the moment, aren't we?

Happy mapping,
Tim


On 2020-03-20 10:23, Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
Hi,

I completed more than a dozen tiles of the task #173 (Squamish). That
would be interesting if some of you could validate what I did so far, in
order to adjust the procedure if required.

Thanks.

Daniel


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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Tim Elrick]

Hi Daniel,

I had a brief look at project #173, task #20 and found that you can 
either align the hospital with the underlying imagery or the houses to 
the right of the task, but not both at the same time (Bing and ESRI bear 
the same effect). This might have to do with different 
projections/coordinate reference systems used by the data provider of 
the buildings and the one used by the aerial imagery provider.
If we assume that the aerial imagery data is the correctly projected (as 
we do as default in OSM, at least for Bing imagery), we would have to 
correct the position of all the buildings according to the underlying 
aerial imagery.


Furthermore, the buildings to be imported seem to have an odd level of 
detail. Some are pretty detailed, some are missing details at all. I did 
not only look at task #20 which you have already worked on, but also 
task #21. Not sure if they were automatically collected or if a bored 
intern had to do this - that would explain the varying quality.


Apart from the location of the buildings, you did a great job, I think.

Unfortunately, I am still working on two other projects in the tasking 
manager at the moment, so, I most probably won't be of much help on 
#173, but who knows, we are all grounded at the moment, aren't we?


Happy mapping,
Tim


On 2020-03-20 10:23, Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
Hi,

I completed more than a dozen tiles of the task #173 (Squamish). That
would be interesting if some of you could validate what I did so far, in
order to adjust the procedure if required.

Thanks.

Daniel


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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Hi,
I completed more than a dozen tiles of the task #173 (Squamish). That would be 
interesting if some of you could validate what I did so far, in order to adjust 
the procedure if required.
Thanks.

Daniel

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

The Squamish buildings are not as accurate as expected. It seems that they were 
acquired through automatic image interpretation, with little validation. I 
found many buildings with the roof correctly mapped, but one of the building 
faces (visible on the imagery) was added as a roof component. So there is a lot 
of work to be done. Help is welcome.

Daniel
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Hi,
I have adjusted the import procedure to take into account that there will be no 
ODB data server available for a while (James’ email below). I started importing 
data over Squamish using the procedure to test it. It seems OK so far. It would 
be great if others do the same and test the procedure.

Daniel

From: James [mailto:james2...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, March 09, 2020 20:13
To: Daniel @jfd553
Cc: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Ok so I have some bad news, the data.osmcanada.ca<http://data.osmcanada.ca> 
server that was being hosted by a friend on AWS was shutdown and wiped. I will 
need to get time to get things setup on another server to host the 
microinstance: https://github.com/osmottawa/micro-data-service
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Cool, thanks!

Sent from Galaxy S7


From: James 
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2020 1:56:16 PM
To: Daniel @jfd553 
Cc: Talk-CA OpenStreetMap 
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Project #173. I've set you as an experienced mapper and you should be able to 
see it.

http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/173

On Tue., Mar. 10, 2020, 1:05 p.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
mailto:jfd...@hotmail.com>> wrote:

Sounds good to me. Can we try it as if I don't have the data? I might then be 
able to clearly document the procedure in the wiki.



Daniel



From: James [mailto:james2...@gmail.com<mailto:james2...@gmail.com>]
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2020 10:38
To: Daniel @jfd553
Cc: Talk-CA OpenStreetMap
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada



The task is setup in task manager, it was just more convenient serving data via 
the service. I can publish the task and invite those that have enough 
experience (they would need the orthoganalized data though) Which I could 
provide over slack(osm-ca.slack.com<http://osm-ca.slack.com>)



On Tue., Mar. 10, 2020, 10:33 a.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
mailto:jfd...@hotmail.com>> wrote:

Hi James,

That is too bad, but there is no rush at this stage because we are simply 
refining the import procedure. In the meantime, I propose to act as “Task 
manager”. I can provide some tiles (task frame and orthogonalized buildings’ 
footprint) to those who wish to try the import procedure.

I should start importing today with a first tile. If changes/additional 
information are needed to adjust the procedure, I suggest we discuss it on the 
import Talk page [1]



Daniel



[1] 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Canada_-_The_Open_Database_of_Buildings





From: James [mailto:james2...@gmail.com<mailto:james2...@gmail.com>]
Sent: Monday, March 09, 2020 20:13
To: Daniel @jfd553
Cc: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org<mailto:talk-ca@openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada



Ok so I have some bad news, the data.osmcanada.ca<http://data.osmcanada.ca> 
server that was being hosted by a friend on AWS was shutdown and wiped. I will 
need to get time to get things setup on another server to host the 
microinstance: https://github.com/osmottawa/micro-data-service
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[James]

Project #173. I've set you as an experienced mapper and you should be able
to see it.

http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/173

On Tue., Mar. 10, 2020, 1:05 p.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
wrote:

> Sounds good to me. Can we try it as if I don't have the data? I might then
> be able to clearly document the procedure in the wiki.
>
>
>
> Daniel
>
>
>
> *From:* James [mailto:james2...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, March 10, 2020 10:38
> *To:* Daniel @jfd553
> *Cc:* Talk-CA OpenStreetMap
> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada
>
>
>
> The task is setup in task manager, it was just more convenient serving
> data via the service. I can publish the task and invite those that have
> enough experience (they would need the orthoganalized data though) Which I
> could provide over slack(osm-ca.slack.com)
>
>
>
> On Tue., Mar. 10, 2020, 10:33 a.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
> wrote:
>
> Hi James,
>
> That is too bad, but there is no rush at this stage because we are simply
> refining the import procedure. In the meantime, I propose to act as “Task
> manager”. I can provide some tiles (task frame and orthogonalized
> buildings’ footprint) to those who wish to try the import procedure.
>
> I should start importing today with a first tile. If changes/additional
> information are needed to adjust the procedure, I suggest we discuss it on
> the import Talk page [1]
>
>
>
> Daniel
>
>
>
> [1]
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Canada_-_The_Open_Database_of_Buildings
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* James [mailto:james2...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Monday, March 09, 2020 20:13
> *To:* Daniel @jfd553
> *Cc:* talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada
>
>
>
> Ok so I have some bad news, the data.osmcanada.ca server that was being
> hosted by a friend on AWS was shutdown and wiped. I will need to get time
> to get things setup on another server to host the microinstance:
> https://github.com/osmottawa/micro-data-service
>
>
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Sounds good to me. Can we try it as if I don't have the data? I might then be 
able to clearly document the procedure in the wiki.

Daniel

From: James [mailto:james2...@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2020 10:38
To: Daniel @jfd553
Cc: Talk-CA OpenStreetMap
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

The task is setup in task manager, it was just more convenient serving data via 
the service. I can publish the task and invite those that have enough 
experience (they would need the orthoganalized data though) Which I could 
provide over slack(osm-ca.slack.com<http://osm-ca.slack.com>)

On Tue., Mar. 10, 2020, 10:33 a.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
mailto:jfd...@hotmail.com>> wrote:
Hi James,
That is too bad, but there is no rush at this stage because we are simply 
refining the import procedure. In the meantime, I propose to act as “Task 
manager”. I can provide some tiles (task frame and orthogonalized buildings’ 
footprint) to those who wish to try the import procedure.
I should start importing today with a first tile. If changes/additional 
information are needed to adjust the procedure, I suggest we discuss it on the 
import Talk page [1]

Daniel

[1] 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Canada_-_The_Open_Database_of_Buildings


From: James [mailto:james2...@gmail.com<mailto:james2...@gmail.com>]
Sent: Monday, March 09, 2020 20:13
To: Daniel @jfd553
Cc: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org<mailto:talk-ca@openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Ok so I have some bad news, the data.osmcanada.ca<http://data.osmcanada.ca> 
server that was being hosted by a friend on AWS was shutdown and wiped. I will 
need to get time to get things setup on another server to host the 
microinstance: https://github.com/osmottawa/micro-data-service
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[James]

The task is setup in task manager, it was just more convenient serving data
via the service. I can publish the task and invite those that have enough
experience (they would need the orthoganalized data though) Which I could
provide over slack(osm-ca.slack.com)

On Tue., Mar. 10, 2020, 10:33 a.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
wrote:

> Hi James,
>
> That is too bad, but there is no rush at this stage because we are simply
> refining the import procedure. In the meantime, I propose to act as “Task
> manager”. I can provide some tiles (task frame and orthogonalized
> buildings’ footprint) to those who wish to try the import procedure.
>
> I should start importing today with a first tile. If changes/additional
> information are needed to adjust the procedure, I suggest we discuss it on
> the import Talk page [1]
>
>
>
> Daniel
>
>
>
> [1]
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Canada_-_The_Open_Database_of_Buildings
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* James [mailto:james2...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Monday, March 09, 2020 20:13
> *To:* Daniel @jfd553
> *Cc:* talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada
>
>
>
> Ok so I have some bad news, the data.osmcanada.ca server that was being
> hosted by a friend on AWS was shutdown and wiped. I will need to get time
> to get things setup on another server to host the microinstance:
> https://github.com/osmottawa/micro-data-service
>
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Hi James,
That is too bad, but there is no rush at this stage because we are simply 
refining the import procedure. In the meantime, I propose to act as “Task 
manager”. I can provide some tiles (task frame and orthogonalized buildings’ 
footprint) to those who wish to try the import procedure.
I should start importing today with a first tile. If changes/additional 
information are needed to adjust the procedure, I suggest we discuss it on the 
import Talk page [1]

Daniel

[1] 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Canada_-_The_Open_Database_of_Buildings


From: James [mailto:james2...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, March 09, 2020 20:13
To: Daniel @jfd553
Cc: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Ok so I have some bad news, the data.osmcanada.ca<http://data.osmcanada.ca> 
server that was being hosted by a friend on AWS was shutdown and wiped. I will 
need to get time to get things setup on another server to host the 
microinstance: https://github.com/osmottawa/micro-data-service
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[James]

Ok so I have some bad news, the data.osmcanada.ca server that was being
hosted by a friend on AWS was shutdown and wiped. I will need to get time
to get things setup on another server to host the microinstance:
https://github.com/osmottawa/micro-data-service

On Mon, Mar 2, 2020 at 7:00 PM Daniel @jfd553  wrote:

> Bonjour groupe :-)
>
> Since no one volunteered to be the local import manager for Squamish, I
> identified myself as such [1]. I have already contacted 22 local
> contributors I identified with Tim’s Overpass queries. I have modified the
> query to find users who have contributed buildings in the past 5 years. It
> is a GO for the two people who have answered me so far.
>
> I’ll wait others’ answer for the next two weeks and once the task will be
> set up (James is on it), I will start importing. I expect most of
> experienced JOSM users to also have a try in order to refine the import
> procedure.
>
>
>
> Daniel
>
>
>
> [1]
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada_-_The_Open_Database_of_Buildings#British_Columbia
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Hi all,
I was able to split Squamish into Quadtree tiles with a maximum of 200 
buildings each. James is now looking into whether/how this could be implemented 
in the task manager. If no one else is volunteering to be the local import 
manager this week, I will do the work and contact Squamish's local mappers. 
Since most ODB buildings were imported about a year ago, I don't expect an 
opposition from local mappers with reviewing that import.

Daniel
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

In some cases, the aspect ratio is 1:5, creating long vertical tiles (tasks), 
or I may miss something :-)

Sent from Galaxy S7


From: Clifford Snow 
Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2020 5:36:19 PM
To: Daniel @jfd553 
Cc: Talk-CA OpenStreetMap 
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

I've done a number of building imports using no square shapes with no problem. 
JOSM is set to open up new tasks in a separate layer which avoid the problem of 
having task loading next the the just closed task. (I'm doing the imports in 
the US using voting districts. Each district typically has about 200-250 
houses. None of them are ever square. Perfect for an import.)

Best,
Clifford

On Sat, Feb 15, 2020 at 2:06 PM Daniel @jfd553 
mailto:jfd...@hotmail.com>> wrote:

Bonjour groupe,

I should soon be able to feed the task manager with tiles containing no more 
than 200 buildings each.



I will be using a Quadtree algorithm similar to what was used to split Canvec 
map sheets. The problem is that the algorithm creates tiles that keep the 
aspect ratio of the data bounding box. I am currently modifying the algorithm 
to generate square tiles instead, which is much more adapted for editing with 
JOSM.



Daniel

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[James]

if you have data and the extents I can setup tasks(send them to me somehow)

On Sat., Feb. 15, 2020, 5:07 p.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
wrote:

> Bonjour groupe,
>
> I should soon be able to feed the task manager with tiles containing no
> more than 200 buildings each.
>
>
>
> I will be using a Quadtree algorithm similar to what was used to split
> Canvec map sheets. The problem is that the algorithm creates tiles that
> keep the aspect ratio of the data bounding box. I am currently modifying
> the algorithm to generate square tiles instead, which is much more adapted
> for editing with JOSM.
>
>
>
> Daniel
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Clifford Snow]

I've done a number of building imports using no square shapes with no
problem. JOSM is set to open up new tasks in a separate layer which avoid
the problem of having task loading next the the just closed task. (I'm
doing the imports in the US using voting districts. Each district typically
has about 200-250 houses. None of them are ever square. Perfect for an
import.)

Best,
Clifford

On Sat, Feb 15, 2020 at 2:06 PM Daniel @jfd553  wrote:

> Bonjour groupe,
>
> I should soon be able to feed the task manager with tiles containing no
> more than 200 buildings each.
>
>
>
> I will be using a Quadtree algorithm similar to what was used to split
> Canvec map sheets. The problem is that the algorithm creates tiles that
> keep the aspect ratio of the data bounding box. I am currently modifying
> the algorithm to generate square tiles instead, which is much more adapted
> for editing with JOSM.
>
>
>
> Daniel
> ___
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>


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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Bonjour groupe,
I should soon be able to feed the task manager with tiles containing no more 
than 200 buildings each.

I will be using a Quadtree algorithm similar to what was used to split Canvec 
map sheets. The problem is that the algorithm creates tiles that keep the 
aspect ratio of the data bounding box. I am currently modifying the algorithm 
to generate square tiles instead, which is much more adapted for editing with 
JOSM.

Daniel
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[john whelan]

We should start somewhere so yes it would be fun.

Thanks John

On Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 3:15 PM Daniel @jfd553,  wrote:

> Bonjour groupe,
>
> The pre-processing procedure has been tested for the Squamish (BC) area.
> Squamish has a small number of buildings (6K) with a good Esri World
> imagery which need to be aligned with ODB data. A large number of ODB
> buildings show an inaccurate delineation (shaky drawing with too many
> nodes). Orthogonalization worked great but the result is not perfect
> because of the quality of the data. About 10% of the nodes were removed
> from the dataset. It contains all the problems we may encounter during this
> import. Consequently, I suggest that the import procedure be discussed and
> documented in detail using this case.
>
> I could identify myself as the local import manager, but I would much
> prefer someone from the area to volunteer. When the local contributors have
> been contacted, and as long as there are no objections, we could start an
> import project in the OSMCanada task manager. Pre-processed data are
> available. We only have to make it available to the task manager. We also
> have to provide the task manager with the working areas (tasks) adjusted to
> 200 buildings per task. I am currently working to define these working
> areas, but if someone else can build it in the meantime it would be great.
>
> Once the import project has been configured in the task manager,
> interested contributors will have to identify themselves in talk-ca in
> order to add them as authorized contributors (James, am I right?)
>
> Would it be fun to try this?
>
> Daniel
>
>
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Bonjour groupe,
The pre-processing procedure has been tested for the Squamish (BC) area. 
Squamish has a small number of buildings (6K) with a good Esri World imagery 
which need to be aligned with ODB data. A large number of ODB buildings show an 
inaccurate delineation (shaky drawing with too many nodes). Orthogonalization 
worked great but the result is not perfect because of the quality of the data. 
About 10% of the nodes were removed from the dataset. It contains all the 
problems we may encounter during this import. Consequently, I suggest that the 
import procedure be discussed and documented in detail using this case.
I could identify myself as the local import manager, but I would much prefer 
someone from the area to volunteer. When the local contributors have been 
contacted, and as long as there are no objections, we could start an import 
project in the OSMCanada task manager. Pre-processed data are available. We 
only have to make it available to the task manager. We also have to provide the 
task manager with the working areas (tasks) adjusted to 200 buildings per task. 
I am currently working to define these working areas, but if someone else can 
build it in the meantime it would be great.
Once the import project has been configured in the task manager, interested 
contributors will have to identify themselves in talk-ca in order to add them 
as authorized contributors (James, am I right?)
Would it be fun to try this?
Daniel

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Bonjour groupe!
Well, I think we are having a good discussion and are moving towards an import 
procedure with which everyone will be comfortable.
First, I have modified the wiki to reflect our latest discussion [1-3]. The 
import procedure seems to fit with current discussion. Please, have a look.
Second, about OSM vs. ODB data quality (Nate’s concern). Accuracy is a complex 
subject because it has multiple aspects. I examined [4] the completeness of the 
ODB and OSM buildings, the accuracy of the boundaries and the accuracy of the 
location, for all of the municipalities covered by the ODB dataset. Here is a 
summary of what I saw.
Data Completeness: Completeness of ODB buildings is generally much better than 
OSM, except when an import has already taken place (it is then similar), or for 
Sherbrooke and Nova Scotia (except for Halifax) areas.
Delineation accuracy: ODB buildings often have a better delineation than the 
OSM (e.g. right angles, level of detail) but it is far from being always the 
case. In some cases, which seem to depend on the census subdivision, OSM will 
have better building representation most of the time.
Location accuracy: Image requirements for municipal mapping are generally very 
high in order to properly manage their infrastructure (i.e. image resolution, 
ground control accuracy, DEM accuracy). Even if they use bounding boxes to 
represent buildings, the location of the resulting shapes is accurate. In the 
case of OSM, the images on which we delimit buildings footprints show very 
different accuracy, which leads to inconsistent location accuracy for all the 
features delineated over the imagery. Read above for more details [5].
Third, about who could contribute to the import? The presence of a local import 
manager should make it possible to assess the nature of the work done. I 
suggested to those who want to be a local import manager to share their 
intentions on Talk-ca. This means that we all know that “John Doe” will be 
responsible for importing “Lost City” before identifying him on the wiki page 
[4]. Only then should the project appear in the task manager. I also think that 
anyone who wishes to contribute should indicate their intentions on the list, 
so that their name can be added to those who are authorized to access the 
import tasks.
Comment, suggestions?
Daniel
-

[1] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada_Building_Import#Building_Imports

[2] 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada_-_The_Open_Database_of_Buildings#Import_the_Data

[3] 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada_-_The_Open_Database_of_Buildings#Import_Procedure

[4] 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada_-_The_Open_Database_of_Buildings#Import_Status
[5] OSM buildings (imported or not) were all delimited by images (using ortho 
or stereo images). The accuracy of the images depends on the derived/available 
elevations in the area. Municipal mapping (i.e. ODB data origin) requires high 
location accuracy to manage municipal infrastructure. In OSM, the available 
ortho-images are created using DEM, the accuracy of which differs considerably. 
On flat surfaces, this does not matter (the only effect is generally seen on 
roofs which may have an offset from building footprint location on the ground). 
This is completely different on hilly areas where the resulting images will 
show offsets that change with elevations.


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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[john whelan]

Sounds very reasonable to me.

Thanks John

On Sat, 18 Jan 2020 at 20:02, Nate Wessel  wrote:

> In short, yes. But we should give them a clear option and a clear path
> toward doing it either way - written procedures, provide preprocessing
> scripts/help, etc.
>
> Best,
>
> Nate Wessel, PhD
> Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
> NateWessel.com 
> On 2020-01-18 7:37 p.m., john whelan wrote:
>
> > But also - sorry this is such a long email - we certainly should not be
> manually doing re-conflation where buildings are very dense (e.g. downtown
> Toronto) or where they have already been imported extensively (much of the
> rest of the GTA). The import plan I'm working on for Toronto will take care
> of most of this automatically by importing only in the sparse gaps between
> existing OSM buildings. For other parts of Canada, this may not be much of
> an issue at all - I wouldn't know.
>
> My interpretation is you're happy to leave this call to the local
> coordinator?  If they have no buildings it's fairly simple if there are
> buildings already mapped it becomes more complex.
>
> Thanks John
>
> On Sat, 18 Jan 2020 at 19:12, Nate Wessel  wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Daniel, thanks for continuing to prod the conversation along :-)
>>
>> I guess the point of disagreement here is that I generally don't agree
>> that the ODB buildings are of higher quality than what's already in OSM.
>> The ODB data I've seen is quite messy, and IMO only marginally better than
>> having no data in an area, especially if not properly checked and conflated
>> with surrounding OSM data. People seem to generally disagree with that
>> perspective though, so I'll assume that other areas are better represented
>> by their respective ODB data sources. Central Toronto may just not have
>> been well mapped by the City's GIS dept; it certainly isn't the easiest
>> thing to get right.
>>
>> My real worry here is that someone will be carelessly going through an
>> import replacing geometries and will destroy the work of an editor like
>> myself who carefully contributed their time to make a neat and accurate
>> map. I know for certain I've contributed better data in Toronto than what's
>> available from government sources for the same area.
>>
>> We must recall that governments produce building footprints in the same
>> way that we do - usually by tracing imagery, and there is little reason to
>> suppose that their data is better or more accurate just because it comes
>> from a seemingly authoritative source. It comes from interns - likely
>> interns with outdated software and low-resolution surveys.
>>
>> All that being said, I think my real reluctance to go with the flow here
>> stems from the haste and carelessness of the original importers in the GTA.
>> We're working toward a process that should be very different from theirs
>> though and I probably need to just trust that our process will be calmer,
>> slower, and more thoughtful. If it is, I can get on board.
>>
>> But also - sorry this is such a long email - we certainly should not be
>> manually doing re-conflation where buildings are very dense (e.g. downtown
>> Toronto) or where they have already been imported extensively (much of the
>> rest of the GTA). The import plan I'm working on for Toronto will take care
>> of most of this automatically by importing only in the sparse gaps between
>> existing OSM buildings. For other parts of Canada, this may not be much of
>> an issue at all - I wouldn't know.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Nate Wessel, PhD
>> Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
>> NateWessel.com 
>> On 2020-01-18 5:24 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
>>
>> Bonjour groupe,
>>
>> Here is a sequential summary of the last exchanges. I inserted some
>> comments […] within these exchanges description and summarize what I
>> understand from it at the end.
>>
>> *Nate* asked not to confuse the process of importing new data with that
>> of updating/modifying existing OSM data in order to keep things simple for
>> this import.
>>
>> *Daniel* (I) responded that importing new data and updating/modifying
>> existing ones at the same time (when necessary) is not unusual in OSM [*and
>> would be more efficient*].
>>
>> *John* replied that importing new data and updating/modify existing data
>> when required worked quite nicely when importing Ottawa.
>>
>> *Nate *explained he believes that the buildings will not be compared
>> manually since there are hundreds of thousands of them in OSM for Toronto
>> alone. In other words, he thinks there will be automated edits, and these
>> edits are not governed by the same policies as imports. [*This is an
>> important consideration. What has happened in Ottawa and Toronto so far?
>> Have automatic processes been used?*]
>>
>> *Tim* replied that in most cases it might be appropriate to replace OSM
>> data, as he believes [*as I do for most of the cases*] that the ODB
>> footprints will be more accurate than 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Nate Wessel]

In short, yes. But we should give them a clear option and a clear path 
toward doing it either way - written procedures, provide preprocessing 
scripts/help, etc.


Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

On 2020-01-18 7:37 p.m., john whelan wrote:
> But also - sorry this is such a long email - we certainly should not 
be manually doing re-conflation where buildings are very dense (e.g. 
downtown Toronto) or where they have already been imported extensively 
(much of the rest of the GTA). The import plan I'm working on for 
Toronto will take care of most of this automatically by importing only 
in the sparse gaps between existing OSM buildings. For other parts of 
Canada, this may not be much of an issue at all - I wouldn't know.


My interpretation is you're happy to leave this call to the local 
coordinator?  If they have no buildings it's fairly simple if there 
are buildings already mapped it becomes more complex.


Thanks John

On Sat, 18 Jan 2020 at 19:12, Nate Wessel > wrote:


Hi all,

Daniel, thanks for continuing to prod the conversation along :-)

I guess the point of disagreement here is that I generally don't
agree that the ODB buildings are of higher quality than what's
already in OSM. The ODB data I've seen is quite messy, and IMO
only marginally better than having no data in an area, especially
if not properly checked and conflated with surrounding OSM data.
People seem to generally disagree with that perspective though, so
I'll assume that other areas are better represented by their
respective ODB data sources. Central Toronto may just not have
been well mapped by the City's GIS dept; it certainly isn't the
easiest thing to get right.

My real worry here is that someone will be carelessly going
through an import replacing geometries and will destroy the work
of an editor like myself who carefully contributed their time to
make a neat and accurate map. I know for certain I've contributed
better data in Toronto than what's available from government
sources for the same area.

We must recall that governments produce building footprints in the
same way that we do - usually by tracing imagery, and there is
little reason to suppose that their data is better or more
accurate just because it comes from a seemingly authoritative
source. It comes from interns - likely interns with outdated
software and low-resolution surveys.

All that being said, I think my real reluctance to go with the
flow here stems from the haste and carelessness of the original
importers in the GTA. We're working toward a process that should
be very different from theirs though and I probably need to just
trust that our process will be calmer, slower, and more
thoughtful. If it is, I can get on board.

But also - sorry this is such a long email - we certainly should
not be manually doing re-conflation where buildings are very dense
(e.g. downtown Toronto) or where they have already been imported
extensively (much of the rest of the GTA). The import plan I'm
working on for Toronto will take care of most of this
automatically by importing only in the sparse gaps between
existing OSM buildings. For other parts of Canada, this may not be
much of an issue at all - I wouldn't know.

Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

On 2020-01-18 5:24 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:


Bonjour groupe,

Here is a sequential summary of the last exchanges. I inserted
some comments […] within these exchanges description and
summarize what I understand from it at the end.

*Nate*asked not to confuse the process of importing new data with
that of updating/modifying existing OSM data in order to keep
things simple for this import.

*Daniel*(I) responded that importing new data and
updating/modifying existing ones at the same time (when
necessary) is not unusual in OSM [/and would be more efficient/].

*John*replied that importing new data and updating/modify
existing data when required worked quite nicely when importing
Ottawa.

*Nate *explained he believes that the buildings will not be
compared manually since there are hundreds of thousands of them
in OSM for Toronto alone. In other words, he thinks there will be
automated edits, and these edits are not governed by the same
policies as imports. [/This is an important consideration. What
has happened in Ottawa and Toronto so far? Have automatic
processes been used?/]

*Tim*replied that in most cases it might be appropriate to
replace OSM data, as he believes [/as I do for most of the
cases/] that the ODB footprints will be more accurate than
existing buildings. However he considers 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[john whelan via Talk-ca]

> But also - sorry this is such a long email - we certainly should not be
manually doing re-conflation where buildings are very dense (e.g. downtown
Toronto) or where they have already been imported extensively (much of the
rest of the GTA). The import plan I'm working on for Toronto will take care
of most of this automatically by importing only in the sparse gaps between
existing OSM buildings. For other parts of Canada, this may not be much of
an issue at all - I wouldn't know.

My interpretation is you're happy to leave this call to the local
coordinator?  If they have no buildings it's fairly simple if there are
buildings already mapped it becomes more complex.

Thanks John

On Sat, 18 Jan 2020 at 19:12, Nate Wessel  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Daniel, thanks for continuing to prod the conversation along :-)
>
> I guess the point of disagreement here is that I generally don't agree
> that the ODB buildings are of higher quality than what's already in OSM.
> The ODB data I've seen is quite messy, and IMO only marginally better than
> having no data in an area, especially if not properly checked and conflated
> with surrounding OSM data. People seem to generally disagree with that
> perspective though, so I'll assume that other areas are better represented
> by their respective ODB data sources. Central Toronto may just not have
> been well mapped by the City's GIS dept; it certainly isn't the easiest
> thing to get right.
>
> My real worry here is that someone will be carelessly going through an
> import replacing geometries and will destroy the work of an editor like
> myself who carefully contributed their time to make a neat and accurate
> map. I know for certain I've contributed better data in Toronto than what's
> available from government sources for the same area.
>
> We must recall that governments produce building footprints in the same
> way that we do - usually by tracing imagery, and there is little reason to
> suppose that their data is better or more accurate just because it comes
> from a seemingly authoritative source. It comes from interns - likely
> interns with outdated software and low-resolution surveys.
>
> All that being said, I think my real reluctance to go with the flow here
> stems from the haste and carelessness of the original importers in the GTA.
> We're working toward a process that should be very different from theirs
> though and I probably need to just trust that our process will be calmer,
> slower, and more thoughtful. If it is, I can get on board.
>
> But also - sorry this is such a long email - we certainly should not be
> manually doing re-conflation where buildings are very dense (e.g. downtown
> Toronto) or where they have already been imported extensively (much of the
> rest of the GTA). The import plan I'm working on for Toronto will take care
> of most of this automatically by importing only in the sparse gaps between
> existing OSM buildings. For other parts of Canada, this may not be much of
> an issue at all - I wouldn't know.
>
> Best,
>
> Nate Wessel, PhD
> Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
> NateWessel.com 
> On 2020-01-18 5:24 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
>
> Bonjour groupe,
>
> Here is a sequential summary of the last exchanges. I inserted some
> comments […] within these exchanges description and summarize what I
> understand from it at the end.
>
> *Nate* asked not to confuse the process of importing new data with that
> of updating/modifying existing OSM data in order to keep things simple for
> this import.
>
> *Daniel* (I) responded that importing new data and updating/modifying
> existing ones at the same time (when necessary) is not unusual in OSM [*and
> would be more efficient*].
>
> *John* replied that importing new data and updating/modify existing data
> when required worked quite nicely when importing Ottawa.
>
> *Nate *explained he believes that the buildings will not be compared
> manually since there are hundreds of thousands of them in OSM for Toronto
> alone. In other words, he thinks there will be automated edits, and these
> edits are not governed by the same policies as imports. [*This is an
> important consideration. What has happened in Ottawa and Toronto so far?
> Have automatic processes been used?*]
>
> *Tim* replied that in most cases it might be appropriate to replace OSM
> data, as he believes [*as I do for most of the cases*] that the ODB
> footprints will be more accurate than existing buildings. However he
> considers it is a case-by-case decision [*then no automation process
> should be used*].
>
> *John* couldn’t resist digressing toward the “Microsoft buildings import”
> but had to bring back the discussion on ODB import after reactions from
> *Tim* and *Pierre* (LOL).
>
>
>
> I think that, somehow, we could all agree on how the import should be done:
>
> -  Align images on ODB, unless evidence ODB data are ill located.
>
> -  Align existing OSM content with the image, *only* 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Nate Wessel]

Hi all,

Daniel, thanks for continuing to prod the conversation along :-)

I guess the point of disagreement here is that I generally don't agree 
that the ODB buildings are of higher quality than what's already in OSM. 
The ODB data I've seen is quite messy, and IMO only marginally better 
than having no data in an area, especially if not properly checked and 
conflated with surrounding OSM data. People seem to generally disagree 
with that perspective though, so I'll assume that other areas are better 
represented by their respective ODB data sources. Central Toronto may 
just not have been well mapped by the City's GIS dept; it certainly 
isn't the easiest thing to get right.


My real worry here is that someone will be carelessly going through an 
import replacing geometries and will destroy the work of an editor like 
myself who carefully contributed their time to make a neat and accurate 
map. I know for certain I've contributed better data in Toronto than 
what's available from government sources for the same area.


We must recall that governments produce building footprints in the same 
way that we do - usually by tracing imagery, and there is little reason 
to suppose that their data is better or more accurate just because it 
comes from a seemingly authoritative source. It comes from interns - 
likely interns with outdated software and low-resolution surveys.


All that being said, I think my real reluctance to go with the flow here 
stems from the haste and carelessness of the original importers in the 
GTA. We're working toward a process that should be very different from 
theirs though and I probably need to just trust that our process will be 
calmer, slower, and more thoughtful. If it is, I can get on board.


But also - sorry this is such a long email - we certainly should not be 
manually doing re-conflation where buildings are very dense (e.g. 
downtown Toronto) or where they have already been imported extensively 
(much of the rest of the GTA). The import plan I'm working on for 
Toronto will take care of most of this automatically by importing only 
in the sparse gaps between existing OSM buildings. For other parts of 
Canada, this may not be much of an issue at all - I wouldn't know.


Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

On 2020-01-18 5:24 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:


Bonjour groupe,

Here is a sequential summary of the last exchanges. I inserted some 
comments […] within these exchanges description and summarize what I 
understand from it at the end.


*Nate*asked not to confuse the process of importing new data with that 
of updating/modifying existing OSM data in order to keep things simple 
for this import.


*Daniel*(I) responded that importing new data and updating/modifying 
existing ones at the same time (when necessary) is not unusual in OSM 
[/and would be more efficient/].


*John*replied that importing new data and updating/modify existing 
data when required worked quite nicely when importing Ottawa.


*Nate *explained he believes that the buildings will not be compared 
manually since there are hundreds of thousands of them in OSM for 
Toronto alone. In other words, he thinks there will be automated 
edits, and these edits are not governed by the same policies as 
imports. [/This is an important consideration. What has happened in 
Ottawa and Toronto so far? Have automatic processes been used?/]


*Tim*replied that in most cases it might be appropriate to replace OSM 
data, as he believes [/as I do for most of the cases/] that the ODB 
footprints will be more accurate than existing buildings. However he 
considers it is a case-by-case decision [/then no automation process 
should be used/].


*John*couldn’t resist digressing toward the “Microsoft buildings 
import” but had to bring back the discussion on ODB import after 
reactions from *Tim* and *Pierre* (LOL).


I think that, somehow, we could all agree on how the import should be 
done:


-Align images on ODB, unless evidence ODB data are ill located.

-Align existing OSM content with the image, *only* if necessary after 
aligning the image with ODB.


-Import non-existent buildings in OSM.

-Conflate ODB and OSM buildings, *only* if necessary.

-

To address Nate’s legitimate concerns, we could agree that there will 
be *no* automatic changes/conflation of existing buildings. Having a 
local import manager and by using the task manager, we should be able 
to ensure that there will be no unauthorized import (i.e. not 
responding to the above).


Am I too optimistic?

Daniel


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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Bonjour groupe,
Here is a sequential summary of the last exchanges. I inserted some comments 
[…] within these exchanges description and summarize what I understand from it 
at the end.
Nate asked not to confuse the process of importing new data with that of 
updating/modifying existing OSM data in order to keep things simple for this 
import.
Daniel (I) responded that importing new data and updating/modifying existing 
ones at the same time (when necessary) is not unusual in OSM [and would be more 
efficient].
John replied that importing new data and updating/modify existing data when 
required worked quite nicely when importing Ottawa.
Nate explained he believes that the buildings will not be compared manually 
since there are hundreds of thousands of them in OSM for Toronto alone. In 
other words, he thinks there will be automated edits, and these edits are not 
governed by the same policies as imports. [This is an important consideration. 
What has happened in Ottawa and Toronto so far? Have automatic processes been 
used?]
Tim replied that in most cases it might be appropriate to replace OSM data, as 
he believes [as I do for most of the cases] that the ODB footprints will be 
more accurate than existing buildings. However he considers it is a 
case-by-case decision [then no automation process should be used].
John couldn’t resist digressing toward the “Microsoft buildings import” but had 
to bring back the discussion on ODB import after reactions from Tim and Pierre 
(LOL).

I think that, somehow, we could all agree on how the import should be done:

-  Align images on ODB, unless evidence ODB data are ill located.

-  Align existing OSM content with the image, only if necessary after 
aligning the image with ODB.

-  Import non-existent buildings in OSM.

-  Conflate ODB and OSM buildings, only if necessary.

-
To address Nate’s legitimate concerns, we could agree that there will be no 
automatic changes/conflation of existing buildings. Having a local import 
manager and by using the task manager, we should be able to ensure that there 
will be no unauthorized import (i.e. not responding to the above).
Am I too optimistic?
Daniel


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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[john whelan]

Pierre looking at the Microsoft imports south of the border and their
process is undoubtedly sensible.

I suggest waiting until we have got some movement on the current import
rather than try to tackle to many things at once.

Cheerio John

On Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 1:47 PM Pierre Béland,  wrote:

> John,
>
> Exprime tu simplement une opinion, ou as-tu vérifié les procédures
> d'import incluant correction des données et validé la qualité des données
> importées aux États-Unis ? Considères-tu la qualité des données dans la
> base OSM aux États-Unis comparable à ce qui s'est fait au Canada l'an
> dernier ?
>
> La qualité des données Microsoft peut sans doute varier selon divers
> facteurs dont la qualité et précision des données aériennes utilisées.
>
> De mon côté, j'ai regardé du côté de Dallas, Texas. En consultant le
> gestionnaire de tâches US, il est possible d'y repérer les tâches créées
> pour cartographier des bâtiments.
>
> https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/contribute?difficulty=ALL=ARCHIVED=BUILDINGS
>
> Dans ces zones, j'ai constaté en général une bonne qualité des données.
> Je ne connais pas les procédures utilisées, ni regardé le connu des
> fichiers de données Microsoft pour ces zones, mais la tâche ci-dessous
> montre un processus de validation où il était demandé d'orthogonaliser les
> bâtiments.
> https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/project/164#bottom
>
> Pierre
>
>
> Le vendredi 17 janvier 2020 13 h 02 min 20 s UTC−5, john whelan <
> jwhelan0...@gmail.com> a écrit :
>
>
> > As stated before, I don't consider the Microsoft dataset being close to
> the minimum quality requirements I would expect from any automated
> building entry into OSM.
>
> Well yes that is one opinion but we do have a range of opinions in
> OpenStreetMap and from the number of buildings that have already been
> imported into OpenStreetMap from Microsoft, there seems to be a large
> number in the US for example, it would appear there are those who disagree
> with you which is not surprising given the number of mappers.
>
> To me the buildings are of more interest once they get enriched with more
> tags and the place that happens is in OpenStreetMap.  Streetcomplete I
> think is either the most popular editor these days or very close to it.
> You can't add tags if the buildings are not in OpenStreetMap.  Yes you can
> display the outlines by using the Microsoft data but that does not show
> tags such as building type, building levels, etc etc. and streetcomplete is
> a tool that can be used to introduce OpenStreetMap to many people.
>
> I think perhaps we should concentrate our efforts on the current import
> for the moment but I suspect that some Microsoft buildings will start to be
> imported in Canada even if they don't have an official import plan.
>
> Cheerio John
>
>
> On Fri, 17 Jan 2020 at 12:12, Tim Elrick  wrote:
>
> Hi John,
>
> As stated before, I don't consider the Microsoft dataset being close to
> the minimum quality requirements I would expect from any automated
> building entry into OSM. If you just want to display buildings, you can
> download the MS dataset and use it right away - no need to import into
> OSM. I think, the MS dataset has value as proof of concept and to count
> the number of buildings in a given area (e.g. to estimate market size
> for roofers, estimate number of persons living there for desaster
> relief, etc.). I also think, when Microsoft feeds its algorithm with
> higher resolution data than they did (I don't recall, but I think they
> only used the regular Bing data) they will probably end up with building
> footprints that will meet our/my quality requirements for import into
> OSM one day.
>
> For me, the value of OSM is having accurate information in terms of tags
> and geometry. Otherwise, we could join Wikimapia; they don't care too
> much about geometry accuracy but emphasize on content/tags of objects.
> Pretty interesting project, but different from OSM.
>
> Cheers,
> Tim
>
> On 2020-01-17 10:40, john whelan wrote:
>   >first, to add missing buildings (if it were
> just for this purpose we could also use the much bigger Microsoft
> dataset)
>
> I can't resist.  Does this infer that for parts of the country without
> Stat Can data we are happy to import Microsoft dataset buildings as is?
> Or would we wish to wait until we have some more imports done before
> looking at preprocessing them in some way first.
>
> Thanks John
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 10:11 PM Tim Elrick,  > wrote:
>
>  I would assume in most cases the imported building footprint will be
>  more precise than existing data. For me, this would be a reason to
>  replace already existing objects. However, I think this is a case by
>  case decision. However, I think it is important to keep tags and
>  history
>  of buildings already existent in OSM. This is how I would
>  read/interpret
>  the import guideline stated by Nate: "If you are importing data where
>  

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Pierre Béland via Talk-ca]

John,
Exprime tu simplement une opinion, ou as-tu vérifié les procédures d'import 
incluant correction des données et validé la qualité des données importées aux 
États-Unis ? Considères-tu la qualité des données dans la base OSM aux 
États-Unis comparable à ce qui s'est fait au Canada l'an dernier ? 

La qualité des données Microsoft peut sans doute varier selon divers facteurs 
dont la qualité et précision des données aériennes utilisées.
De mon côté, j'ai regardé du côté de Dallas, Texas. En consultant le 
gestionnaire de tâches US, il est possible d'y repérer les tâches créées pour 
cartographier des bâtiments.
https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/contribute?difficulty=ALL=ARCHIVED=BUILDINGS
Dans ces zones, j'ai constaté en général une bonne qualité des données.  Je ne 
connais pas les procédures utilisées, ni regardé le connu des fichiers de 
données Microsoft pour ces zones, mais la tâche ci-dessous montre un processus 
de validation où il était demandé d'orthogonaliser les 
bâtiments.https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/project/164#bottom 
Pierre 
 

Le vendredi 17 janvier 2020 13 h 02 min 20 s UTC−5, john whelan 
 a écrit :  
 
 > As stated before, I don't consider the Microsoft dataset being close tothe 
 >minimum quality requirements I would expect from any automated
building entry into OSM.
Well yes that is one opinion but we do have a range of opinions in 
OpenStreetMap and from the number of buildings that have already been imported 
into OpenStreetMap from Microsoft, there seems to be a large number in the US 
for example, it would appear there are those who disagree with you which is not 
surprising given the number of mappers.
To me the buildings are of more interest once they get enriched with more tags 
and the place that happens is in OpenStreetMap.  Streetcomplete I think is 
either the most popular editor these days or very close to it.  You can't add 
tags if the buildings are not in OpenStreetMap.  Yes you can display the 
outlines by using the Microsoft data but that does not show tags such as 
building type, building levels, etc etc. and streetcomplete is a tool that can 
be used to introduce OpenStreetMap to many people.
I think perhaps we should concentrate our efforts on the current import for the 
moment but I suspect that some Microsoft buildings will start to be imported in 
Canada even if they don't have an official import plan.
Cheerio John 

On Fri, 17 Jan 2020 at 12:12, Tim Elrick  wrote:

Hi John,

As stated before, I don't consider the Microsoft dataset being close to 
the minimum quality requirements I would expect from any automated 
building entry into OSM. If you just want to display buildings, you can 
download the MS dataset and use it right away - no need to import into 
OSM. I think, the MS dataset has value as proof of concept and to count 
the number of buildings in a given area (e.g. to estimate market size 
for roofers, estimate number of persons living there for desaster 
relief, etc.). I also think, when Microsoft feeds its algorithm with 
higher resolution data than they did (I don't recall, but I think they 
only used the regular Bing data) they will probably end up with building 
footprints that will meet our/my quality requirements for import into 
OSM one day.

For me, the value of OSM is having accurate information in terms of tags 
and geometry. Otherwise, we could join Wikimapia; they don't care too 
much about geometry accuracy but emphasize on content/tags of objects. 
Pretty interesting project, but different from OSM.

Cheers,
Tim

On 2020-01-17 10:40, john whelan wrote:
  >first, to add missing buildings (if it were
just for this purpose we could also use the much bigger Microsoft
dataset)

I can't resist.  Does this infer that for parts of the country without
Stat Can data we are happy to import Microsoft dataset buildings as is?
Or would we wish to wait until we have some more imports done before
looking at preprocessing them in some way first.

Thanks John



On Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 10:11 PM Tim Elrick, mailto:o...@elrick.de>> wrote:

     I would assume in most cases the imported building footprint will be
     more precise than existing data. For me, this would be a reason to
     replace already existing objects. However, I think this is a case by
     case decision. However, I think it is important to keep tags and
     history
     of buildings already existent in OSM. This is how I would
     read/interpret
     the import guideline stated by Nate: "If you are importing data where
     there is already some data in OSM, then *you need to combine this data*
     in an appropriate way or suppress the import of features with overlap
     with existing data." (emphasis added by me)

     However, that just means, the import, hence, is nothing easy and could
     not be achieve quickly, I would assume. One way of making sure that
     this
     is dealt with diligently, would be setting the tasking manager to
     'experienced mappers only'. We 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[john whelan]

> As stated before, I don't consider the Microsoft dataset being close to
the minimum quality requirements I would expect from any automated
building entry into OSM.

Well yes that is one opinion but we do have a range of opinions in
OpenStreetMap and from the number of buildings that have already been
imported into OpenStreetMap from Microsoft, there seems to be a large
number in the US for example, it would appear there are those who disagree
with you which is not surprising given the number of mappers.

To me the buildings are of more interest once they get enriched with more
tags and the place that happens is in OpenStreetMap.  Streetcomplete I
think is either the most popular editor these days or very close to it.
You can't add tags if the buildings are not in OpenStreetMap.  Yes you can
display the outlines by using the Microsoft data but that does not show
tags such as building type, building levels, etc etc. and streetcomplete is
a tool that can be used to introduce OpenStreetMap to many people.

I think perhaps we should concentrate our efforts on the current import for
the moment but I suspect that some Microsoft buildings will start to be
imported in Canada even if they don't have an official import plan.

Cheerio John


On Fri, 17 Jan 2020 at 12:12, Tim Elrick  wrote:

> Hi John,
>
> As stated before, I don't consider the Microsoft dataset being close to
> the minimum quality requirements I would expect from any automated
> building entry into OSM. If you just want to display buildings, you can
> download the MS dataset and use it right away - no need to import into
> OSM. I think, the MS dataset has value as proof of concept and to count
> the number of buildings in a given area (e.g. to estimate market size
> for roofers, estimate number of persons living there for desaster
> relief, etc.). I also think, when Microsoft feeds its algorithm with
> higher resolution data than they did (I don't recall, but I think they
> only used the regular Bing data) they will probably end up with building
> footprints that will meet our/my quality requirements for import into
> OSM one day.
>
> For me, the value of OSM is having accurate information in terms of tags
> and geometry. Otherwise, we could join Wikimapia; they don't care too
> much about geometry accuracy but emphasize on content/tags of objects.
> Pretty interesting project, but different from OSM.
>
> Cheers,
> Tim
>
> On 2020-01-17 10:40, john whelan wrote:
>   >first, to add missing buildings (if it were
> just for this purpose we could also use the much bigger Microsoft
> dataset)
>
> I can't resist.  Does this infer that for parts of the country without
> Stat Can data we are happy to import Microsoft dataset buildings as is?
> Or would we wish to wait until we have some more imports done before
> looking at preprocessing them in some way first.
>
> Thanks John
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 10:11 PM Tim Elrick,  > wrote:
>
>  I would assume in most cases the imported building footprint will be
>  more precise than existing data. For me, this would be a reason to
>  replace already existing objects. However, I think this is a case by
>  case decision. However, I think it is important to keep tags and
>  history
>  of buildings already existent in OSM. This is how I would
>  read/interpret
>  the import guideline stated by Nate: "If you are importing data where
>  there is already some data in OSM, then *you need to combine this
> data*
>  in an appropriate way or suppress the import of features with overlap
>  with existing data." (emphasis added by me)
>
>  However, that just means, the import, hence, is nothing easy and could
>  not be achieve quickly, I would assume. One way of making sure that
>  this
>  is dealt with diligently, would be setting the tasking manager to
>  'experienced mappers only'. We would have to ask James, who is in
>  charge
>  of the Canada Tasking Manager, how to edit/set up the 'experienced
>  mapper role' in the TM. It might be possible to feed in a list of
>  mappers manually or to set a threshold of objects/changesets that they
>  must have entered in OSM. However, maybe only mappers who feel
>  experienced enough to handle the import would contribute to the TM
>  project anyway and we let everyone judge on their own and don't
>  restrict
>  access.
>
>  If we were to separate the new and overlapping buildings, I am also
>  leaning towards Daniel's assessment. I would be afraid to cause more
>  issues than by doing it all at once (with a reasonable tile size, of
>  course).
>
>  In the end, the main point of importing this specific dataset fulfils
>  two purposes, in my opinion: first, to add missing buildings (if it
>  were
>  just for this purpose we could also use the much bigger Microsoft
>  dataset), second, to get the best geospatial representation 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Tim Elrick]

Hi John,

As stated before, I don't consider the Microsoft dataset being close to 
the minimum quality requirements I would expect from any automated 
building entry into OSM. If you just want to display buildings, you can 
download the MS dataset and use it right away - no need to import into 
OSM. I think, the MS dataset has value as proof of concept and to count 
the number of buildings in a given area (e.g. to estimate market size 
for roofers, estimate number of persons living there for desaster 
relief, etc.). I also think, when Microsoft feeds its algorithm with 
higher resolution data than they did (I don't recall, but I think they 
only used the regular Bing data) they will probably end up with building 
footprints that will meet our/my quality requirements for import into 
OSM one day.


For me, the value of OSM is having accurate information in terms of tags 
and geometry. Otherwise, we could join Wikimapia; they don't care too 
much about geometry accuracy but emphasize on content/tags of objects. 
Pretty interesting project, but different from OSM.


Cheers,
Tim

On 2020-01-17 10:40, john whelan wrote:
 >first, to add missing buildings (if it were
just for this purpose we could also use the much bigger Microsoft
dataset)

I can't resist.  Does this infer that for parts of the country without
Stat Can data we are happy to import Microsoft dataset buildings as is?
Or would we wish to wait until we have some more imports done before
looking at preprocessing them in some way first.

Thanks John



On Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 10:11 PM Tim Elrick, mailto:o...@elrick.de>> wrote:

I would assume in most cases the imported building footprint will be
more precise than existing data. For me, this would be a reason to
replace already existing objects. However, I think this is a case by
case decision. However, I think it is important to keep tags and
history
of buildings already existent in OSM. This is how I would
read/interpret
the import guideline stated by Nate: "If you are importing data where
there is already some data in OSM, then *you need to combine this data*
in an appropriate way or suppress the import of features with overlap
with existing data." (emphasis added by me)

However, that just means, the import, hence, is nothing easy and could
not be achieve quickly, I would assume. One way of making sure that
this
is dealt with diligently, would be setting the tasking manager to
'experienced mappers only'. We would have to ask James, who is in
charge
of the Canada Tasking Manager, how to edit/set up the 'experienced
mapper role' in the TM. It might be possible to feed in a list of
mappers manually or to set a threshold of objects/changesets that they
must have entered in OSM. However, maybe only mappers who feel
experienced enough to handle the import would contribute to the TM
project anyway and we let everyone judge on their own and don't
restrict
access.

If we were to separate the new and overlapping buildings, I am also
leaning towards Daniel's assessment. I would be afraid to cause more
issues than by doing it all at once (with a reasonable tile size, of
course).

In the end, the main point of importing this specific dataset fulfils
two purposes, in my opinion: first, to add missing buildings (if it
were
just for this purpose we could also use the much bigger Microsoft
dataset), second, to get the best geospatial representation possible in
our OSM database. That means, we defer from using the Microsoft dataset
and use the much higher quality data from the ODB. This also means that
we should replace already existing buildings (yet keeping tags and
history) wherever the ODB footprint is more precise than the
existing one.

Just my two cents here,
Tim

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[john whelan]

>first, to add missing buildings (if it were
just for this purpose we could also use the much bigger Microsoft
dataset)

I can't resist.  Does this infer that for parts of the country without Stat
Can data we are happy to import Microsoft dataset buildings as is?  Or
would we wish to wait until we have some more imports done before looking
at preprocessing them in some way first.

Thanks John



On Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 10:11 PM Tim Elrick,  wrote:

> I would assume in most cases the imported building footprint will be
> more precise than existing data. For me, this would be a reason to
> replace already existing objects. However, I think this is a case by
> case decision. However, I think it is important to keep tags and history
> of buildings already existent in OSM. This is how I would read/interpret
> the import guideline stated by Nate: "If you are importing data where
> there is already some data in OSM, then *you need to combine this data*
> in an appropriate way or suppress the import of features with overlap
> with existing data." (emphasis added by me)
>
> However, that just means, the import, hence, is nothing easy and could
> not be achieve quickly, I would assume. One way of making sure that this
> is dealt with diligently, would be setting the tasking manager to
> 'experienced mappers only'. We would have to ask James, who is in charge
> of the Canada Tasking Manager, how to edit/set up the 'experienced
> mapper role' in the TM. It might be possible to feed in a list of
> mappers manually or to set a threshold of objects/changesets that they
> must have entered in OSM. However, maybe only mappers who feel
> experienced enough to handle the import would contribute to the TM
> project anyway and we let everyone judge on their own and don't restrict
> access.
>
> If we were to separate the new and overlapping buildings, I am also
> leaning towards Daniel's assessment. I would be afraid to cause more
> issues than by doing it all at once (with a reasonable tile size, of
> course).
>
> In the end, the main point of importing this specific dataset fulfils
> two purposes, in my opinion: first, to add missing buildings (if it were
> just for this purpose we could also use the much bigger Microsoft
> dataset), second, to get the best geospatial representation possible in
> our OSM database. That means, we defer from using the Microsoft dataset
> and use the much higher quality data from the ODB. This also means that
> we should replace already existing buildings (yet keeping tags and
> history) wherever the ODB footprint is more precise than the existing one.
>
> Just my two cents here,
> Tim
>
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[James]

I could set the task up to be seen only by validators+ which I then can sst
individual users as validators

On Thu., Jan. 16, 2020, 10:10 p.m. Tim Elrick,  wrote:

> I would assume in most cases the imported building footprint will be
> more precise than existing data. For me, this would be a reason to
> replace already existing objects. However, I think this is a case by
> case decision. However, I think it is important to keep tags and history
> of buildings already existent in OSM. This is how I would read/interpret
> the import guideline stated by Nate: "If you are importing data where
> there is already some data in OSM, then *you need to combine this data*
> in an appropriate way or suppress the import of features with overlap
> with existing data." (emphasis added by me)
>
> However, that just means, the import, hence, is nothing easy and could
> not be achieve quickly, I would assume. One way of making sure that this
> is dealt with diligently, would be setting the tasking manager to
> 'experienced mappers only'. We would have to ask James, who is in charge
> of the Canada Tasking Manager, how to edit/set up the 'experienced
> mapper role' in the TM. It might be possible to feed in a list of
> mappers manually or to set a threshold of objects/changesets that they
> must have entered in OSM. However, maybe only mappers who feel
> experienced enough to handle the import would contribute to the TM
> project anyway and we let everyone judge on their own and don't restrict
> access.
>
> If we were to separate the new and overlapping buildings, I am also
> leaning towards Daniel's assessment. I would be afraid to cause more
> issues than by doing it all at once (with a reasonable tile size, of
> course).
>
> In the end, the main point of importing this specific dataset fulfils
> two purposes, in my opinion: first, to add missing buildings (if it were
> just for this purpose we could also use the much bigger Microsoft
> dataset), second, to get the best geospatial representation possible in
> our OSM database. That means, we defer from using the Microsoft dataset
> and use the much higher quality data from the ODB. This also means that
> we should replace already existing buildings (yet keeping tags and
> history) wherever the ODB footprint is more precise than the existing one.
>
> Just my two cents here,
> Tim
>
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Tim Elrick]

I would assume in most cases the imported building footprint will be 
more precise than existing data. For me, this would be a reason to 
replace already existing objects. However, I think this is a case by 
case decision. However, I think it is important to keep tags and history 
of buildings already existent in OSM. This is how I would read/interpret 
the import guideline stated by Nate: "If you are importing data where 
there is already some data in OSM, then *you need to combine this data* 
in an appropriate way or suppress the import of features with overlap 
with existing data." (emphasis added by me)


However, that just means, the import, hence, is nothing easy and could 
not be achieve quickly, I would assume. One way of making sure that this 
is dealt with diligently, would be setting the tasking manager to 
'experienced mappers only'. We would have to ask James, who is in charge 
of the Canada Tasking Manager, how to edit/set up the 'experienced 
mapper role' in the TM. It might be possible to feed in a list of 
mappers manually or to set a threshold of objects/changesets that they 
must have entered in OSM. However, maybe only mappers who feel 
experienced enough to handle the import would contribute to the TM 
project anyway and we let everyone judge on their own and don't restrict 
access.


If we were to separate the new and overlapping buildings, I am also 
leaning towards Daniel's assessment. I would be afraid to cause more 
issues than by doing it all at once (with a reasonable tile size, of 
course).


In the end, the main point of importing this specific dataset fulfils 
two purposes, in my opinion: first, to add missing buildings (if it were 
just for this purpose we could also use the much bigger Microsoft 
dataset), second, to get the best geospatial representation possible in 
our OSM database. That means, we defer from using the Microsoft dataset 
and use the much higher quality data from the ODB. This also means that 
we should replace already existing buildings (yet keeping tags and 
history) wherever the ODB footprint is more precise than the existing one.


Just my two cents here,
Tim

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Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

The page "The Open Database of Buildings" has been moved to the "Canada - The 
Open Database of Buildings" not to confuse wiki users from outside the country 
(a Tim Elrick suggestion).

Tim also identified another way to identify local mappers. I added a link to 
his recipe in the above wiki page, in "Get local buy-in before importing" 
section.

Daniel

-Original Message-
From: Tim Elrick [mailto:o...@elrick.de] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2020 17:19
To: Daniel @jfd553; john whelan
Cc: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Hi all,

I understand your concerns, John. However, many mappers might not follow 
talk-ca. So, I guess, Daniel's suggestion to contact them, might work 
better than waiting for them to incidentally check talk-ca.

* More to finding local mappers *
By providing the overpass query I just wanted to share a different way 
of contacting active mappers in your area. The advantage of Pascal's 
Who's around me is that you can see the mappers with lots of changesets, 
ie. presumably experienced mappers. The disadvantage is that these 
changesets do not have to be from the area we are interested in 
(however, with activity center in the last 6 months we at least make 
sure they were working in our area); another disadvantage is that you 
cannot collect the names of the mappers easily (or am I missing 
something here?). The advantage of the overpass query is that you get 
that list of names easily and you can see how many objects they have 
added in your area in the past months. The disadvantage, of course, is 
that we don't know how experienced the mappers are (but maybe this 
doesn't matter).

Anyway, either approach works as Daniel already pointed out. Thanks to 
stevea, I now know that I can share Overpass queries easily:
for a geocoded area:
http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/PM9
for a bounding box:
http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/PMb

* Contacting local mappers *
I suggest we design a template letter on the wiki page that can be send 
out to local mappers that include the everything that Daniel suggested 
in his last message below.

Tim


On 2020-01-15 15:54, Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
Hi John, Tim, and the others :-)
John, I understand your concern and if it was not addressed properly, 
this could block the import again.

IMHO, we just need to make sure that we have done everything reasonable 
to inform the concerned contributors, in order to discuss the import in 
case they do not agree with it. That is why I proposed the following, in 
a previous email, concerning local mappers buy-in…

1- We contact them to explain our intentions by referring to the 
appropriate wiki pages.
2- We wait a week or two for them to respond to nothing, have concerns 
or want to help.
3- Without negative answers, we could proceed to the import.

The point 3 above make sure the project is not stalled in case there is 
no or only a few answers. The identification of local contributors using 
Neis’ tool, or the query Tim Elrick just proposed, are what I consider 
reasonable attempts for contacting the local mappers.

Daniel

-Original Message-
From: Tim Elrick via Talk-ca [mailto:talk-ca@openstreetmap.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2020 15:12
To: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Hi all,

*a) data hosting*
I can offer to host pre-processed data for the building imports as well.

*b) task manager work units*
I find smaller tasks about 20 minutes each more appealing than 1 hour tasks

*c) checking already existing data*
An added tag would certainly help as you can apply a filter in JOSM then.

*d) finding local mappers*
You can use the following query on http://overpass-turbo.eu/ to get a
list of all users in the time period specified in the area specified.

// overpass query
[out:csv(::user)];
// replace Montreal by any known location in OSM, or see code below
// for bounding box use
{{geocodeArea:Montreal}}->.searchArea;
(
 // I collected users active in the last 6 months, but you can
 // change that
 node(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
 way(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
 relation(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
);
out meta;
// end overpass query

Copy the query into the left side of the window and click Export, then
'raw data directly from Overpass API'. This will generate a csv. You can
then count the number of times a name appears in your list by using
LibreOffice, R, Python or Excel. This will give you the number of
objects a user entered in the last 6 months.

If I do this for Montreal I end up with 106 names who have contributed
20 objects or more in the last half year or 46 names who have
contributed 100 objects and more.

You can then use https://www.openstreetmap.org/message/new/USERNAME by
replacing USERNAME with the names from the list to contact these users.

For areas where there i

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[John Whelan]

I'll cross my fingers and hope it all comes together.

Thanks John

Tim Elrick wrote on 2020-01-15 5:18 PM:

Hi all,

I understand your concerns, John. However, many mappers might not 
follow talk-ca. So, I guess, Daniel's suggestion to contact them, 
might work better than waiting for them to incidentally check talk-ca.


* More to finding local mappers *
By providing the overpass query I just wanted to share a different way 
of contacting active mappers in your area. The advantage of Pascal's 
Who's around me is that you can see the mappers with lots of 
changesets, ie. presumably experienced mappers. The disadvantage is 
that these changesets do not have to be from the area we are 
interested in (however, with activity center in the last 6 months we 
at least make sure they were working in our area); another 
disadvantage is that you cannot collect the names of the mappers 
easily (or am I missing something here?). The advantage of the 
overpass query is that you get that list of names easily and you can 
see how many objects they have added in your area in the past months. 
The disadvantage, of course, is that we don't know how experienced the 
mappers are (but maybe this doesn't matter).


Anyway, either approach works as Daniel already pointed out. Thanks to 
stevea, I now know that I can share Overpass queries easily:

for a geocoded area:
http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/PM9
for a bounding box:
http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/PMb

* Contacting local mappers *
I suggest we design a template letter on the wiki page that can be 
send out to local mappers that include the everything that Daniel 
suggested in his last message below.


Tim


On 2020-01-15 15:54, Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
Hi John, Tim, and the others :-)
John, I understand your concern and if it was not addressed properly, 
this could block the import again.


IMHO, we just need to make sure that we have done everything 
reasonable to inform the concerned contributors, in order to discuss 
the import in case they do not agree with it. That is why I proposed 
the following, in a previous email, concerning local mappers buy-in…


1- We contact them to explain our intentions by referring to the 
appropriate wiki pages.
2- We wait a week or two for them to respond to nothing, have concerns 
or want to help.

3- Without negative answers, we could proceed to the import.

The point 3 above make sure the project is not stalled in case there 
is no or only a few answers. The identification of local contributors 
using Neis’ tool, or the query Tim Elrick just proposed, are what I 
consider reasonable attempts for contacting the local mappers.


Daniel

-Original Message-
From: Tim Elrick via Talk-ca [mailto:talk-ca@openstreetmap.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2020 15:12
To: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Hi all,

*a) data hosting*
I can offer to host pre-processed data for the building imports as well.

*b) task manager work units*
I find smaller tasks about 20 minutes each more appealing than 1 hour 
tasks


*c) checking already existing data*
An added tag would certainly help as you can apply a filter in JOSM then.

*d) finding local mappers*
You can use the following query on http://overpass-turbo.eu/ to get a
list of all users in the time period specified in the area specified.

// overpass query
[out:csv(::user)];
// replace Montreal by any known location in OSM, or see code below
// for bounding box use
{{geocodeArea:Montreal}}->.searchArea;
(
    // I collected users active in the last 6 months, but you can
    // change that
    node(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
    way(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
    relation(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
);
out meta;
// end overpass query

Copy the query into the left side of the window and click Export, then
'raw data directly from Overpass API'. This will generate a csv. You can
then count the number of times a name appears in your list by using
LibreOffice, R, Python or Excel. This will give you the number of
objects a user entered in the last 6 months.

If I do this for Montreal I end up with 106 names who have contributed
20 objects or more in the last half year or 46 names who have
contributed 100 objects and more.

You can then use https://www.openstreetmap.org/message/new/USERNAME by
replacing USERNAME with the names from the list to contact these users.

For areas where there is no geocodeArea in OSM you can use the
boundingbox query below. First, zoom to the area of interest (i.e. your
bounding box), then paste the following code on the left and export:

// overpass query
[out:csv(::user)];
(
    node(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")({{bbox}});
    way(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")({{bbox}});
    relation(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")({{bbox}});
);
out meta;
// end overpass query

Tim

On 2020-01-15 12:55, Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
Thanks for the quick 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Tim Elrick]

Hi all,

I understand your concerns, John. However, many mappers might not follow 
talk-ca. So, I guess, Daniel's suggestion to contact them, might work 
better than waiting for them to incidentally check talk-ca.


* More to finding local mappers *
By providing the overpass query I just wanted to share a different way 
of contacting active mappers in your area. The advantage of Pascal's 
Who's around me is that you can see the mappers with lots of changesets, 
ie. presumably experienced mappers. The disadvantage is that these 
changesets do not have to be from the area we are interested in 
(however, with activity center in the last 6 months we at least make 
sure they were working in our area); another disadvantage is that you 
cannot collect the names of the mappers easily (or am I missing 
something here?). The advantage of the overpass query is that you get 
that list of names easily and you can see how many objects they have 
added in your area in the past months. The disadvantage, of course, is 
that we don't know how experienced the mappers are (but maybe this 
doesn't matter).


Anyway, either approach works as Daniel already pointed out. Thanks to 
stevea, I now know that I can share Overpass queries easily:

for a geocoded area:
http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/PM9
for a bounding box:
http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/PMb

* Contacting local mappers *
I suggest we design a template letter on the wiki page that can be send 
out to local mappers that include the everything that Daniel suggested 
in his last message below.


Tim


On 2020-01-15 15:54, Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
Hi John, Tim, and the others :-)
John, I understand your concern and if it was not addressed properly, 
this could block the import again.


IMHO, we just need to make sure that we have done everything reasonable 
to inform the concerned contributors, in order to discuss the import in 
case they do not agree with it. That is why I proposed the following, in 
a previous email, concerning local mappers buy-in…


1- We contact them to explain our intentions by referring to the 
appropriate wiki pages.
2- We wait a week or two for them to respond to nothing, have concerns 
or want to help.

3- Without negative answers, we could proceed to the import.

The point 3 above make sure the project is not stalled in case there is 
no or only a few answers. The identification of local contributors using 
Neis’ tool, or the query Tim Elrick just proposed, are what I consider 
reasonable attempts for contacting the local mappers.


Daniel

-Original Message-
From: Tim Elrick via Talk-ca [mailto:talk-ca@openstreetmap.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2020 15:12
To: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Hi all,

*a) data hosting*
I can offer to host pre-processed data for the building imports as well.

*b) task manager work units*
I find smaller tasks about 20 minutes each more appealing than 1 hour tasks

*c) checking already existing data*
An added tag would certainly help as you can apply a filter in JOSM then.

*d) finding local mappers*
You can use the following query on http://overpass-turbo.eu/ to get a
list of all users in the time period specified in the area specified.

// overpass query
[out:csv(::user)];
// replace Montreal by any known location in OSM, or see code below
// for bounding box use
{{geocodeArea:Montreal}}->.searchArea;
(
// I collected users active in the last 6 months, but you can
// change that
node(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
way(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
relation(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
);
out meta;
// end overpass query

Copy the query into the left side of the window and click Export, then
'raw data directly from Overpass API'. This will generate a csv. You can
then count the number of times a name appears in your list by using
LibreOffice, R, Python or Excel. This will give you the number of
objects a user entered in the last 6 months.

If I do this for Montreal I end up with 106 names who have contributed
20 objects or more in the last half year or 46 names who have
contributed 100 objects and more.

You can then use https://www.openstreetmap.org/message/new/USERNAME by
replacing USERNAME with the names from the list to contact these users.

For areas where there is no geocodeArea in OSM you can use the
boundingbox query below. First, zoom to the area of interest (i.e. your
bounding box), then paste the following code on the left and export:

// overpass query
[out:csv(::user)];
(
node(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")({{bbox}});
way(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")({{bbox}});
relation(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")({{bbox}});
);
out meta;
// end overpass query

Tim

On 2020-01-15 12:55, Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
Thanks for the quick replies!

Now, about...

*a) Data hosting:*

Thank you James, I really appreciate your offer (and that of others).

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Hi John, Tim, and the others :-)
John, I understand your concern and if it was not addressed properly, this 
could block the import again.

IMHO, we just need to make sure that we have done everything reasonable to 
inform the concerned contributors, in order to discuss the import in case they 
do not agree with it. That is why I proposed the following, in a previous 
email, concerning local mappers buy-in…

1- We contact them to explain our intentions by referring to the appropriate 
wiki pages.
2- We wait a week or two for them to respond to nothing, have concerns or want 
to help.
3- Without negative answers, we could proceed to the import.

The point 3 above make sure the project is not stalled in case there is no or 
only a few answers. The identification of local contributors using Neis’ tool, 
or the query Tim Elrick just proposed, are what I consider reasonable attempts 
for contacting the local mappers.

Daniel

-Original Message-
From: Tim Elrick via Talk-ca [mailto:talk-ca@openstreetmap.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2020 15:12
To: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Hi all,

*a) data hosting*
I can offer to host pre-processed data for the building imports as well.

*b) task manager work units*
I find smaller tasks about 20 minutes each more appealing than 1 hour tasks

*c) checking already existing data*
An added tag would certainly help as you can apply a filter in JOSM then.

*d) finding local mappers*
You can use the following query on http://overpass-turbo.eu/ to get a 
list of all users in the time period specified in the area specified.

// overpass query
[out:csv(::user)];
// replace Montreal by any known location in OSM, or see code below
// for bounding box use
{{geocodeArea:Montreal}}->.searchArea;
(
   // I collected users active in the last 6 months, but you can
   // change that
   node(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
   way(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
   relation(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
);
out meta;
// end overpass query

Copy the query into the left side of the window and click Export, then 
'raw data directly from Overpass API'. This will generate a csv. You can 
then count the number of times a name appears in your list by using 
LibreOffice, R, Python or Excel. This will give you the number of 
objects a user entered in the last 6 months.

If I do this for Montreal I end up with 106 names who have contributed 
20 objects or more in the last half year or 46 names who have 
contributed 100 objects and more.

You can then use https://www.openstreetmap.org/message/new/USERNAME by 
replacing USERNAME with the names from the list to contact these users.

For areas where there is no geocodeArea in OSM you can use the 
boundingbox query below. First, zoom to the area of interest (i.e. your 
bounding box), then paste the following code on the left and export:

// overpass query
[out:csv(::user)];
(
   node(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")({{bbox}});
   way(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")({{bbox}});
   relation(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")({{bbox}});
);
out meta;
// end overpass query

Tim

On 2020-01-15 12:55, Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
Thanks for the quick replies!

Now, about...

*a) Data hosting:*

Thank you James, I really appreciate your offer (and that of others). So
yes, I think hosting pre-processed data in the task manager, for
approved regions, is an attractive offer. When we agree on a
municipality for pre-processing, I will contact you to make the data
available.

BTW, I thought ODB data in OSM format was hosted with the OSMCanada task
manager. I understand that ODB data are currently converted on the fly
when requested?

*b) Task manager work units for import:*

I agree with Nate, ~ 200 buildings or ~ 1,500 nodes would be suitable. I
was thinking at the same importation rate, but for an hour of work. It
seems best to target 20-minute tasks.

*c) Task manager work units for checking already imported data*

According to Nate, it is definitely not faster than actively importing.
We should then keep the above setup (b).

However, what if I add a new tag to pre-processed data indicating if a
building was altered or not by the orthogonalization (and
simplification) process? For instance, /building:altered=no/, would
identify buildings that were not changed by the process and that could
be left unchanged in OSM (i.e. not imported); /building:altered=yes/ for
those who were changed by the process and that should be imported again.
The same pre-processed datasets could then be made available for all
cases. Thoughts?

*d) Finding local mappers:*

I agree with Nate’s suggestion to try contacting the top 10 mappers in
an area. Using the "main activity center" would work for most of the
contributors but selecting other overlays (.e.g. an activity center over
last 6 months) could also work great. As long as we identif

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Tim Elrick via Talk-ca]

Hi all,

*a) data hosting*
I can offer to host pre-processed data for the building imports as well.

*b) task manager work units*
I find smaller tasks about 20 minutes each more appealing than 1 hour tasks

*c) checking already existing data*
An added tag would certainly help as you can apply a filter in JOSM then.

*d) finding local mappers*
You can use the following query on http://overpass-turbo.eu/ to get a 
list of all users in the time period specified in the area specified.


// overpass query
[out:csv(::user)];
// replace Montreal by any known location in OSM, or see code below
// for bounding box use
{{geocodeArea:Montreal}}->.searchArea;
(
  // I collected users active in the last 6 months, but you can
  // change that
  node(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
  way(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
  relation(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")(area.searchArea);
);
out meta;
// end overpass query

Copy the query into the left side of the window and click Export, then 
'raw data directly from Overpass API'. This will generate a csv. You can 
then count the number of times a name appears in your list by using 
LibreOffice, R, Python or Excel. This will give you the number of 
objects a user entered in the last 6 months.


If I do this for Montreal I end up with 106 names who have contributed 
20 objects or more in the last half year or 46 names who have 
contributed 100 objects and more.


You can then use https://www.openstreetmap.org/message/new/USERNAME by 
replacing USERNAME with the names from the list to contact these users.


For areas where there is no geocodeArea in OSM you can use the 
boundingbox query below. First, zoom to the area of interest (i.e. your 
bounding box), then paste the following code on the left and export:


// overpass query
[out:csv(::user)];
(
  node(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")({{bbox}});
  way(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")({{bbox}});
  relation(newer:"{{date:6 months}}")({{bbox}});
);
out meta;
// end overpass query

Tim

On 2020-01-15 12:55, Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
Thanks for the quick replies!

Now, about...

*a) Data hosting:*

Thank you James, I really appreciate your offer (and that of others). So
yes, I think hosting pre-processed data in the task manager, for
approved regions, is an attractive offer. When we agree on a
municipality for pre-processing, I will contact you to make the data
available.

BTW, I thought ODB data in OSM format was hosted with the OSMCanada task
manager. I understand that ODB data are currently converted on the fly
when requested?

*b) Task manager work units for import:*

I agree with Nate, ~ 200 buildings or ~ 1,500 nodes would be suitable. I
was thinking at the same importation rate, but for an hour of work. It
seems best to target 20-minute tasks.

*c) Task manager work units for checking already imported data*

According to Nate, it is definitely not faster than actively importing.
We should then keep the above setup (b).

However, what if I add a new tag to pre-processed data indicating if a
building was altered or not by the orthogonalization (and
simplification) process? For instance, /building:altered=no/, would
identify buildings that were not changed by the process and that could
be left unchanged in OSM (i.e. not imported); /building:altered=yes/ for
those who were changed by the process and that should be imported again.
The same pre-processed datasets could then be made available for all
cases. Thoughts?

*d) Finding local mappers:*

I agree with Nate’s suggestion to try contacting the top 10 mappers in
an area. Using the "main activity center" would work for most of the
contributors but selecting other overlays (.e.g. an activity center over
last 6 months) could also work great. As long as we identify who might
be interested in knowing there is an import coming.

Comments are welcome, particularly about the proposal on c)

Daniel


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___
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Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Updates about the ODB import proposal
Documentation:
All the content regarding the current import has been moved to the Open 
Database of Building (ODB) wiki page [1]. The purpose of the page is now 
twofold. Provide a detailed procedure on how to import the data and to keep an 
inventory of what has been done/remains to do.
The Canada Building Import wiki page [2] will keep the same name but its 
content has been modified to serve as a hub for all building imports, previous 
and current. I also added a section to describe what best practices are when 
importing/editing buildings (to be developed).
Import:
Regarding the import, I proposed the import to be done using the task manager 
on a Municipal basis for all the reasons mentioned here [3]. In order to make 
it work properly, the OSMCanada task manager [4] needs to be set up for a given 
municipality only after a contributor has identified himself as the local 
import manager. We also know that the task manager us totally customizable [5].

Now we need to discuss, amongst other things, of ...

* Who will be in charge of setting up the task manager?

* What optimal task manager's parameters should be to ease the import?

* What parameters are required to review what has already been imported?

* How to proceed when pre-processing is required?
Proposals or suggestions? Let's discuss
Daniel

[1] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/The_Open_Database_of_Buildings

[2] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Canada_Building_Import

[3] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-ca/2020-January/009541.html

[4] http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/

[5] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-ca/2020-January/009553.html


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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Okey dokey :-)
Here is a short wrap-up about current discussion and questions raised so far, 
with some answers given from my perspective.
First a few definitions…
Municipality: Data_prov attribute in ODB data. It is the name of the 
municipality, region, or province/territory that provided the dataset. Each of 
these datasets usually covers many smaller cities, towns or villages as 
identified by the CSDNAME attribute in ODB data.
Local import manager: Someone that identified himself as responsible for the 
import in a given municipality. We will need an entry in the wiki to identify 
them. Following is a list of his/her potential responsibilities.
- He/she will ensure the whole import process respects the rules that we will 
put in place.
- He/she will attempt to contact local mappers, if any, to get a local buy-in.
- He/she will ask for pre-processing the data if required.
- He/she will ask for setting up the task manager for that municipality.
The local import manager is NOT responsible for doing the whole import, just 
ensuring that the process is done right (see Import Process paragraphs below).
Now some topics raised in the thread…
Importing locally - see proposal 2.1
- The proposal describes an approach that allows an import even where there are 
no local communities. As long as there is a local import manager, all available 
data should be imported (for urban and rural areas).
The Task Manager - see proposal 2.3 1-
- To make sure there in no wild import, an import task should be set-up only 
after a local import manager has required it. Without a local import manager, 
the data should not be made available through the task manager (i.e. NO import).
- Being able to adapt the size of the working squares in the task manager is 
great news. We just have to identify what could be a reasonable volume of 
building to process, let’s say in an hour, to adjust the squares accordingly.
The Import Process - see proposal 2.3 4-
- It would be fun if we all got involved in importing data as a municipality 
becomes available for import. We might all have local knowledge to share even 
if we do not live in a given municipality.
- The Conflation process is when you need to replace the geometry of an 
existing OSM building with the one from ODB data because it would significantly 
be improved. Consequently, not all buildings need to be changed using ODB data.
Correction of already imported data - see proposal 2.3 2-, 3-
- Identifying those who carried out these imports as de facto responsible for 
the corrections might seem like blame in some case. I suggest that anyone could 
identify themselves as local import manager for concerned municipalities, 
including those who made the first import if they wish.
- Correction might be twofold: the correction of low quality building shapes 
and the correction of low positional accuracy of OSM content when it is the 
case.



Thanks for your interest!

Daniel

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

I think it is desirable to stay close to a KISS (Keep It Simple and Stupid) 
approach for editing data. I have doubts about the need to ensure that a 
building will not be edited twice, or about the advantages of changing the 
angles in the task manager. However, as long as the import process does not 
become tedious or complex, I have no objections.

Daniel

From: Nate Wessel [mailto:bike...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2020 12:30
To: Pierre Béland; talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada


Yeah, there are issues with the Toronto Simplification tasks ... I was tempted 
to orient the task grid more to the actual streets by rotating everything ~17 
degrees. The problem with that is that when downloading the task data by 
bounding box (i.e. a new unrotated bounding box) you end up getting lots of 
data that's not in the task. I've found that the best way to do the validation 
tasks is to download the task data and then download a slightly expanded 
bounding box to ensure I have everything. Not the cleanest solution, but it's 
the best I've found so far.

Arbitrary task shapes seem to work fine for importing though because you can 
easily see where the new data starts and ends. And buildings can be assigned to 
a task uniquely without difficulty.

Cheers,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com<https://www.natewessel.com>
On 2020-01-05 12:16 p.m., Pierre Béland wrote:
Bonjour Nate,

Cette approche avec taille et forme variable des tâches est intéressante pour 
contrôler le nombre de bâtiments à valider.  Pour éviter les conflits 
d'édition, est-t-il possible de s'assurer qu'un bâtiment se retrouvera dans une 
seule tâche ?

Si des bâtiments se retrouvent sur la ligne de contour de la tâche, il seront 
sélectionnés dans deux tâches différentes. Voir par exemple 
http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168#task/152

Une façon d'éviter cela serait de s'aligner le plus possible sur les routes.


Pierre



Le dimanche 5 janvier 2020 11 h 40 min 49 s UTC−5, Nate Wessel 
<mailto:bike...@gmail.com> a écrit :



The task size, and even shape is totally customizable. I've set up a couple 
that are entirely based on the density of the data:
http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168
https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/project/107

Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com<https://www.natewessel.com>
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[john whelan]

Which is what I imagined was the case but the audience in talk-ca is large
and with two languages around it is easy for misunderstandings to occur.

Cheerio John

On Sun, Jan 5, 2020, 12:33 PM Nate Wessel,  wrote:

> John,
> Those links were just to indicate what can be done with task setup. I
> don't think we're close to setting up actual import tasks yet, though we do
> seem to be on the road toward getting things sorted out :-)
>
> Nate Wessel, PhD
> Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
> NateWessel.com <https://www.natewessel.com>
> On 2020-01-05 12:20 p.m., john whelan wrote:
>
> I'm getting lost as to who is organising what and who is taking
> responsibility for defining and setting up the tasks and where they are
> being set up.
>
> Are your two examples of what can be done?  Or are they to be used by
> mappers to add buildings?
>
> My understanding was Daniel would identify those areas that looked the
> most interesting then these would be set up after the process to see if any
> local mappers were available and what their input would be.
>
> Thanks John
>
> On Sun, Jan 5, 2020, 11:41 AM Nate Wessel,  wrote:
>
>> The task size, and even shape is totally customizable. I've set up a
>> couple that are entirely based on the density of the data:
>> http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168
>> https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/project/107
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Nate Wessel, PhD
>> Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
>> NateWessel.com <https://www.natewessel.com>
>> On 2020-01-04 12:40 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
>>
>> Bonjour groupe
>>
>>
>>
>> Looks like we're going in the same direction so far :-)
>>
>> I agree with Nate regarding the implementation of the task manager. In my
>> experience, a size of a few blocks would be better in urban areas, but
>> boring in rural areas. Is it something that can be adjusted?
>>
>>
>>
>> Daniel
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Nate Wessel [mailto:bike...@gmail.com ]
>> *Sent:* Saturday, January 04, 2020 10:09
>> *To:* talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
>> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi Daniel,
>>
>> Thank you for all the work you've put into this. I'd like to offer a
>> couple suggestions and/or clarifications for your proposed import process,
>> overview though it is.
>>
>> First, I think it is very important that a tasking manager is set up on a
>> city/by city basis only, and that only AFTER consensus is achieved that the
>> import should proceed in that area. I would really like to avoid seeing the
>> massive nationwide tasking that was set up the first time around. We should
>> be making it hard for people to go rogue in regions where consensus for an
>> import doesn't (yet) exist.
>>
>> Related to this, though important enough to be a second point in it's own
>> right, the tasking squares need to be small enough that a single user can
>> manage them and inspect every single building in a task. The first round of
>> import used task squares that were massive, and which couldn't be divided
>> any further past a certain point. Even in rural areas, it is likely
>> inappropriate to import areas larger than 1km^2. In central Toronto it
>> would be (and was) idiotic. An import that doesn't take local scale into
>> account shouldn't proceed. "Too big to load into JOSM" is about 100x too
>> big to import in my opinion and is not a good enough benchmark for import
>> batch sizing.
>>
>> That is, each import needs to be local, and not just in a superficial
>> sense.
>>
>> I'll also add that the issue of conflation doesn't seem to have been
>> worked out yet except to note that it is an issue. What will we do with the
>> millions of buildings which will substantially overlap/duplicate existing
>> buildings or imports? This needs to be worked out in detail before anything
>> starts up again.
>>
>> And what needs to be done about already existing low quality imports?
>> It's good to acknowledge their existence, but what will be done about them?
>> We've set up a task to clean up some of the mess in Toronto (
>> http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168 ) but this is only the tip of the
>> iceberg.
>>
>> Again, I thank everyone for their time and effort on this - we can get
>> this done if we go slow and do it right :-)
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Nate Wessel, PhD
>> Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
>> NateWessel.com <https://www.natewessel.com>
>>
>> On 2020-01-03 3:40 p.m., 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Nate Wessel]

John,
Those links were just to indicate what can be done with task setup. I 
don't think we're close to setting up actual import tasks yet, though we 
do seem to be on the road toward getting things sorted out :-)


Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com <https://www.natewessel.com>

On 2020-01-05 12:20 p.m., john whelan wrote:
I'm getting lost as to who is organising what and who is taking 
responsibility for defining and setting up the tasks and where they 
are being set up.


Are your two examples of what can be done?  Or are they to be used by 
mappers to add buildings?


My understanding was Daniel would identify those areas that looked the 
most interesting then these would be set up after the process to see 
if any local mappers were available and what their input would be.


Thanks John

On Sun, Jan 5, 2020, 11:41 AM Nate Wessel, <mailto:bike...@gmail.com>> wrote:


The task size, and even shape is totally customizable. I've set up
a couple that are entirely based on the density of the data:
http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168
https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/project/107

Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com <https://www.natewessel.com>

On 2020-01-04 12:40 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:


Bonjour groupe

Looks like we're going in the same direction so far :-)

I agree with Nate regarding the implementation of the task
manager. In my experience, a size of a few blocks would be better
in urban areas, but boring in rural areas. Is it something that
can be adjusted?

Daniel

*From:*Nate Wessel [mailto:bike...@gmail.com]
*Sent:* Saturday, January 04, 2020 10:09
*To:* talk-ca@openstreetmap.org <mailto:talk-ca@openstreetmap.org>
    *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for all the work you've put into this. I'd like to
offer a couple suggestions and/or clarifications for your
proposed import process, overview though it is.

First, I think it is very important that a tasking manager is set
up on a city/by city basis only, and that only AFTER consensus is
achieved that the import should proceed in that area. I would
really like to avoid seeing the massive nationwide tasking that
was set up the first time around. We should be making it hard for
people to go rogue in regions where consensus for an import
doesn't (yet) exist.

Related to this, though important enough to be a second point in
it's own right, the tasking squares need to be small enough that
a single user can manage them and inspect every single building
in a task. The first round of import used task squares that were
massive, and which couldn't be divided any further past a certain
point. Even in rural areas, it is likely inappropriate to import
areas larger than 1km^2. In central Toronto it would be (and was)
idiotic. An import that doesn't take local scale into account
shouldn't proceed. "Too big to load into JOSM" is about 100x too
big to import in my opinion and is not a good enough benchmark
for import batch sizing.

That is, each import needs to be local, and not just in a
superficial sense.

I'll also add that the issue of conflation doesn't seem to have
been worked out yet except to note that it is an issue. What will
we do with the millions of buildings which will substantially
overlap/duplicate existing buildings or imports? This needs to be
worked out in detail before anything starts up again.

And what needs to be done about already existing low quality
imports? It's good to acknowledge their existence, but what will
be done about them? We've set up a task to clean up some of the
mess in Toronto ( http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168 ) but
this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Again, I thank everyone for their time and effort on this - we
can get this done if we go slow and do it right :-)

Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com <https://www.natewessel.com>

On 2020-01-03 3:40 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:

Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)

I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB
import (aka Canada Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki.
I proposed changes to some wiki pages (via talk tabs) to ease
the discussions about this import and the following. Now, in
order to restart the import, here are some thoughts and a
proposal on how to proceed to complete the task.

*1. Issues with the ODB Data Import*

Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern
was to obtain local communities’ buy-in in the Canadian
context. Another concern was to improve the quality of the
 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Nate Wessel]

Yeah, there are issues with the Toronto Simplification tasks ... I was 
tempted to orient the task grid more to the actual streets by rotating 
everything ~17 degrees. The problem with that is that when downloading 
the task data by bounding box (i.e. a new unrotated bounding box) you 
end up getting lots of data that's not in the task. I've found that the 
best way to do the validation tasks is to download the task data and 
then download a slightly expanded bounding box to ensure I have 
everything. Not the cleanest solution, but it's the best I've found so far.


Arbitrary task shapes seem to work fine for importing though because you 
can easily see where the new data starts and ends. And buildings can be 
assigned to a task uniquely without difficulty.


Cheers,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

On 2020-01-05 12:16 p.m., Pierre Béland wrote:

Bonjour Nate,

Cette approche avec taille et forme variable des tâches est 
intéressante pour contrôler le nombre de bâtiments à valider.  Pour 
éviter les conflits d'édition, est-t-il possible de s'assurer qu'un 
bâtiment se retrouvera dans une seule tâche ?


Si des bâtiments se retrouvent sur la ligne de contour de la tâche, il 
seront sélectionnés dans deux tâches différentes. Voir par exemple 
http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168#task/152


Une façon d'éviter cela serait de s'aligner le plus possible sur les 
routes.



Pierre


Le dimanche 5 janvier 2020 11 h 40 min 49 s UTC−5, Nate Wessel 
 a écrit :



The task size, and even shape is totally customizable. I've set up a 
couple that are entirely based on the density of the data:

http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168
https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/project/107

Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[john whelan]

I'm getting lost as to who is organising what and who is taking
responsibility for defining and setting up the tasks and where they are
being set up.

Are your two examples of what can be done?  Or are they to be used by
mappers to add buildings?

My understanding was Daniel would identify those areas that looked the most
interesting then these would be set up after the process to see if any
local mappers were available and what their input would be.

Thanks John

On Sun, Jan 5, 2020, 11:41 AM Nate Wessel,  wrote:

> The task size, and even shape is totally customizable. I've set up a
> couple that are entirely based on the density of the data:
> http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168
> https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/project/107
>
> Best,
>
> Nate Wessel, PhD
> Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
> NateWessel.com <https://www.natewessel.com>
> On 2020-01-04 12:40 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
>
> Bonjour groupe
>
>
>
> Looks like we're going in the same direction so far :-)
>
> I agree with Nate regarding the implementation of the task manager. In my
> experience, a size of a few blocks would be better in urban areas, but
> boring in rural areas. Is it something that can be adjusted?
>
>
>
> Daniel
>
>
>
> *From:* Nate Wessel [mailto:bike...@gmail.com ]
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 04, 2020 10:09
> *To:* talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada
>
>
>
> Hi Daniel,
>
> Thank you for all the work you've put into this. I'd like to offer a
> couple suggestions and/or clarifications for your proposed import process,
> overview though it is.
>
> First, I think it is very important that a tasking manager is set up on a
> city/by city basis only, and that only AFTER consensus is achieved that the
> import should proceed in that area. I would really like to avoid seeing the
> massive nationwide tasking that was set up the first time around. We should
> be making it hard for people to go rogue in regions where consensus for an
> import doesn't (yet) exist.
>
> Related to this, though important enough to be a second point in it's own
> right, the tasking squares need to be small enough that a single user can
> manage them and inspect every single building in a task. The first round of
> import used task squares that were massive, and which couldn't be divided
> any further past a certain point. Even in rural areas, it is likely
> inappropriate to import areas larger than 1km^2. In central Toronto it
> would be (and was) idiotic. An import that doesn't take local scale into
> account shouldn't proceed. "Too big to load into JOSM" is about 100x too
> big to import in my opinion and is not a good enough benchmark for import
> batch sizing.
>
> That is, each import needs to be local, and not just in a superficial
> sense.
>
> I'll also add that the issue of conflation doesn't seem to have been
> worked out yet except to note that it is an issue. What will we do with the
> millions of buildings which will substantially overlap/duplicate existing
> buildings or imports? This needs to be worked out in detail before anything
> starts up again.
>
> And what needs to be done about already existing low quality imports? It's
> good to acknowledge their existence, but what will be done about them?
> We've set up a task to clean up some of the mess in Toronto (
> http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168 ) but this is only the tip of the
> iceberg.
>
> Again, I thank everyone for their time and effort on this - we can get
> this done if we go slow and do it right :-)
>
> Best,
>
> Nate Wessel, PhD
> Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
> NateWessel.com <https://www.natewessel.com>
>
> On 2020-01-03 3:40 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
>
> Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)
>
> I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB import (aka
> Canada Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki. I proposed changes to some
> wiki pages (via talk tabs) to ease the discussions about this import and
> the following. Now, in order to restart the import, here are some thoughts
> and a proposal on how to proceed to complete the task.
>
>
>
> *1. Issues with the ODB Data Import*
>
> Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern was to
> obtain local communities’ buy-in in the Canadian context. Another concern
> was to improve the quality of the data prior the import. The following
> paragraphs intend to clear most of these concerns.
>
> *1.1. Which data import project?*
>
> According to the import guidelines (steps 3 & 4), a data import explicitly
> refers to a single data source (ODB in our case). Discussions about th

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Cool, thanks!

Sent from Galaxy S7


From: Nate Wessel 
Sent: Sunday, January 5, 2020 11:40:10 AM
To: Daniel @jfd553 ; talk-ca@openstreetmap.org 

Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada


The task size, and even shape is totally customizable. I've set up a couple 
that are entirely based on the density of the data:
http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168
https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/project/107

Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com<https://www.natewessel.com>

On 2020-01-04 12:40 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:

Bonjour groupe



Looks like we're going in the same direction so far :-)

I agree with Nate regarding the implementation of the task manager. In my 
experience, a size of a few blocks would be better in urban areas, but boring 
in rural areas. Is it something that can be adjusted?



Daniel



From: Nate Wessel [mailto:bike...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2020 10:09
To: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org<mailto:talk-ca@openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada



Hi Daniel,

Thank you for all the work you've put into this. I'd like to offer a couple 
suggestions and/or clarifications for your proposed import process, overview 
though it is.

First, I think it is very important that a tasking manager is set up on a 
city/by city basis only, and that only AFTER consensus is achieved that the 
import should proceed in that area. I would really like to avoid seeing the 
massive nationwide tasking that was set up the first time around. We should be 
making it hard for people to go rogue in regions where consensus for an import 
doesn't (yet) exist.

Related to this, though important enough to be a second point in it's own 
right, the tasking squares need to be small enough that a single user can 
manage them and inspect every single building in a task. The first round of 
import used task squares that were massive, and which couldn't be divided any 
further past a certain point. Even in rural areas, it is likely inappropriate 
to import areas larger than 1km^2. In central Toronto it would be (and was) 
idiotic. An import that doesn't take local scale into account shouldn't 
proceed. "Too big to load into JOSM" is about 100x too big to import in my 
opinion and is not a good enough benchmark for import batch sizing.

That is, each import needs to be local, and not just in a superficial sense.

I'll also add that the issue of conflation doesn't seem to have been worked out 
yet except to note that it is an issue. What will we do with the millions of 
buildings which will substantially overlap/duplicate existing buildings or 
imports? This needs to be worked out in detail before anything starts up again.

And what needs to be done about already existing low quality imports? It's good 
to acknowledge their existence, but what will be done about them? We've set up 
a task to clean up some of the mess in Toronto ( 
http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168 ) but this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Again, I thank everyone for their time and effort on this - we can get this 
done if we go slow and do it right :-)

Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com<https://www.natewessel.com>

On 2020-01-03 3:40 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:

Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)

I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB import (aka Canada 
Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki. I proposed changes to some wiki pages 
(via talk tabs) to ease the discussions about this import and the following. 
Now, in order to restart the import, here are some thoughts and a proposal on 
how to proceed to complete the task.



1. Issues with the ODB Data Import

Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern was to obtain 
local communities’ buy-in in the Canadian context. Another concern was to 
improve the quality of the data prior the import. The following paragraphs 
intend to clear most of these concerns.

1.1. Which data import project?

According to the import guidelines (steps 3 & 4), a data import explicitly 
refers to a single data source (ODB in our case). Discussions about the 
availability and quality of Microsoft or ESRI data, while interesting, are not 
relevant as they should be dealt with as other import projects.

1.2. What has been imported so far?

According to what I found [1], the ODB import is completed for 21 
municipalities. These imports seem to have kept OSM content’s history, at least 
for the samples checked, but many problems were found. In some case, the 
imports brought swimming pools in OSM because they were included in the dataset 
(e.g. Moncton). In other cases, importing buildings with accurate locations 
(XY) over content mapped from less accurate imagery resulted in buildings that 
now overlap the street network (e.g. Squamish). It means that all these 21 
imports 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Pierre Béland via Talk-ca]

Bonjour Nate,
Cette approche avec taille et forme variable des tâches est intéressante pour 
contrôler le nombre de bâtiments à valider.  Pour éviter les conflits 
d'édition, est-t-il possible de s'assurer qu'un bâtiment se retrouvera dans une 
seule tâche ?  

Si des bâtiments se retrouvent sur la ligne de contour de la tâche, il seront 
sélectionnés dans deux tâches différentes. Voir par exemple 
http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168#task/152
Une façon d'éviter cela serait de s'aligner le plus possible sur les routes.

 
Pierre 
 

Le dimanche 5 janvier 2020 11 h 40 min 49 s UTC−5, Nate Wessel 
 a écrit :  
 
  
The task size, and even shape is totally customizable. I've set up a couple 
that are entirely based on the density of the data:
 http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168
 https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/project/107
 
Best,
 
  
 Nate Wessel, PhD
 Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
 NateWessel.com 
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Nate Wessel]

The task size, and even shape is totally customizable. I've set up a 
couple that are entirely based on the density of the data:

http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168
https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/project/107

Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com <https://www.natewessel.com>

On 2020-01-04 12:40 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:


Bonjour groupe

Looks like we're going in the same direction so far :-)

I agree with Nate regarding the implementation of the task manager. In 
my experience, a size of a few blocks would be better in urban areas, 
but boring in rural areas. Is it something that can be adjusted?


Daniel

*From:*Nate Wessel [mailto:bike...@gmail.com]
*Sent:* Saturday, January 04, 2020 10:09
*To:* talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
*Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for all the work you've put into this. I'd like to offer a 
couple suggestions and/or clarifications for your proposed import 
process, overview though it is.


First, I think it is very important that a tasking manager is set up 
on a city/by city basis only, and that only AFTER consensus is 
achieved that the import should proceed in that area. I would really 
like to avoid seeing the massive nationwide tasking that was set up 
the first time around. We should be making it hard for people to go 
rogue in regions where consensus for an import doesn't (yet) exist.


Related to this, though important enough to be a second point in it's 
own right, the tasking squares need to be small enough that a single 
user can manage them and inspect every single building in a task. The 
first round of import used task squares that were massive, and which 
couldn't be divided any further past a certain point. Even in rural 
areas, it is likely inappropriate to import areas larger than 1km^2. 
In central Toronto it would be (and was) idiotic. An import that 
doesn't take local scale into account shouldn't proceed. "Too big to 
load into JOSM" is about 100x too big to import in my opinion and is 
not a good enough benchmark for import batch sizing.


That is, each import needs to be local, and not just in a superficial 
sense.


I'll also add that the issue of conflation doesn't seem to have been 
worked out yet except to note that it is an issue. What will we do 
with the millions of buildings which will substantially 
overlap/duplicate existing buildings or imports? This needs to be 
worked out in detail before anything starts up again.


And what needs to be done about already existing low quality imports? 
It's good to acknowledge their existence, but what will be done about 
them? We've set up a task to clean up some of the mess in Toronto ( 
http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168 ) but this is only the tip of 
the iceberg.


Again, I thank everyone for their time and effort on this - we can get 
this done if we go slow and do it right :-)


Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com <https://www.natewessel.com>

On 2020-01-03 3:40 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:

Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)

I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB import
(aka Canada Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki. I proposed
changes to some wiki pages (via talk tabs) to ease the discussions
about this import and the following. Now, in order to restart the
import, here are some thoughts and a proposal on how to proceed to
complete the task.

*1. Issues with the ODB Data Import*

Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern was
to obtain local communities’ buy-in in the Canadian context.
Another concern was to improve the quality of the data prior the
import. The following paragraphs intend to clear most of these
concerns.

*1.1. Which data import project?*

According to the import guidelines (steps 3 & 4), a data import
explicitly refers to a single data source (ODB in our case).
Discussions about the availability and quality of Microsoft or
ESRI data, while interesting, are not relevant as they should be
dealt with as other import projects.

*1.2. What has been imported so far?*

According to what I found [1], the ODB import is completed for 21
municipalities. These imports seem to have kept OSM content’s
history, at least for the samples checked, but many problems were
found. In some case, the imports brought swimming pools in OSM
because they were included in the dataset (e.g. Moncton). In other
cases, importing buildings with accurate locations (XY) over
content mapped from less accurate imagery resulted in buildings
that now overlap the street network (e.g. Squamish). It means that
all these 21 imports need to be carefully re-examined and
corrected as required.

For 12 other municipalities, the import is partial, either
suspended as requested, o

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[john whelan]

Daniel addressed this if you reread his email and proposal.  Basically we
look for local mappers first.  If we don't find any we increase the
distance for local.

At the moment we are discussing the stats can sourced data.

My feeling is let's get this import moving once more and to do that let's
aim at those areas with good data, a local mapper or two and we can tackle
the more complex ones later.

Those areas with no local mappers are also areas where we probably need to
use Microsoft or another source of data.  Each separate source will need a
separate overall import plan together with "subplans" which is what I'll
call Daniel's idea of tackling the stat can data an area at a time.

Cheerio John

On Sat, Jan 4, 2020, 4:07 PM Matthew Darwin,  wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> Happy to see progress here.
>
> My ongoing question is how to define that a "local" group has determined
> that an import can proceed.   And more specifically what is "local"? There
> are rural and remote parts of Canada which have in the order of zero active
> mappers or sense of a local community.  How do we consensus around imports
> there? Can we get agreement by (part-of) province/territory where there is
> not some other group that puts their hand up?  (maybe use admin level 5
> boundaries, with holes for big cities)
>
> I just want to make sure we don't stop at doing imports only for big
> cities. Buildings are important for the whole country.
> On 2020-01-04 10:09 a.m., Nate Wessel wrote:
>
> Hi Daniel,
>
> Thank you for all the work you've put into this. I'd like to offer a
> couple suggestions and/or clarifications for your proposed import process,
> overview though it is.
>
> First, I think it is very important that a tasking manager is set up on a
> city/by city basis only, and that only AFTER consensus is achieved that the
> import should proceed in that area. I would really like to avoid seeing the
> massive nationwide tasking that was set up the first time around. We should
> be making it hard for people to go rogue in regions where consensus for an
> import doesn't (yet) exist.
>
> Related to this, though important enough to be a second point in it's own
> right, the tasking squares need to be small enough that a single user can
> manage them and inspect every single building in a task. The first round of
> import used task squares that were massive, and which couldn't be divided
> any further past a certain point. Even in rural areas, it is likely
> inappropriate to import areas larger than 1km^2. In central Toronto it
> would be (and was) idiotic. An import that doesn't take local scale into
> account shouldn't proceed. "Too big to load into JOSM" is about 100x too
> big to import in my opinion and is not a good enough benchmark for import
> batch sizing.
>
> That is, each import needs to be local, and not just in a superficial
> sense.
>
> I'll also add that the issue of conflation doesn't seem to have been
> worked out yet except to note that it is an issue. What will we do with the
> millions of buildings which will substantially overlap/duplicate existing
> buildings or imports? This needs to be worked out in detail before anything
> starts up again.
>
> And what needs to be done about already existing low quality imports? It's
> good to acknowledge their existence, but what will be done about them?
> We've set up a task to clean up some of the mess in Toronto (
> http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168 ) but this is only the tip of the
> iceberg.
>
> Again, I thank everyone for their time and effort on this - we can get
> this done if we go slow and do it right :-)
>
> Best,
>
> Nate Wessel, PhD
> Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
> NateWessel.com 
> On 2020-01-03 3:40 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
>
> Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)
>
> I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB import (aka
> Canada Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki. I proposed changes to some
> wiki pages (via talk tabs) to ease the discussions about this import and
> the following. Now, in order to restart the import, here are some thoughts
> and a proposal on how to proceed to complete the task.
>
>
>
> *1. Issues with the ODB Data Import*
>
> Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern was to
> obtain local communities’ buy-in in the Canadian context. Another concern
> was to improve the quality of the data prior the import. The following
> paragraphs intend to clear most of these concerns.
>
> *1.1. Which data import project?*
>
> According to the import guidelines (steps 3 & 4), a data import explicitly
> refers to a single data source (ODB in our case). Discussions about the
> availability and quality of Microsoft or ESRI data, while interesting, are
> not relevant as they should be dealt with as other import projects.
>
> *1.2. What has been imported so far?*
>
> According to what I found [1], the ODB import is completed for 21
> municipalities. 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Matthew Darwin]

Hello all,

Happy to see progress here.

My ongoing question is how to define that a "local" group has 
determined that an import can proceed.   And more specifically what is 
"local"? There are rural and remote parts of Canada which have in the 
order of zero active mappers or sense of a local community.  How do we 
consensus around imports there? Can we get agreement by (part-of) 
province/territory where there is not some other group that puts their 
hand up?  (maybe use admin level 5 boundaries, with holes for big cities)


I just want to make sure we don't stop at doing imports only for big 
cities. Buildings are important for the whole country.


On 2020-01-04 10:09 a.m., Nate Wessel wrote:


Hi Daniel,

Thank you for all the work you've put into this. I'd like to offer a 
couple suggestions and/or clarifications for your proposed import 
process, overview though it is.


First, I think it is very important that a tasking manager is set up 
on a city/by city basis only, and that only AFTER consensus is 
achieved that the import should proceed in that area. I would really 
like to avoid seeing the massive nationwide tasking that was set up 
the first time around. We should be making it hard for people to go 
rogue in regions where consensus for an import doesn't (yet) exist.


Related to this, though important enough to be a second point in 
it's own right, the tasking squares need to be small enough that a 
single user can manage them and inspect every single building in a 
task. The first round of import used task squares that were massive, 
and which couldn't be divided any further past a certain point. Even 
in rural areas, it is likely inappropriate to import areas larger 
than 1km^2. In central Toronto it would be (and was) idiotic. An 
import that doesn't take local scale into account shouldn't proceed. 
"Too big to load into JOSM" is about 100x too big to import in my 
opinion and is not a good enough benchmark for import batch sizing.


That is, each import needs to be local, and not just in a 
superficial sense.


I'll also add that the issue of conflation doesn't seem to have been 
worked out yet except to note that it is an issue. What will we do 
with the millions of buildings which will substantially 
overlap/duplicate existing buildings or imports? This needs to be 
worked out in detail before anything starts up again.


And what needs to be done about already existing low quality 
imports? It's good to acknowledge their existence, but what will be 
done about them? We've set up a task to clean up some of the mess in 
Toronto ( http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168 ) but this is only 
the tip of the iceberg.


Again, I thank everyone for their time and effort on this - we can 
get this done if we go slow and do it right :-)


Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

On 2020-01-03 3:40 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:


Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)

I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB import 
(aka Canada Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki. I proposed 
changes to some wiki pages (via talk tabs) to ease the discussions 
about this import and the following. Now, in order to restart the 
import, here are some thoughts and a proposal on how to proceed to 
complete the task.


*1. Issues with the ODB Data Import*

Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern was 
to obtain local communities’ buy-in in the Canadian context. 
Another concern was to improve the quality of the data prior the 
import. The following paragraphs intend to clear most of these 
concerns.


*1.1. Which data import project?*

According to the import guidelines (steps 3 & 4), a data import 
explicitly refers to a single data source (ODB in our case). 
Discussions about the availability and quality of Microsoft or ESRI 
data, while interesting, are not relevant as they should be dealt 
with as other import projects.


*1.2. What has been imported so far?*

According to what I found [1], the ODB import is completed for 21 
municipalities. These imports seem to have kept OSM content’s 
history, at least for the samples checked, but many problems were 
found. In some case, the imports brought swimming pools in OSM 
because they were included in the dataset (e.g. Moncton). In other 
cases, importing buildings with accurate locations (XY) over 
content mapped from less accurate imagery resulted in buildings 
that now overlap the street network (e.g. Squamish). It means that 
all these 21 imports need to be carefully re-examined and corrected 
as required.


For 12 other municipalities, the import is partial, either 
suspended as requested, or because previous imports had already 
provided most of the buildings (often from the same municipal 
provider). That said the import will definitely improve OSM 
accuracy and completeness if done properly.


*2. How should ODB Data be imported?*

I will 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[James]

Tell me when and where and the tasking manager project for xyz location
will be setup and hosted

On Sat., Jan. 4, 2020, 12:42 p.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
wrote:

> Bonjour groupe
>
>
>
> Looks like we're going in the same direction so far :-)
>
> I agree with Nate regarding the implementation of the task manager. In my
> experience, a size of a few blocks would be better in urban areas, but
> boring in rural areas. Is it something that can be adjusted?
>
>
>
> Daniel
>
>
>
> *From:* Nate Wessel [mailto:bike...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 04, 2020 10:09
> *To:* talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada
>
>
>
> Hi Daniel,
>
> Thank you for all the work you've put into this. I'd like to offer a
> couple suggestions and/or clarifications for your proposed import process,
> overview though it is.
>
> First, I think it is very important that a tasking manager is set up on a
> city/by city basis only, and that only AFTER consensus is achieved that the
> import should proceed in that area. I would really like to avoid seeing the
> massive nationwide tasking that was set up the first time around. We should
> be making it hard for people to go rogue in regions where consensus for an
> import doesn't (yet) exist.
>
> Related to this, though important enough to be a second point in it's own
> right, the tasking squares need to be small enough that a single user can
> manage them and inspect every single building in a task. The first round of
> import used task squares that were massive, and which couldn't be divided
> any further past a certain point. Even in rural areas, it is likely
> inappropriate to import areas larger than 1km^2. In central Toronto it
> would be (and was) idiotic. An import that doesn't take local scale into
> account shouldn't proceed. "Too big to load into JOSM" is about 100x too
> big to import in my opinion and is not a good enough benchmark for import
> batch sizing.
>
> That is, each import needs to be local, and not just in a superficial
> sense.
>
> I'll also add that the issue of conflation doesn't seem to have been
> worked out yet except to note that it is an issue. What will we do with the
> millions of buildings which will substantially overlap/duplicate existing
> buildings or imports? This needs to be worked out in detail before anything
> starts up again.
>
> And what needs to be done about already existing low quality imports? It's
> good to acknowledge their existence, but what will be done about them?
> We've set up a task to clean up some of the mess in Toronto (
> http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168 ) but this is only the tip of the
> iceberg.
>
> Again, I thank everyone for their time and effort on this - we can get
> this done if we go slow and do it right :-)
>
> Best,
>
> Nate Wessel, PhD
> Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
> NateWessel.com <https://www.natewessel.com>
>
> On 2020-01-03 3:40 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
>
> Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)
>
> I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB import (aka
> Canada Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki. I proposed changes to some
> wiki pages (via talk tabs) to ease the discussions about this import and
> the following. Now, in order to restart the import, here are some thoughts
> and a proposal on how to proceed to complete the task.
>
>
>
> *1. Issues with the ODB Data Import*
>
> Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern was to
> obtain local communities’ buy-in in the Canadian context. Another concern
> was to improve the quality of the data prior the import. The following
> paragraphs intend to clear most of these concerns.
>
> *1.1. Which data import project?*
>
> According to the import guidelines (steps 3 & 4), a data import explicitly
> refers to a single data source (ODB in our case). Discussions about the
> availability and quality of Microsoft or ESRI data, while interesting, are
> not relevant as they should be dealt with as other import projects.
>
> *1.2. What has been imported so far?*
>
> According to what I found [1], the ODB import is completed for 21
> municipalities. These imports seem to have kept OSM content’s history, at
> least for the samples checked, but many problems were found. In some case,
> the imports brought swimming pools in OSM because they were included in the
> dataset (e.g. Moncton). In other cases, importing buildings with accurate
> locations (XY) over content mapped from less accurate imagery resulted in
> buildings that now overlap the street network (e.g. Squamish). It means
> that all these 21 imports need to b

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Bonjour groupe

Looks like we're going in the same direction so far :-)
I agree with Nate regarding the implementation of the task manager. In my 
experience, a size of a few blocks would be better in urban areas, but boring 
in rural areas. Is it something that can be adjusted?

Daniel

From: Nate Wessel [mailto:bike...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2020 10:09
To: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada


Hi Daniel,

Thank you for all the work you've put into this. I'd like to offer a couple 
suggestions and/or clarifications for your proposed import process, overview 
though it is.

First, I think it is very important that a tasking manager is set up on a 
city/by city basis only, and that only AFTER consensus is achieved that the 
import should proceed in that area. I would really like to avoid seeing the 
massive nationwide tasking that was set up the first time around. We should be 
making it hard for people to go rogue in regions where consensus for an import 
doesn't (yet) exist.

Related to this, though important enough to be a second point in it's own 
right, the tasking squares need to be small enough that a single user can 
manage them and inspect every single building in a task. The first round of 
import used task squares that were massive, and which couldn't be divided any 
further past a certain point. Even in rural areas, it is likely inappropriate 
to import areas larger than 1km^2. In central Toronto it would be (and was) 
idiotic. An import that doesn't take local scale into account shouldn't 
proceed. "Too big to load into JOSM" is about 100x too big to import in my 
opinion and is not a good enough benchmark for import batch sizing.

That is, each import needs to be local, and not just in a superficial sense.

I'll also add that the issue of conflation doesn't seem to have been worked out 
yet except to note that it is an issue. What will we do with the millions of 
buildings which will substantially overlap/duplicate existing buildings or 
imports? This needs to be worked out in detail before anything starts up again.

And what needs to be done about already existing low quality imports? It's good 
to acknowledge their existence, but what will be done about them? We've set up 
a task to clean up some of the mess in Toronto ( 
http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168 ) but this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Again, I thank everyone for their time and effort on this - we can get this 
done if we go slow and do it right :-)

Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com<https://www.natewessel.com>
On 2020-01-03 3:40 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)
I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB import (aka Canada 
Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki. I proposed changes to some wiki pages 
(via talk tabs) to ease the discussions about this import and the following. 
Now, in order to restart the import, here are some thoughts and a proposal on 
how to proceed to complete the task.

1. Issues with the ODB Data Import
Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern was to obtain 
local communities' buy-in in the Canadian context. Another concern was to 
improve the quality of the data prior the import. The following paragraphs 
intend to clear most of these concerns.
1.1. Which data import project?
According to the import guidelines (steps 3 & 4), a data import explicitly 
refers to a single data source (ODB in our case). Discussions about the 
availability and quality of Microsoft or ESRI data, while interesting, are not 
relevant as they should be dealt with as other import projects.
1.2. What has been imported so far?
According to what I found [1], the ODB import is completed for 21 
municipalities. These imports seem to have kept OSM content's history, at least 
for the samples checked, but many problems were found. In some case, the 
imports brought swimming pools in OSM because they were included in the dataset 
(e.g. Moncton). In other cases, importing buildings with accurate locations 
(XY) over content mapped from less accurate imagery resulted in buildings that 
now overlap the street network (e.g. Squamish). It means that all these 21 
imports need to be carefully re-examined and corrected as required.
For 12 other municipalities, the import is partial, either suspended as 
requested, or because previous imports had already provided most of the 
buildings (often from the same municipal provider). That said the import will 
definitely improve OSM accuracy and completeness if done properly.
2. How should ODB Data be imported?
I will copy the following paragraphs in the "Canada Building Import" wiki page 
[3] for a detailed discussion...
Since the data (ODB, OSM and imagery) differ from one municipality to another, 
there can be no imports at the national or provincial level. We have to work 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Nate Wessel]

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for all the work you've put into this. I'd like to offer a 
couple suggestions and/or clarifications for your proposed import 
process, overview though it is.


First, I think it is very important that a tasking manager is set up on 
a city/by city basis only, and that only AFTER consensus is achieved 
that the import should proceed in that area. I would really like to 
avoid seeing the massive nationwide tasking that was set up the first 
time around. We should be making it hard for people to go rogue in 
regions where consensus for an import doesn't (yet) exist.


Related to this, though important enough to be a second point in it's 
own right, the tasking squares need to be small enough that a single 
user can manage them and inspect every single building in a task. The 
first round of import used task squares that were massive, and which 
couldn't be divided any further past a certain point. Even in rural 
areas, it is likely inappropriate to import areas larger than 1km^2. In 
central Toronto it would be (and was) idiotic. An import that doesn't 
take local scale into account shouldn't proceed. "Too big to load into 
JOSM" is about 100x too big to import in my opinion and is not a good 
enough benchmark for import batch sizing.


That is, each import needs to be local, and not just in a superficial 
sense.


I'll also add that the issue of conflation doesn't seem to have been 
worked out yet except to note that it is an issue. What will we do with 
the millions of buildings which will substantially overlap/duplicate 
existing buildings or imports? This needs to be worked out in detail 
before anything starts up again.


And what needs to be done about already existing low quality imports? 
It's good to acknowledge their existence, but what will be done about 
them? We've set up a task to clean up some of the mess in Toronto ( 
http://tasks.osmcanada.ca/project/168 ) but this is only the tip of the 
iceberg.


Again, I thank everyone for their time and effort on this - we can get 
this done if we go slow and do it right :-)


Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

On 2020-01-03 3:40 p.m., Daniel @jfd553 wrote:


Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)

I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB import 
(aka Canada Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki. I proposed 
changes to some wiki pages (via talk tabs) to ease the discussions 
about this import and the following. Now, in order to restart the 
import, here are some thoughts and a proposal on how to proceed to 
complete the task.


*1. Issues with the ODB Data Import*

Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern was to 
obtain local communities’ buy-in in the Canadian context. Another 
concern was to improve the quality of the data prior the import. The 
following paragraphs intend to clear most of these concerns.


*1.1. Which data import project?*

According to the import guidelines (steps 3 & 4), a data import 
explicitly refers to a single data source (ODB in our case). 
Discussions about the availability and quality of Microsoft or ESRI 
data, while interesting, are not relevant as they should be dealt with 
as other import projects.


*1.2. What has been imported so far?*

According to what I found [1], the ODB import is completed for 21 
municipalities. These imports seem to have kept OSM content’s history, 
at least for the samples checked, but many problems were found. In 
some case, the imports brought swimming pools in OSM because they were 
included in the dataset (e.g. Moncton). In other cases, importing 
buildings with accurate locations (XY) over content mapped from less 
accurate imagery resulted in buildings that now overlap the street 
network (e.g. Squamish). It means that all these 21 imports need to be 
carefully re-examined and corrected as required.


For 12 other municipalities, the import is partial, either suspended 
as requested, or because previous imports had already provided most of 
the buildings (often from the same municipal provider). That said the 
import will definitely improve OSM accuracy and completeness if done 
properly.


*2. How should ODB Data be imported?*

I will copy the following paragraphs in the “Canada Building Import” 
wiki page [3] for a detailed discussion…


Since the data (ODB, OSM and imagery) differ from one municipality to 
another, there can be no imports at the national or provincial level. 
We have to work on a municipal basis and make sure to identify all the 
problems and the corrective measures to apply when dealing with issues 
like those I identified [1].


*2.1 Importing Locally*

According to the import guidelines (step 2), we must not import the 
data without local buy-in. However, and contrarily to some European 
country, there is usually no such thing as a local OSM community in 
each municipality. However, we may find a few local 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Tim Elrick]

Thank you, Daniel, for advancing on the import! I agree with most of 
what you said below (I will reply to some details on the wiki page).


I also agree to separate the different sources as I have great 
reservations about using Microsoft's building footprints for an import 
into OSM (the outlines are simply not good enough in their topology).


Let's get this going,
Tim




On 2020-01-03 15:40, Daniel @jfd553 wrote:
Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)

I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB import (aka
Canada Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki. I proposed changes to
some wiki pages (via talk tabs) to ease the discussions about this
import and the following. Now, in order to restart the import, here are
some thoughts and a proposal on how to proceed to complete the task.

*1. Issues with the ODB Data Import*

Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern was to
obtain local communities’ buy-in in the Canadian context. Another
concern was to improve the quality of the data prior the import. The
following paragraphs intend to clear most of these concerns.

*1.1. Which data import project?*

According to the import guidelines (steps 3 & 4), a data import
explicitly refers to a single data source (ODB in our case). Discussions
about the availability and quality of Microsoft or ESRI data, while
interesting, are not relevant as they should be dealt with as other
import projects.

*1.2. What has been imported so far?*

According to what I found [1], the ODB import is completed for 21
municipalities. These imports seem to have kept OSM content’s history,
at least for the samples checked, but many problems were found. In some
case, the imports brought swimming pools in OSM because they were
included in the dataset (e.g. Moncton). In other cases, importing
buildings with accurate locations (XY) over content mapped from less
accurate imagery resulted in buildings that now overlap the street
network (e.g. Squamish). It means that all these 21 imports need to be
carefully re-examined and corrected as required.

For 12 other municipalities, the import is partial, either suspended as
requested, or because previous imports had already provided most of the
buildings (often from the same municipal provider). That said the import
will definitely improve OSM accuracy and completeness if done properly.

*2. How should ODB Data be imported?*

I will copy the following paragraphs in the “Canada Building Import”
wiki page [3] for a detailed discussion…

Since the data (ODB, OSM and imagery) differ from one municipality to
another, there can be no imports at the national or provincial level. We
have to work on a municipal basis and make sure to identify all the
problems and the corrective measures to apply when dealing with issues
like those I identified [1].

*2.1 Importing Locally*

According to the import guidelines (step 2), we must not import the data
without local buy-in. However, and contrarily to some European country,
there is usually no such thing as a local OSM community in each
municipality. However, we may find a few local mappers from time to
time. Working on a municipal basis should allow identifying these local
mappers before doing the import. I often use this tool [2] to identify
and contact local mappers. Once identified, I suggest that…

- We contact them to explain our intents by referring to appropriate
wiki pages.

- We wait a week or two to let them respond nothing, that they have
concerns, or wish to help.

- Without negative answers we could proceed to the import.

I first suggest that when a contributor wishes to import ODB for a given
municipality, he first identifies himself as responsible for the import
(we need to create an entry for each municipality somewhere in the
wiki). He can then contact local mappers, as explain above, and go ahead
with the import once everything settled. For those who already made the
import, I suggest that they review their work since many issues were
detected with some of these imports.

Since there are only a few local OSM communities in Canada, and because
Canada is large, I suggest not limiting the import of a given
municipality to the people of the concerned province or region.

*2.2 Pre-processing*

Once local mappers have agreed, some pre-processing can be done if
required.

A few months ago, I developed a tool that could be used to process the
data [4]. Concerns were raised because the application was developed
using proprietary software. So I documented the whole process and
algorithms in order to see courageous coders converting it in open
source software. In the meantime, and as long as I have access to an FME
licence, I could process the data, when necessary, prior to make it
available through the task manager.

Proposed pre-processing [4] includes:

- Reading of original ODB data,

- Removal of near collinear nodes (simplification),

- Orthogonalization of buildings (for corners having near 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[john whelan]

Sounds sane to me.

Thanks John

On Fri, 3 Jan 2020 at 16:05, Daniel @jfd553  wrote:

> Hi John,
>
> To comply with the import directive, I would like the discussion to
> continue on the current ODB import only. Could we talk about other sources
> of potential imports at another time? -)
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Daniel
>
> *From:* john whelan [mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Friday, January 03, 2020 15:57
> *To:* Daniel @jfd553
> *Cc:* talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada
>
>
>
> Sounds sane to me.
>
>
>
> Are we thinking of setting up a second import to handle Microsoft building
> outlines on a similar basis? Or extending this one?  I only ask since if we
> are doing it municipality by municipality it might be an idea to identify
> those municipalities that do not have suitable open data through stats
> canada.  I can see us with a list of municipalities and a data source and I
> think it probably should be in one place.
>
>
>
> Cheerio John
>
>
>
> On Fri, 3 Jan 2020 at 15:42, Daniel @jfd553  wrote:
>
> Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)
>
> I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB import (aka
> Canada Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki. I proposed changes to some
> wiki pages (via talk tabs) to ease the discussions about this import and
> the following. Now, in order to restart the import, here are some thoughts
> and a proposal on how to proceed to complete the task.
>
>
>
> *1. Issues with the ODB Data Import*
>
> Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern was to
> obtain local communities’ buy-in in the Canadian context. Another concern
> was to improve the quality of the data prior the import. The following
> paragraphs intend to clear most of these concerns.
>
> *1.1. Which data import project?*
>
> According to the import guidelines (steps 3 & 4), a data import explicitly
> refers to a single data source (ODB in our case). Discussions about the
> availability and quality of Microsoft or ESRI data, while interesting, are
> not relevant as they should be dealt with as other import projects.
>
> *1.2. What has been imported so far?*
>
> According to what I found [1], the ODB import is completed for 21
> municipalities. These imports seem to have kept OSM content’s history, at
> least for the samples checked, but many problems were found. In some case,
> the imports brought swimming pools in OSM because they were included in the
> dataset (e.g. Moncton). In other cases, importing buildings with accurate
> locations (XY) over content mapped from less accurate imagery resulted in
> buildings that now overlap the street network (e.g. Squamish). It means
> that all these 21 imports need to be carefully re-examined and corrected as
> required.
>
> For 12 other municipalities, the import is partial, either suspended as
> requested, or because previous imports had already provided most of the
> buildings (often from the same municipal provider). That said the import
> will definitely improve OSM accuracy and completeness if done properly.
>
> *2. How should ODB Data be imported?*
>
> I will copy the following paragraphs in the “Canada Building Import” wiki
> page [3] for a detailed discussion…
>
> Since the data (ODB, OSM and imagery) differ from one municipality to
> another, there can be no imports at the national or provincial level. We
> have to work on a municipal basis and make sure to identify all the
> problems and the corrective measures to apply when dealing with issues like
> those I identified [1].
>
> *2.1 Importing Locally*
>
> According to the import guidelines (step 2), we must not import the data
> without local buy-in. However, and contrarily to some European country,
> there is usually no such thing as a local OSM community in each
> municipality. However, we may find a few local mappers from time to time.
> Working on a municipal basis should allow identifying these local mappers
> before doing the import. I often use this tool [2] to identify and contact
> local mappers. Once identified, I suggest that…
>
> - We contact them to explain our intents by referring to appropriate wiki
> pages.
>
> - We wait a week or two to let them respond nothing, that they have
> concerns, or wish to help.
>
> - Without negative answers we could proceed to the import.
>
> I first suggest that when a contributor wishes to import ODB for a given
> municipality, he first identifies himself as responsible for the import (we
> need to create an entry for each municipality somewhere in the wiki). He
> can then contact local mappers, as explain above, and go

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

That is why I proposed changes in some wiki page (talk), to deal with many 
imports, without mixing discussions :-)

Daniel

From: Daniel @jfd553 [mailto:jfd...@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2020 16:06
To: john whelan; Daniel @jfd553
Cc: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: RE: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Hi John,
To comply with the import directive, I would like the discussion to continue on 
the current ODB import only. Could we talk about other sources of potential 
imports at another time? -)

Thanks
Daniel
From: john whelan [mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2020 15:57
To: Daniel @jfd553
Cc: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Sounds sane to me.

Are we thinking of setting up a second import to handle Microsoft building 
outlines on a similar basis? Or extending this one?  I only ask since if we are 
doing it municipality by municipality it might be an idea to identify those 
municipalities that do not have suitable open data through stats canada.  I can 
see us with a list of municipalities and a data source and I think it probably 
should be in one place.

Cheerio John

On Fri, 3 Jan 2020 at 15:42, Daniel @jfd553 
mailto:jfd...@hotmail.com>> wrote:
Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)
I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB import (aka Canada 
Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki. I proposed changes to some wiki pages 
(via talk tabs) to ease the discussions about this import and the following. 
Now, in order to restart the import, here are some thoughts and a proposal on 
how to proceed to complete the task.

1. Issues with the ODB Data Import
Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern was to obtain 
local communities’ buy-in in the Canadian context. Another concern was to 
improve the quality of the data prior the import. The following paragraphs 
intend to clear most of these concerns.
1.1. Which data import project?
According to the import guidelines (steps 3 & 4), a data import explicitly 
refers to a single data source (ODB in our case). Discussions about the 
availability and quality of Microsoft or ESRI data, while interesting, are not 
relevant as they should be dealt with as other import projects.
1.2. What has been imported so far?
According to what I found [1], the ODB import is completed for 21 
municipalities. These imports seem to have kept OSM content’s history, at least 
for the samples checked, but many problems were found. In some case, the 
imports brought swimming pools in OSM because they were included in the dataset 
(e.g. Moncton). In other cases, importing buildings with accurate locations 
(XY) over content mapped from less accurate imagery resulted in buildings that 
now overlap the street network (e.g. Squamish). It means that all these 21 
imports need to be carefully re-examined and corrected as required.
For 12 other municipalities, the import is partial, either suspended as 
requested, or because previous imports had already provided most of the 
buildings (often from the same municipal provider). That said the import will 
definitely improve OSM accuracy and completeness if done properly.
2. How should ODB Data be imported?
I will copy the following paragraphs in the “Canada Building Import” wiki page 
[3] for a detailed discussion…
Since the data (ODB, OSM and imagery) differ from one municipality to another, 
there can be no imports at the national or provincial level. We have to work on 
a municipal basis and make sure to identify all the problems and the corrective 
measures to apply when dealing with issues like those I identified [1].
2.1 Importing Locally
According to the import guidelines (step 2), we must not import the data 
without local buy-in. However, and contrarily to some European country, there 
is usually no such thing as a local OSM community in each municipality. 
However, we may find a few local mappers from time to time. Working on a 
municipal basis should allow identifying these local mappers before doing the 
import. I often use this tool [2] to identify and contact local mappers. Once 
identified, I suggest that…
- We contact them to explain our intents by referring to appropriate wiki pages.
- We wait a week or two to let them respond nothing, that they have concerns, 
or wish to help.
- Without negative answers we could proceed to the import.
I first suggest that when a contributor wishes to import ODB for a given 
municipality, he first identifies himself as responsible for the import (we 
need to create an entry for each municipality somewhere in the wiki). He can 
then contact local mappers, as explain above, and go ahead with the import once 
everything settled. For those who already made the import, I suggest that they 
review their work since many issues were detected with some of these imports.
Since there are only a few local OSM communities in Canada, and because Canada

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Hi John,
To comply with the import directive, I would like the discussion to continue on 
the current ODB import only. Could we talk about other sources of potential 
imports at another time? -)

Thanks
Daniel
From: john whelan [mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2020 15:57
To: Daniel @jfd553
Cc: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Sounds sane to me.

Are we thinking of setting up a second import to handle Microsoft building 
outlines on a similar basis? Or extending this one?  I only ask since if we are 
doing it municipality by municipality it might be an idea to identify those 
municipalities that do not have suitable open data through stats canada.  I can 
see us with a list of municipalities and a data source and I think it probably 
should be in one place.

Cheerio John

On Fri, 3 Jan 2020 at 15:42, Daniel @jfd553 
mailto:jfd...@hotmail.com>> wrote:
Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)
I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB import (aka Canada 
Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki. I proposed changes to some wiki pages 
(via talk tabs) to ease the discussions about this import and the following. 
Now, in order to restart the import, here are some thoughts and a proposal on 
how to proceed to complete the task.

1. Issues with the ODB Data Import
Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern was to obtain 
local communities’ buy-in in the Canadian context. Another concern was to 
improve the quality of the data prior the import. The following paragraphs 
intend to clear most of these concerns.
1.1. Which data import project?
According to the import guidelines (steps 3 & 4), a data import explicitly 
refers to a single data source (ODB in our case). Discussions about the 
availability and quality of Microsoft or ESRI data, while interesting, are not 
relevant as they should be dealt with as other import projects.
1.2. What has been imported so far?
According to what I found [1], the ODB import is completed for 21 
municipalities. These imports seem to have kept OSM content’s history, at least 
for the samples checked, but many problems were found. In some case, the 
imports brought swimming pools in OSM because they were included in the dataset 
(e.g. Moncton). In other cases, importing buildings with accurate locations 
(XY) over content mapped from less accurate imagery resulted in buildings that 
now overlap the street network (e.g. Squamish). It means that all these 21 
imports need to be carefully re-examined and corrected as required.
For 12 other municipalities, the import is partial, either suspended as 
requested, or because previous imports had already provided most of the 
buildings (often from the same municipal provider). That said the import will 
definitely improve OSM accuracy and completeness if done properly.
2. How should ODB Data be imported?
I will copy the following paragraphs in the “Canada Building Import” wiki page 
[3] for a detailed discussion…
Since the data (ODB, OSM and imagery) differ from one municipality to another, 
there can be no imports at the national or provincial level. We have to work on 
a municipal basis and make sure to identify all the problems and the corrective 
measures to apply when dealing with issues like those I identified [1].
2.1 Importing Locally
According to the import guidelines (step 2), we must not import the data 
without local buy-in. However, and contrarily to some European country, there 
is usually no such thing as a local OSM community in each municipality. 
However, we may find a few local mappers from time to time. Working on a 
municipal basis should allow identifying these local mappers before doing the 
import. I often use this tool [2] to identify and contact local mappers. Once 
identified, I suggest that…
- We contact them to explain our intents by referring to appropriate wiki pages.
- We wait a week or two to let them respond nothing, that they have concerns, 
or wish to help.
- Without negative answers we could proceed to the import.
I first suggest that when a contributor wishes to import ODB for a given 
municipality, he first identifies himself as responsible for the import (we 
need to create an entry for each municipality somewhere in the wiki). He can 
then contact local mappers, as explain above, and go ahead with the import once 
everything settled. For those who already made the import, I suggest that they 
review their work since many issues were detected with some of these imports.
Since there are only a few local OSM communities in Canada, and because Canada 
is large, I suggest not limiting the import of a given municipality to the 
people of the concerned province or region.
2.2 Pre-processing
Once local mappers have agreed, some pre-processing can be done if required.
A few months ago, I developed a tool that could be used to process the data 
[4]. Concerns were rais

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[john whelan]

Sounds sane to me.

Are we thinking of setting up a second import to handle Microsoft building
outlines on a similar basis? Or extending this one?  I only ask since if we
are doing it municipality by municipality it might be an idea to identify
those municipalities that do not have suitable open data through stats
canada.  I can see us with a list of municipalities and a data source and I
think it probably should be in one place.

Cheerio John

On Fri, 3 Jan 2020 at 15:42, Daniel @jfd553  wrote:

> Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)
>
> I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB import (aka
> Canada Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki. I proposed changes to some
> wiki pages (via talk tabs) to ease the discussions about this import and
> the following. Now, in order to restart the import, here are some thoughts
> and a proposal on how to proceed to complete the task.
>
>
>
> *1. Issues with the ODB Data Import*
>
> Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern was to
> obtain local communities’ buy-in in the Canadian context. Another concern
> was to improve the quality of the data prior the import. The following
> paragraphs intend to clear most of these concerns.
>
> *1.1. Which data import project?*
>
> According to the import guidelines (steps 3 & 4), a data import explicitly
> refers to a single data source (ODB in our case). Discussions about the
> availability and quality of Microsoft or ESRI data, while interesting, are
> not relevant as they should be dealt with as other import projects.
>
> *1.2. What has been imported so far?*
>
> According to what I found [1], the ODB import is completed for 21
> municipalities. These imports seem to have kept OSM content’s history, at
> least for the samples checked, but many problems were found. In some case,
> the imports brought swimming pools in OSM because they were included in the
> dataset (e.g. Moncton). In other cases, importing buildings with accurate
> locations (XY) over content mapped from less accurate imagery resulted in
> buildings that now overlap the street network (e.g. Squamish). It means
> that all these 21 imports need to be carefully re-examined and corrected as
> required.
>
> For 12 other municipalities, the import is partial, either suspended as
> requested, or because previous imports had already provided most of the
> buildings (often from the same municipal provider). That said the import
> will definitely improve OSM accuracy and completeness if done properly.
>
> *2. How should ODB Data be imported?*
>
> I will copy the following paragraphs in the “Canada Building Import” wiki
> page [3] for a detailed discussion…
>
> Since the data (ODB, OSM and imagery) differ from one municipality to
> another, there can be no imports at the national or provincial level. We
> have to work on a municipal basis and make sure to identify all the
> problems and the corrective measures to apply when dealing with issues like
> those I identified [1].
>
> *2.1 Importing Locally*
>
> According to the import guidelines (step 2), we must not import the data
> without local buy-in. However, and contrarily to some European country,
> there is usually no such thing as a local OSM community in each
> municipality. However, we may find a few local mappers from time to time.
> Working on a municipal basis should allow identifying these local mappers
> before doing the import. I often use this tool [2] to identify and contact
> local mappers. Once identified, I suggest that…
>
> - We contact them to explain our intents by referring to appropriate wiki
> pages.
>
> - We wait a week or two to let them respond nothing, that they have
> concerns, or wish to help.
>
> - Without negative answers we could proceed to the import.
>
> I first suggest that when a contributor wishes to import ODB for a given
> municipality, he first identifies himself as responsible for the import (we
> need to create an entry for each municipality somewhere in the wiki). He
> can then contact local mappers, as explain above, and go ahead with the
> import once everything settled. For those who already made the import, I
> suggest that they review their work since many issues were detected with
> some of these imports.
>
> Since there are only a few local OSM communities in Canada, and because
> Canada is large, I suggest not limiting the import of a given municipality
> to the people of the concerned province or region.
>
> *2.2 Pre-processing*
>
> Once local mappers have agreed, some pre-processing can be done if
> required.
>
> A few months ago, I developed a tool that could be used to process the
> data [4]. Concerns were raised because the application was developed using
> proprietary software. So I documented the whole process and algorithms in
> order to see courageous coders converting it in open source software. In
> the meantime, and as long as I have access to an FME licence, I could
> process the data, when 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Bonjour groupe, mes excuses pour ce très long courriel !-)
I have reviewed everything that has been written on the ODB import (aka Canada 
Building Import) in Talk-ca and the wiki. I proposed changes to some wiki pages 
(via talk tabs) to ease the discussions about this import and the following. 
Now, in order to restart the import, here are some thoughts and a proposal on 
how to proceed to complete the task.

1. Issues with the ODB Data Import
Many concerns were raised about the import. One major concern was to obtain 
local communities' buy-in in the Canadian context. Another concern was to 
improve the quality of the data prior the import. The following paragraphs 
intend to clear most of these concerns.
1.1. Which data import project?
According to the import guidelines (steps 3 & 4), a data import explicitly 
refers to a single data source (ODB in our case). Discussions about the 
availability and quality of Microsoft or ESRI data, while interesting, are not 
relevant as they should be dealt with as other import projects.
1.2. What has been imported so far?
According to what I found [1], the ODB import is completed for 21 
municipalities. These imports seem to have kept OSM content's history, at least 
for the samples checked, but many problems were found. In some case, the 
imports brought swimming pools in OSM because they were included in the dataset 
(e.g. Moncton). In other cases, importing buildings with accurate locations 
(XY) over content mapped from less accurate imagery resulted in buildings that 
now overlap the street network (e.g. Squamish). It means that all these 21 
imports need to be carefully re-examined and corrected as required.
For 12 other municipalities, the import is partial, either suspended as 
requested, or because previous imports had already provided most of the 
buildings (often from the same municipal provider). That said the import will 
definitely improve OSM accuracy and completeness if done properly.
2. How should ODB Data be imported?
I will copy the following paragraphs in the "Canada Building Import" wiki page 
[3] for a detailed discussion...
Since the data (ODB, OSM and imagery) differ from one municipality to another, 
there can be no imports at the national or provincial level. We have to work on 
a municipal basis and make sure to identify all the problems and the corrective 
measures to apply when dealing with issues like those I identified [1].
2.1 Importing Locally
According to the import guidelines (step 2), we must not import the data 
without local buy-in. However, and contrarily to some European country, there 
is usually no such thing as a local OSM community in each municipality. 
However, we may find a few local mappers from time to time. Working on a 
municipal basis should allow identifying these local mappers before doing the 
import. I often use this tool [2] to identify and contact local mappers. Once 
identified, I suggest that...
- We contact them to explain our intents by referring to appropriate wiki pages.
- We wait a week or two to let them respond nothing, that they have concerns, 
or wish to help.
- Without negative answers we could proceed to the import.
I first suggest that when a contributor wishes to import ODB for a given 
municipality, he first identifies himself as responsible for the import (we 
need to create an entry for each municipality somewhere in the wiki). He can 
then contact local mappers, as explain above, and go ahead with the import once 
everything settled. For those who already made the import, I suggest that they 
review their work since many issues were detected with some of these imports.
Since there are only a few local OSM communities in Canada, and because Canada 
is large, I suggest not limiting the import of a given municipality to the 
people of the concerned province or region.
2.2 Pre-processing
Once local mappers have agreed, some pre-processing can be done if required.
A few months ago, I developed a tool that could be used to process the data 
[4]. Concerns were raised because the application was developed using 
proprietary software. So I documented the whole process and algorithms in order 
to see courageous coders converting it in open source software. In the 
meantime, and as long as I have access to an FME licence, I could process the 
data, when necessary, prior to make it available through the task manager.
Proposed pre-processing [4] includes:
- Reading of original ODB data,
- Removal of near collinear nodes (simplification),
- Orthogonalization of buildings (for corners having near right angles),
- Tagging of building footprints,
- Providing files in OSM format.
Proposed tagging: In addition to the tags produced by the orthogonalization 
process [4] and the source tag 
(source=Statistics Canada - 
Open Building Database), the name of the Census Subdivision provided in ODB 
data [5] is used to add the addr:city tag to each building.
The 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[john whelan]

There are some areas of reasonable quality where buildings are missing.
These I think can be imported on the technical side without too much
difficulty and those were the ones I cherry picked as low hanging fruit
that should not be contentious.

Having said that I have seen the view expressed it is better to have poor
quality data created by local mappers in OSM than high quality data by
expert mappers so it may well be contentious .

In Ottawa buildings were not imported to overwrite existing buildings.
Basically the missing ones were imported by experienced mappers.  That is
just process and I think we have the process fairly well documented and
defined.

There are three sources of building data with the right license in Canada.
Bing is one and that almost certainly covers Newfoundland so Newfoundland
is involved to some extent.

For data that is deemed in need of cleanup or squaring again we can come up
with a process to do that and we have experienced mappers who can follow
the agreed process.

I suggest we hold back for a few days before getting into a heavy
discussion.

Cheerio John



On Tue, 24 Dec 2019 at 18:30, Adam Martin  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Looking at the wiki page, a large volume of the buildings are of low
> quality requiring processing.  The trade off here is between not having
> buildings and having buildings that are out of place and of poor quality.
> I can see people being reluctant to have it imported in an area, especially
> where buildings have been drawn by hand.  If this is to be imported, I
> think many would be more amenable to the idea if the data already present
> was given precedence.
>
> As a Newfoundlander, the lack of any such data for this province could be
> a blessing or a curse, depending on how you see the mass importation of
> buildings.
>
> Happy holidays!
>
> Adam
>
> On Tue., Dec. 24, 2019, 7:36 p.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
> wrote:
>
>> Have a look at the wiki page I referred to. Further discussions will be
>> more easy and focused
>>
>> Sent from Galaxy S7
>>
>> --
>> *From:* John Whelan 
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 24, 2019 2:50:29 PM
>> *To:* James 
>> *Cc:* Daniel @jfd553 ; Talk-CA OpenStreetMap <
>> talk-ca@openstreetmap.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada
>>
>> I think the first problem to be addressed is the presence or absence of a
>> local community.
>>
>> In the north we have few mappers but lots of interested agencies and
>> people in seeing the buildings imported.
>>
>> Montreal I think is under control.  Toronto is in the process of sorting
>> itself out but I'm unclear how much territory the Toronto local group
>> covers.
>>
>> Vancouver should be big enough to support a local group.  As should
>> Calgary and Edmonton.
>>
>> Ottawa is complete as is Gatineau.
>>
>> It's the smaller cities and regions that would be my concern.  Often it
>> will be by chance that two or more mappers meet occasionally.
>>
>> So step one can we list the local groups?
>>
>> I also have a problem with what happens if two people agree but haven't
>> done any mapping are they a local group?
>>
>> Step two to me would be a consensus on how to tackle those areas without
>> a local group and I think Daniel's suggestion would be a way forward in
>> this area.
>>
>> Cheerio John
>>
>>
>>
>> James wrote on 2019-12-24 1:28 PM:
>>
>> wasn't there talk about this before and someone blocked it because of
>> non-square buildings and the resulting discussion was that each community
>> was going to decide if they want to import or not?
>>
>> On Tue., Dec. 24, 2019, 1:26 p.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Group!
>>
>> I am currently working on a proposal which, I hope, will bring consensus
>> among the community and relaunch the import of ODB footprints (StatCan).
>> The proposal should be ready in a few weeks, or sooner.
>>
>>
>>
>> In the meantime, I suggest to all those who are interested to take note
>> of the observations I made regarding these data. This information can be
>> found in the OSM wiki (1). According to OSM import guideline requirements,
>> it describes the data to import. At the same time, I updated the
>> Canada-federal section of the Data Potential wiki page (2).
>>
>>
>>
>> I will be offline in the next few days, so if you have any
>> questions/comments, please be patient :-)
>>
>>
>>
>> Daniel
>>
>>
>>
>> 1 - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/The_Open_Database_of_Buildings

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Adam Martin]

Hi all,

Looking at the wiki page, a large volume of the buildings are of low
quality requiring processing.  The trade off here is between not having
buildings and having buildings that are out of place and of poor quality.
I can see people being reluctant to have it imported in an area, especially
where buildings have been drawn by hand.  If this is to be imported, I
think many would be more amenable to the idea if the data already present
was given precedence.

As a Newfoundlander, the lack of any such data for this province could be a
blessing or a curse, depending on how you see the mass importation of
buildings.

Happy holidays!

Adam

On Tue., Dec. 24, 2019, 7:36 p.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
wrote:

> Have a look at the wiki page I referred to. Further discussions will be
> more easy and focused
>
> Sent from Galaxy S7
>
> --
> *From:* John Whelan 
> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 24, 2019 2:50:29 PM
> *To:* James 
> *Cc:* Daniel @jfd553 ; Talk-CA OpenStreetMap <
> talk-ca@openstreetmap.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada
>
> I think the first problem to be addressed is the presence or absence of a
> local community.
>
> In the north we have few mappers but lots of interested agencies and
> people in seeing the buildings imported.
>
> Montreal I think is under control.  Toronto is in the process of sorting
> itself out but I'm unclear how much territory the Toronto local group
> covers.
>
> Vancouver should be big enough to support a local group.  As should
> Calgary and Edmonton.
>
> Ottawa is complete as is Gatineau.
>
> It's the smaller cities and regions that would be my concern.  Often it
> will be by chance that two or more mappers meet occasionally.
>
> So step one can we list the local groups?
>
> I also have a problem with what happens if two people agree but haven't
> done any mapping are they a local group?
>
> Step two to me would be a consensus on how to tackle those areas without a
> local group and I think Daniel's suggestion would be a way forward in this
> area.
>
> Cheerio John
>
>
>
> James wrote on 2019-12-24 1:28 PM:
>
> wasn't there talk about this before and someone blocked it because of
> non-square buildings and the resulting discussion was that each community
> was going to decide if they want to import or not?
>
> On Tue., Dec. 24, 2019, 1:26 p.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
> wrote:
>
> Hi Group!
>
> I am currently working on a proposal which, I hope, will bring consensus
> among the community and relaunch the import of ODB footprints (StatCan).
> The proposal should be ready in a few weeks, or sooner.
>
>
>
> In the meantime, I suggest to all those who are interested to take note of
> the observations I made regarding these data. This information can be found
> in the OSM wiki (1). According to OSM import guideline requirements, it
> describes the data to import. At the same time, I updated the
> Canada-federal section of the Data Potential wiki page (2).
>
>
>
> I will be offline in the next few days, so if you have any
> questions/comments, please be patient :-)
>
>
>
> Daniel
>
>
>
> 1 - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/The_Open_Database_of_Buildings
>
> 2 -
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potential_Datasources#Federal_.28Open_Government.29
> ___
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>
>
>
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

I'll get back to you in a couple of days:-)

Sent from Galaxy S7


From: John Whelan 
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2019 6:21:06 PM
To: Daniel @jfd553 
Cc: James ; Talk-CA OpenStreetMap 

Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

So an approach would be to pick off those areas with good data available first 
with few existing buildings mapped?

Such as Victoria or Courtenay in BC

Burlington, Caledon, Barrie in Ontario

Then move forward based on that experience?

I'd feel more comfortable with a mapper from the province at least coordinating 
the mapping even if there wasn't a local group.

How would we tackle places such as Perth? Smith Falls and Brockville which are 
available in Bing if not other sources?  These are in Ontario and fairly local 
to Ottawa by the way.

Thanks John

Daniel @jfd553 wrote on 2019-12-24 6:04 PM:
Have a look at the wiki page I referred to. Further discussions will be more 
easy and focused

Sent from Galaxy S7


From: John Whelan <mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2019 2:50:29 PM
To: James <mailto:james2...@gmail.com>
Cc: Daniel @jfd553 <mailto:jfd...@hotmail.com>; Talk-CA 
OpenStreetMap <mailto:talk-ca@openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

I think the first problem to be addressed is the presence or absence of a local 
community.

In the north we have few mappers but lots of interested agencies and people in 
seeing the buildings imported.

Montreal I think is under control.  Toronto is in the process of sorting itself 
out but I'm unclear how much territory the Toronto local group covers.

Vancouver should be big enough to support a local group.  As should Calgary and 
Edmonton.

Ottawa is complete as is Gatineau.

It's the smaller cities and regions that would be my concern.  Often it will be 
by chance that two or more mappers meet occasionally.

So step one can we list the local groups?

I also have a problem with what happens if two people agree but haven't done 
any mapping are they a local group?

Step two to me would be a consensus on how to tackle those areas without a 
local group and I think Daniel's suggestion would be a way forward in this area.

Cheerio John



James wrote on 2019-12-24 1:28 PM:
wasn't there talk about this before and someone blocked it because of 
non-square buildings and the resulting discussion was that each community was 
going to decide if they want to import or not?

On Tue., Dec. 24, 2019, 1:26 p.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
mailto:jfd...@hotmail.com>> wrote:

Hi Group!

I am currently working on a proposal which, I hope, will bring consensus among 
the community and relaunch the import of ODB footprints (StatCan). The proposal 
should be ready in a few weeks, or sooner.



In the meantime, I suggest to all those who are interested to take note of the 
observations I made regarding these data. This information can be found in the 
OSM wiki (1). According to OSM import guideline requirements, it describes the 
data to import. At the same time, I updated the Canada-federal section of the 
Data Potential wiki page (2).



I will be offline in the next few days, so if you have any questions/comments, 
please be patient :-)



Daniel



1 - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/The_Open_Database_of_Buildings

2 - 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potential_Datasources#Federal_.28Open_Government.29

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[John Whelan]

So an approach would be to pick off those areas with good data available 
first with few existing buildings mapped?


Such as Victoria or Courtenay in BC

Burlington, Caledon, Barrie in Ontario

Then move forward based on that experience?

I'd feel more comfortable with a mapper from the province at least 
coordinating the mapping even if there wasn't a local group.


How would we tackle places such as Perth? Smith Falls and Brockville 
which are available in Bing if not other sources?  These are in Ontario 
and fairly local to Ottawa by the way.


Thanks John

Daniel @jfd553 wrote on 2019-12-24 6:04 PM:
Have a look at the wiki page I referred to. Further discussions will 
be more easy and focused


Sent from Galaxy S7


*From:* John Whelan 
*Sent:* Tuesday, December 24, 2019 2:50:29 PM
*To:* James 
*Cc:* Daniel @jfd553 ; Talk-CA OpenStreetMap 


*Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada
I think the first problem to be addressed is the presence or absence 
of a local community.


In the north we have few mappers but lots of interested agencies and 
people in seeing the buildings imported.


Montreal I think is under control.  Toronto is in the process of 
sorting itself out but I'm unclear how much territory the Toronto 
local group covers.


Vancouver should be big enough to support a local group.  As should 
Calgary and Edmonton.


Ottawa is complete as is Gatineau.

It's the smaller cities and regions that would be my concern.  Often 
it will be by chance that two or more mappers meet occasionally.


So step one can we list the local groups?

I also have a problem with what happens if two people agree but 
haven't done any mapping are they a local group?


Step two to me would be a consensus on how to tackle those areas 
without a local group and I think Daniel's suggestion would be a way 
forward in this area.


Cheerio John



James wrote on 2019-12-24 1:28 PM:
wasn't there talk about this before and someone blocked it because of 
non-square buildings and the resulting discussion was that each 
community was going to decide if they want to import or not?


On Tue., Dec. 24, 2019, 1:26 p.m. Daniel @jfd553, <mailto:jfd...@hotmail.com>> wrote:


Hi Group!

I am currently working on a proposal which, I hope, will bring
consensus among the community and relaunch the import of ODB
footprints (StatCan). The proposal should be ready in a few
weeks, or sooner.

In the meantime, I suggest to all those who are interested to
take note of the observations I made regarding these data. This
information can be found in the OSM wiki (1). According to OSM
import guideline requirements, it describes the data to import.
At the same time, I updated the Canada-federal section of the
Data Potential wiki page (2).

I will be offline in the next few days, so if you have any
questions/comments, please be patient :-)

Daniel

1 -
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/The_Open_Database_of_Buildings

2 -

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potential_Datasources#Federal_.28Open_Government.29

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Have a look at the wiki page I referred to. Further discussions will be more 
easy and focused

Sent from Galaxy S7


From: John Whelan 
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2019 2:50:29 PM
To: James 
Cc: Daniel @jfd553 ; Talk-CA OpenStreetMap 

Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

I think the first problem to be addressed is the presence or absence of a local 
community.

In the north we have few mappers but lots of interested agencies and people in 
seeing the buildings imported.

Montreal I think is under control.  Toronto is in the process of sorting itself 
out but I'm unclear how much territory the Toronto local group covers.

Vancouver should be big enough to support a local group.  As should Calgary and 
Edmonton.

Ottawa is complete as is Gatineau.

It's the smaller cities and regions that would be my concern.  Often it will be 
by chance that two or more mappers meet occasionally.

So step one can we list the local groups?

I also have a problem with what happens if two people agree but haven't done 
any mapping are they a local group?

Step two to me would be a consensus on how to tackle those areas without a 
local group and I think Daniel's suggestion would be a way forward in this area.

Cheerio John



James wrote on 2019-12-24 1:28 PM:
wasn't there talk about this before and someone blocked it because of 
non-square buildings and the resulting discussion was that each community was 
going to decide if they want to import or not?

On Tue., Dec. 24, 2019, 1:26 p.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
mailto:jfd...@hotmail.com>> wrote:

Hi Group!

I am currently working on a proposal which, I hope, will bring consensus among 
the community and relaunch the import of ODB footprints (StatCan). The proposal 
should be ready in a few weeks, or sooner.



In the meantime, I suggest to all those who are interested to take note of the 
observations I made regarding these data. This information can be found in the 
OSM wiki (1). According to OSM import guideline requirements, it describes the 
data to import. At the same time, I updated the Canada-federal section of the 
Data Potential wiki page (2).



I will be offline in the next few days, so if you have any questions/comments, 
please be patient :-)



Daniel



1 - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/The_Open_Database_of_Buildings

2 - 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potential_Datasources#Federal_.28Open_Government.29

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[John Whelan]

I think the first problem to be addressed is the presence or absence of 
a local community.


In the north we have few mappers but lots of interested agencies and 
people in seeing the buildings imported.


Montreal I think is under control.  Toronto is in the process of sorting 
itself out but I'm unclear how much territory the Toronto local group 
covers.


Vancouver should be big enough to support a local group.  As should 
Calgary and Edmonton.


Ottawa is complete as is Gatineau.

It's the smaller cities and regions that would be my concern.  Often it 
will be by chance that two or more mappers meet occasionally.


So step one can we list the local groups?

I also have a problem with what happens if two people agree but haven't 
done any mapping are they a local group?


Step two to me would be a consensus on how to tackle those areas without 
a local group and I think Daniel's suggestion would be a way forward in 
this area.


Cheerio John



James wrote on 2019-12-24 1:28 PM:
wasn't there talk about this before and someone blocked it because of 
non-square buildings and the resulting discussion was that each 
community was going to decide if they want to import or not?


On Tue., Dec. 24, 2019, 1:26 p.m. Daniel @jfd553, > wrote:


Hi Group!

I am currently working on a proposal which, I hope, will bring
consensus among the community and relaunch the import of ODB
footprints (StatCan). The proposal should be ready in a few weeks,
or sooner.

In the meantime, I suggest to all those who are interested to take
note of the observations I made regarding these data. This
information can be found in the OSM wiki (1). According to OSM
import guideline requirements, it describes the data to import. At
the same time, I updated the Canada-federal section of the Data
Potential wiki page (2).

I will be offline in the next few days, so if you have any
questions/comments, please be patient :-)

Daniel

1 - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/The_Open_Database_of_Buildings

2 -

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potential_Datasources#Federal_.28Open_Government.29

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Nate Wessel]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for taking the time to put together these detailed observations 
on the data. It seems like it could be a useful guide, though I have 
some questions about how you came to these measurements and what they 
mean. I'll leave those clarifying questions for the talk page however.


I want to reiterate that I remain opposed to a nationwide import, or at 
least any version of that that takes aim at any part of Toronto. I've 
been working on an import plan for Toronto, though we are still digging 
out from the mess of several imports, including the latest effort at a 
building import. We're making progress, but it is slow and I haven't 
been able to give it the time and attention it needs.
I believe Montreal is working on their own thing as well, and there are 
likely others.


That said, I like that this is starting with a thorough assessment of 
the data in each region. Given that each seems a bit different, I'd 
suggest thinking of a national /import plan/ as more of a national 
/template/ for regions that can be applied and adapted region by region. 
You can lead a horse to water, but it is the local mappers that need to 
drink. Some of them, myself included, can be quite stubborn ;-)


Happy holidays,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

On 2019-12-24 1:28 p.m., James wrote:
wasn't there talk about this before and someone blocked it because of 
non-square buildings and the resulting discussion was that each 
community was going to decide if they want to import or not?


On Tue., Dec. 24, 2019, 1:26 p.m. Daniel @jfd553, > wrote:


Hi Group!

I am currently working on a proposal which, I hope, will bring
consensus among the community and relaunch the import of ODB
footprints (StatCan). The proposal should be ready in a few weeks,
or sooner.

In the meantime, I suggest to all those who are interested to take
note of the observations I made regarding these data. This
information can be found in the OSM wiki (1). According to OSM
import guideline requirements, it describes the data to import. At
the same time, I updated the Canada-federal section of the Data
Potential wiki page (2).

I will be offline in the next few days, so if you have any
questions/comments, please be patient :-)

Daniel

1 - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/The_Open_Database_of_Buildings

2 -

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potential_Datasources#Federal_.28Open_Government.29

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[James]

wasn't there talk about this before and someone blocked it because of
non-square buildings and the resulting discussion was that each community
was going to decide if they want to import or not?

On Tue., Dec. 24, 2019, 1:26 p.m. Daniel @jfd553, 
wrote:

> Hi Group!
>
> I am currently working on a proposal which, I hope, will bring consensus
> among the community and relaunch the import of ODB footprints (StatCan).
> The proposal should be ready in a few weeks, or sooner.
>
>
>
> In the meantime, I suggest to all those who are interested to take note of
> the observations I made regarding these data. This information can be found
> in the OSM wiki (1). According to OSM import guideline requirements, it
> describes the data to import. At the same time, I updated the
> Canada-federal section of the Data Potential wiki page (2).
>
>
>
> I will be offline in the next few days, so if you have any
> questions/comments, please be patient :-)
>
>
>
> Daniel
>
>
>
> 1 - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/The_Open_Database_of_Buildings
>
> 2 -
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potential_Datasources#Federal_.28Open_Government.29
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Daniel @jfd553]

Hi Group!
I am currently working on a proposal which, I hope, will bring consensus among 
the community and relaunch the import of ODB footprints (StatCan). The proposal 
should be ready in a few weeks, or sooner.

In the meantime, I suggest to all those who are interested to take note of the 
observations I made regarding these data. This information can be found in the 
OSM wiki (1). According to OSM import guideline requirements, it describes the 
data to import. At the same time, I updated the Canada-federal section of the 
Data Potential wiki page (2).

I will be offline in the next few days, so if you have any questions/comments, 
please be patient :-)

Daniel

1 - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/The_Open_Database_of_Buildings
2 - 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potential_Datasources#Federal_.28Open_Government.29
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Kevin Farrugia]

Hi Eric,

Welcome to OpenStreetMap!  It's also great that you're able to provide so
much imagery to Mapillary.

Are there certain areas of Ontario that are a priority or certain
attributes that are most important to your routing?  For example, maybe
Stouffville is in general a big issue for you or there are many missing
speed limits in Markham.

People on this list may be able to help out and map remotely with the
imagery you're providing or go collect information when they have free time.

---
Kevin F

On Mon., Sep. 30, 2019, 10:03 p.m. Eric Geiler, 
wrote:

> Team Canada, (unsure who this should be address to)
>
>
>
> We are a local/regional courier and trucking company in southern Ontario
> with a decent sized fleet.  We are using Mapbox for our mapping / nav
> engine, therefore subject to using OSM data.  We have noticed a number of
> “issues/lack of data” for southern Ontario.  This ranges from lack of lane
> info, to lack of buildings, missing streets, missing exit/on-ramps to for
> Hwy 400 (which we added, and had Mapbox expedite the changesets) as it
> affected navigation for our drivers.
>
>
>
> We are currently using a few devices to provide street level imagery via
> Mapillary, with a push coming shortly to map 1000km per day of street
> imagery.  We are currently mapping about 250km per day in York Region.  Our
> internal goal is to provide /gathered street level imagery for 75% York
> Region by end of January 2020.
>
>
>
> We are not in a position to provide map edits etc, as due to staff
> resources and lack of experience, our staff are not suited to become ‘map
> editors’ as our core business is transportation.  We are just trying to
> assist the editors with accurate ground level info.
>
>
>
> I would be interested in further understanding how we can become involved
> on a regional level to improve OSM in southern Ontario.
>
>
>
>
>
> [image: EricGeiler-1]
>
>
>
> *From:* Nate Wessel 
> *Sent:* Friday, September 27, 2019 12:03 PM
> *To:* talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada
>
>
>
> John,
> You are once again purposely mischaracterizing my position on this and I
> do not appreciate it one bit. Your import did not follow the import
> guidelines and was not approved by the broader community. It was not sent
> out to the mailing list, it was barely documented, it was not posted on the
> import page on the wiki... I could go on. I was not the only person who had
> a problem with it - I was just the first to say something. The buildings
> imported in Toronto were very low quality IMO and the changes were
> happening very, very quickly and without notice.
>
> But we do not need to rehash old fights.
>
> I would like to see buildings (re)imported in Toronto (the rest of Canada
> is not really my business), but I would like to see it done right. I can
> elaborate what I mean by that, but so can the archives of this mailing
> list. If people are interested in engaging in a serious discussion about
> moving forward with a building import for Toronto, I am happy to engage
> constructively with that.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Nate Wessel, PhD
> Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
> NateWessel.com <http://www.natewessel.com>
>
> On 2019-09-27 11:44 a.m., john whelan wrote:
>
> From memory we have imported Ottawa's buildings under the correct license
> (Stat Can so the federal government's open data license) and the quality
> was deemed acceptable by the local mappers.
>
>
>
> Then we opened up a second import plan to import buildings and a fair
> number were imported.  This included an task manager set up with tiles to
> assist the mapping.
>
>
>
> The data sources were different as each municipality created their own
> source.
>
>
>
> My understanding is some mappers thought the data should be preprocessed
> and two or three were going to come up with a plan to preprocess the data.
>
>
>
> About that time an American mapper, Nate, who was living in Toronto took
> exception to 1,000,000 buildings being imported in Western Canada and
> requested the DWG to remove them without waiting for discussion on talk-ca
> to address his concerns.
>
>
>
> We do have three sources of correctly licensed data, the Stat Can data
> sets, the Microsoft data sets, and the NR Canada LiDAR data.
>
>
>
> I do know that a number of departments and agencies would like to use
> buildings and although they can use the open data sources using OSM would
> be more convenient.
>
>
>
> I'm not sure what if anything is happening at the moment.
>
>
>
> Are we expecting local groups to draw up their own import plan as Ottawa
> d

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Eric Geiler]

Good Morning,

I’m eager to become a regular participant and contributor.

[EricGeiler-1]

From: John Whelan 
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2019 8:31 AM
To: Nate Wessel 
Cc: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

I'm glad to see Toronto getting involved once more.

The original idea for using Open Data to import buildings followed on from a 
group of Toronto mappers who imported address information for a new sub 
division that was not available in CANVEC from Stats Canada after very 
carefully checking that the licenses etc aligned.

There was discussion in Talk-ca at the time before the import was done.

Cheerio John

Nate Wessel wrote on 2019-09-30 12:14 AM:


Hi Steve,

Thanks for posting the event! I just RSVPed.

I think a separate import event would probably be helpful - somewhere with wifi 
and outlets for laptops, probably not a bar. Perhaps we can book a meeting room 
at a public library or something?

I can poll some of the more active local editors to find a time that works well 
for people. Once we have a time and place it would be good to post something to 
the meetup group as well as here, Slack, etc.

If you or anyone else on the list feels like taking charge of this I'm happy to 
defer - otherwise I may try to organize something in the next month or so as I 
have time and energy.

Thanks,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com<http://www.natewessel.com>
On 2019-09-28 6:37 p.m., Steve Singer wrote:
On Sat, 28 Sep 2019, Nate Wessel wrote:



I for one would be happy to support a local effort to import high quality 
buildings in Toronto and/or the GTA. I
think if we can actually meet up face to face our discussions may remain a bit 
more civil and productive. Hopefully
consensus will be a bit easier to achieve with smaller groups too!

I see that the OSM Toronto meetup doesn't have any upcoming events... Would 
others in the GTA be interested in
planning a meet up to talk about a local import plan? Is anyone on the list in 
charge of organizing these?

I am one of the organizers of the OSM Toronto meetup.

I've now posted the regular monthly mappy hour meetup for the Toronto OSM 
group. I had been meaning to do this anyway.

I'm also happy to post a special event dedicated to discussing an import in the 
GTA if people are interested.






Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com

On 2019-09-28 1:03 p.m., Jarek Piórkowski wrote:

Hi all,

To be a bit more positive:

If we want to get buildings on the map, but we can't get Canada-wide
data improved by Statcan to a standard acceptable to all mappers in
Canada, IMO the best bet will be to split this into much smaller
batches and support local mappers who would be interested in getting
the data in.

In my browsing of neis-one.org statistics for Canadian mappers and the
Notes active in Canada, I've seen active mappers and small communities
in at least Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Victoria
metros, and I might have missed some more. Many of them I have never
seen on the mailing list (which is a whole another issue), but
contacting them directly (via osm.org messages?), asking if they are
aware of other local mappers, if they would be interested in having
building data, if it is of acceptable standard to them, and if they
would be willing to help validate-and-upload the data (with help of
the central tooling) might get some success.

I hope that will go better than the previous attempt which could be
read - uncharitably - as a bunch of mailing list insiders throwing
federal data over the fence with little consultation.

It'll be a lot of work communicating and organizing. But getting
buildings is a lot of work, and if data producers can't do better,
whoever wants the buildings will have to do the work. Maybe with more
local support even the imports list will be more bearable.

Thanks,
--Jarek

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Eric Geiler]

Team Canada, (unsure who this should be address to)

We are a local/regional courier and trucking company in southern Ontario with a 
decent sized fleet.  We are using Mapbox for our mapping / nav engine, 
therefore subject to using OSM data.  We have noticed a number of “issues/lack 
of data” for southern Ontario.  This ranges from lack of lane info, to lack of 
buildings, missing streets, missing exit/on-ramps to for Hwy 400 (which we 
added, and had Mapbox expedite the changesets) as it affected navigation for 
our drivers.

We are currently using a few devices to provide street level imagery via 
Mapillary, with a push coming shortly to map 1000km per day of street imagery.  
We are currently mapping about 250km per day in York Region.  Our internal goal 
is to provide /gathered street level imagery for 75% York Region by end of 
January 2020.

We are not in a position to provide map edits etc, as due to staff resources 
and lack of experience, our staff are not suited to become ‘map editors’ as our 
core business is transportation.  We are just trying to assist the editors with 
accurate ground level info.

I would be interested in further understanding how we can become involved on a 
regional level to improve OSM in southern Ontario.


[EricGeiler-1]

From: Nate Wessel 
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2019 12:03 PM
To: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada


John,
You are once again purposely mischaracterizing my position on this and I do not 
appreciate it one bit. Your import did not follow the import guidelines and was 
not approved by the broader community. It was not sent out to the mailing list, 
it was barely documented, it was not posted on the import page on the wiki... I 
could go on. I was not the only person who had a problem with it - I was just 
the first to say something. The buildings imported in Toronto were very low 
quality IMO and the changes were happening very, very quickly and without 
notice.

But we do not need to rehash old fights.

I would like to see buildings (re)imported in Toronto (the rest of Canada is 
not really my business), but I would like to see it done right. I can elaborate 
what I mean by that, but so can the archives of this mailing list. If people 
are interested in engaging in a serious discussion about moving forward with a 
building import for Toronto, I am happy to engage constructively with that.

Respectfully,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com<http://www.natewessel.com>
On 2019-09-27 11:44 a.m., john whelan wrote:
From memory we have imported Ottawa's buildings under the correct license (Stat 
Can so the federal government's open data license) and the quality was deemed 
acceptable by the local mappers.

Then we opened up a second import plan to import buildings and a fair number 
were imported.  This included an task manager set up with tiles to assist the 
mapping.

The data sources were different as each municipality created their own source.

My understanding is some mappers thought the data should be preprocessed and 
two or three were going to come up with a plan to preprocess the data.

About that time an American mapper, Nate, who was living in Toronto took 
exception to 1,000,000 buildings being imported in Western Canada and requested 
the DWG to remove them without waiting for discussion on talk-ca to address his 
concerns.

We do have three sources of correctly licensed data, the Stat Can data sets, 
the Microsoft data sets, and the NR Canada LiDAR data.

I do know that a number of departments and agencies would like to use buildings 
and although they can use the open data sources using OSM would be more 
convenient.

I'm not sure what if anything is happening at the moment.

Are we expecting local groups to draw up their own import plan as Ottawa did 
since we seem to be unable to get a consensus across Canada?

My gut feeling is with three sources of data we'll see new mappers importing in 
buildings without going through an import process.  Are we content to let that 
happen?

Have whoever it was who was going to come up with a preprocessing plan done so? 
 Has it been accepted by the rest of us?

I note that Pierre has noted there is now a validation process in JOSM for 
correcting buildings that are not quite 90 degrees on the corners.  Would an 
acceptable approach be to import then return to check the angles on the corners 
and correct them?

Does Nate still have unaddressed concerns about buildings being imported in 
Western Canada?

Can we get a consensus about what to do next?

Thanks John





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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[John Whelan]

I'm glad to see Toronto getting involved once more.

The original idea for using Open Data to import buildings followed on 
from a group of Toronto mappers who imported address information for a 
new sub division that was not available in CANVEC from Stats Canada 
after very carefully checking that the licenses etc aligned.


There was discussion in Talk-ca at the time before the import was done.

Cheerio John

Nate Wessel wrote on 2019-09-30 12:14 AM:


Hi Steve,

Thanks for posting the event! I just RSVPed.

I think a separate import event would probably be helpful - somewhere 
with wifi and outlets for laptops, probably not a bar. Perhaps we can 
book a meeting room at a public library or something?


I can poll some of the more active local editors to find a time that 
works well for people. Once we have a time and place it would be good 
to post something to the meetup group as well as here, Slack, etc.


If you or anyone else on the list feels like taking charge of this I'm 
happy to defer - otherwise I may try to organize something in the next 
month or so as I have time and energy.


Thanks,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

On 2019-09-28 6:37 p.m., Steve Singer wrote:

On Sat, 28 Sep 2019, Nate Wessel wrote:



I for one would be happy to support a local effort to import high 
quality buildings in Toronto and/or the GTA. I
think if we can actually meet up face to face our discussions may 
remain a bit more civil and productive. Hopefully

consensus will be a bit easier to achieve with smaller groups too!

I see that the OSM Toronto meetup doesn't have any upcoming 
events... Would others in the GTA be interested in
planning a meet up to talk about a local import plan? Is anyone on 
the list in charge of organizing these?


I am one of the organizers of the OSM Toronto meetup.

I've now posted the regular monthly mappy hour meetup for the Toronto 
OSM group. I had been meaning to do this anyway.


I'm also happy to post a special event dedicated to discussing an 
import in the GTA if people are interested.







Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com

On 2019-09-28 1:03 p.m., Jarek Piórkowski wrote:

Hi all,

To be a bit more positive:

If we want to get buildings on the map, but we can't get Canada-wide
data improved by Statcan to a standard acceptable to all mappers in
Canada, IMO the best bet will be to split this into much smaller
batches and support local mappers who would be interested in getting
the data in.

In my browsing of neis-one.org statistics for Canadian mappers and the
Notes active in Canada, I've seen active mappers and small communities
in at least Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Victoria
metros, and I might have missed some more. Many of them I have never
seen on the mailing list (which is a whole another issue), but
contacting them directly (via osm.org messages?), asking if they are
aware of other local mappers, if they would be interested in having
building data, if it is of acceptable standard to them, and if they
would be willing to help validate-and-upload the data (with help of
the central tooling) might get some success.

I hope that will go better than the previous attempt which could be
read - uncharitably - as a bunch of mailing list insiders throwing
federal data over the fence with little consultation.

It'll be a lot of work communicating and organizing. But getting
buildings is a lot of work, and if data producers can't do better,
whoever wants the buildings will have to do the work. Maybe with more
local support even the imports list will be more bearable.

Thanks,
--Jarek

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Nate Wessel]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for posting the event! I just RSVPed.

I think a separate import event would probably be helpful - somewhere 
with wifi and outlets for laptops, probably not a bar. Perhaps we can 
book a meeting room at a public library or something?


I can poll some of the more active local editors to find a time that 
works well for people. Once we have a time and place it would be good to 
post something to the meetup group as well as here, Slack, etc.


If you or anyone else on the list feels like taking charge of this I'm 
happy to defer - otherwise I may try to organize something in the next 
month or so as I have time and energy.


Thanks,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

On 2019-09-28 6:37 p.m., Steve Singer wrote:

On Sat, 28 Sep 2019, Nate Wessel wrote:



I for one would be happy to support a local effort to import high 
quality buildings in Toronto and/or the GTA. I
think if we can actually meet up face to face our discussions may 
remain a bit more civil and productive. Hopefully

consensus will be a bit easier to achieve with smaller groups too!

I see that the OSM Toronto meetup doesn't have any upcoming events... 
Would others in the GTA be interested in
planning a meet up to talk about a local import plan? Is anyone on 
the list in charge of organizing these?


I am one of the organizers of the OSM Toronto meetup.

I've now posted the regular monthly mappy hour meetup for the Toronto 
OSM group. I had been meaning to do this anyway.


I'm also happy to post a special event dedicated to discussing an 
import in the GTA if people are interested.







Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com

On 2019-09-28 1:03 p.m., Jarek Piórkowski wrote:

Hi all,

To be a bit more positive:

If we want to get buildings on the map, but we can't get Canada-wide
data improved by Statcan to a standard acceptable to all mappers in
Canada, IMO the best bet will be to split this into much smaller
batches and support local mappers who would be interested in getting
the data in.

In my browsing of neis-one.org statistics for Canadian mappers and the
Notes active in Canada, I've seen active mappers and small communities
in at least Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Victoria
metros, and I might have missed some more. Many of them I have never
seen on the mailing list (which is a whole another issue), but
contacting them directly (via osm.org messages?), asking if they are
aware of other local mappers, if they would be interested in having
building data, if it is of acceptable standard to them, and if they
would be willing to help validate-and-upload the data (with help of
the central tooling) might get some success.

I hope that will go better than the previous attempt which could be
read - uncharitably - as a bunch of mailing list insiders throwing
federal data over the fence with little consultation.

It'll be a lot of work communicating and organizing. But getting
buildings is a lot of work, and if data producers can't do better,
whoever wants the buildings will have to do the work. Maybe with more
local support even the imports list will be more bearable.

Thanks,
--Jarek

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Steve Singer]

On Sat, 28 Sep 2019, Nate Wessel wrote:



I for one would be happy to support a local effort to import high quality 
buildings in Toronto and/or the GTA. I
think if we can actually meet up face to face our discussions may remain a bit 
more civil and productive. Hopefully
consensus will be a bit easier to achieve with smaller groups too!

I see that the OSM Toronto meetup doesn't have any upcoming events... Would 
others in the GTA be interested in
planning a meet up to talk about a local import plan? Is anyone on the list in 
charge of organizing these?


I am one of the organizers of the OSM Toronto meetup.

I've now posted the regular monthly mappy hour meetup for the Toronto OSM 
group. I had been meaning to do this anyway.


I'm also happy to post a special event dedicated to discussing an import in 
the GTA if people are interested.







Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com

On 2019-09-28 1:03 p.m., Jarek Piórkowski wrote:

Hi all,

To be a bit more positive:

If we want to get buildings on the map, but we can't get Canada-wide
data improved by Statcan to a standard acceptable to all mappers in
Canada, IMO the best bet will be to split this into much smaller
batches and support local mappers who would be interested in getting
the data in.

In my browsing of neis-one.org statistics for Canadian mappers and the
Notes active in Canada, I've seen active mappers and small communities
in at least Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Victoria
metros, and I might have missed some more. Many of them I have never
seen on the mailing list (which is a whole another issue), but
contacting them directly (via osm.org messages?), asking if they are
aware of other local mappers, if they would be interested in having
building data, if it is of acceptable standard to them, and if they
would be willing to help validate-and-upload the data (with help of
the central tooling) might get some success.

I hope that will go better than the previous attempt which could be
read - uncharitably - as a bunch of mailing list insiders throwing
federal data over the fence with little consultation.

It'll be a lot of work communicating and organizing. But getting
buildings is a lot of work, and if data producers can't do better,
whoever wants the buildings will have to do the work. Maybe with more
local support even the imports list will be more bearable.

Thanks,
--Jarek

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[stevea]

And several years later, here we are.  I'm glad to see such a "new arrival" at 
a place where good data can meet a good crowdsourced mapping database, and 
furthermore, I wish the project all good luck.

SteveA
California

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[John Whelan]

My suggestion would be to amend and clean up the original import plan to 
split out the country into regions and have a regional coordinator for 
each region based on local input.  I'd also add in the two other data 
sources as alternative data sources.


The reason for this approach is an amended import plan might be more 
acceptable to the import mailing list than new plans and in our smaller 
regions there may not be the resources to put together a full import 
plan for a thousand buildings.


Cheerio John

Nate Wessel wrote on 2019-09-28 1:37 PM:


I for one would be happy to support a local effort to import high 
quality buildings in Toronto and/or the GTA. I think if we can 
actually meet up face to face our discussions may remain a bit more 
civil and productive. Hopefully consensus will be a bit easier to 
achieve with smaller groups too!


I see that the OSM Toronto meetup 
 doesn't have any 
upcoming events... Would others in the GTA be interested in planning a 
meet up to talk about a local import plan? Is anyone on the list in 
charge of organizing these?


Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

On 2019-09-28 1:03 p.m., Jarek Piórkowski wrote:

Hi all,

To be a bit more positive:

If we want to get buildings on the map, but we can't get Canada-wide
data improved by Statcan to a standard acceptable to all mappers in
Canada, IMO the best bet will be to split this into much smaller
batches and support local mappers who would be interested in getting
the data in.

In my browsing of neis-one.org statistics for Canadian mappers and the
Notes active in Canada, I've seen active mappers and small communities
in at least Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Victoria
metros, and I might have missed some more. Many of them I have never
seen on the mailing list (which is a whole another issue), but
contacting them directly (via osm.org messages?), asking if they are
aware of other local mappers, if they would be interested in having
building data, if it is of acceptable standard to them, and if they
would be willing to help validate-and-upload the data (with help of
the central tooling) might get some success.

I hope that will go better than the previous attempt which could be
read - uncharitably - as a bunch of mailing list insiders throwing
federal data over the fence with little consultation.

It'll be a lot of work communicating and organizing. But getting
buildings is a lot of work, and if data producers can't do better,
whoever wants the buildings will have to do the work. Maybe with more
local support even the imports list will be more bearable.

Thanks,
--Jarek

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[John Whelan]

And I totally agree.  Because the Stat Can data has come from many 
sources the data quality is variable to put it politely.  The Microsoft 
data has been shown in the US to also be of variable quality.  I'm not 
so sure about the NR Can LiDAR data hopefully it is at least consistent.


If we look at the history of the project then we can get an idea of how 
we came to be where we are.


First I wanted to import all the bus stops in Ottawa because only by 
importing could you ensure you had all the stops with their reference 
numbers but the City of Ottawa Open Data license did not align with 
OSM.  I was also talking to Treasury Board and explained to them that 
their Open Data license version 1 didn't align with OSM so we couldn't 
use their data.  Five years later TB released their Open Data license 
version 2 which they felt did align.


Stat Can has two types of project, pilot ones and ones that earn money. 
The original pilot was based on Ottawa and Gatineau and was for two 
years.  Their original plan was mapathons using iD.  I was impressed 
when a stat can employee managed to accurately map a building using iD 
during a presentation.  I hadn't thought it was possible after some of 
the efforts I'd seen in HOT mapping.   Fine except that it requires a 
lot of mappers and I think Fredrick has commented this sort of mapping 
with new mappers needs a lot of clean up effort sometimes more than 
required for an experienced mapper to map it right in the first place. 
Montreal has identified there just aren't enough experienced mappers 
available.


I worked at Stats Canada for a number of years.  The corporate culture 
is very different to OSM.  It makes its money by selling data.  Want to 
open a new coffee bar? Stats Canada will combine its data to sell you 
the ideal spot based on residents' income etc..  I had a meeting with 
Stats Canada, City of Ottawa planning department, an Open Data 
specialist from Carlton University, someone from Metrolink who had added 
data to openstreetmap to help people find the nearest bus stop and a 
couple of HOT board members.   We convinced Stats Canada to change the 
direction of the pilot to use Open Data rather than go the mapathon 
route partly for data quality reasons and partly because I didn't think 
we could find the mappers to map the buildings completely.  The Stat Can 
involvement meant the City of Ottawa was persuaded to change its Open 
Data license to the same as the TB one.  That took time and had to go to 
council for approval.  There was a lot of discussion with the local 
community and it was they who organised and did the import.   The local 
group worked nicely together and had a range of skill sets in the 
group.  I actually played more of a connecting role than anything else.


The import was challenged on the data license amongst other things but 
eventually the OSM legal working group was very kind and ruled the 
license was acceptable.  Stats is very interested in added detail to 
buildings.  I was very interested that we could now import the bus stops.


I think you picked up on the fact that the buildings mapped in a 
mapathon were less than ideal.  I was involved in one in Ottawa and just 
taught the new mappers to use JOSM and the building_tool.  That produced 
more buildings per mapper hour and they were fairly accurate.  I must 
confess not every attached garage was mapped in detail.


I seem to recall Mapbox being involved in the Maperthons in some way.

The Stats Can involvement meant we saw some interest from schools.  What 
I was interested in was added detail so mapped a couple of thousand 
buildings in Ontario using JONM and the building_tool so details could 
be added easily.  We got two addresses added.  Apparently in Ontario the 
provincial government has purchased ESRI for school children to learn 
about GIS.


At the end of the pilot the money had run out.  Stats covered some of 
the costs involved in the HOT summit that was held in Ottawa and during 
that summit phase two was launched but without any real funding.


What Stats could do though was release data from the municipalities 
under the government Open Data license and that is what they did.  As 
Jarek has pointed out following the import process is stressful so I 
volunteered to do the paperwork and submit the plan.  There was some 
discussion on talk ca and the idea surfaced to go with one plan rather 
than divide the country up.  So that's what I did.


Today we have three sources of data that could be imported, and I 
suspect the two that are not municipal data are more consistent.  We 
still have the original plan of mapathons with iD floating around.


My person view is the imported data quality is better than the mapathon 
approach but to go forward from here I think it needs to be re-planned 
and a new import plan(s) drawn up.


I don't think Stats have any real funding available at the moment.  They 
may find an odd hour in a quiet time but its coming up to 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Nate Wessel]

I for one would be happy to support a local effort to import high 
quality buildings in Toronto and/or the GTA. I think if we can actually 
meet up face to face our discussions may remain a bit more civil and 
productive. Hopefully consensus will be a bit easier to achieve with 
smaller groups too!


I see that the OSM Toronto meetup 
 doesn't have any 
upcoming events... Would others in the GTA be interested in planning a 
meet up to talk about a local import plan? Is anyone on the list in 
charge of organizing these?


Best,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

On 2019-09-28 1:03 p.m., Jarek Piórkowski wrote:

Hi all,

To be a bit more positive:

If we want to get buildings on the map, but we can't get Canada-wide
data improved by Statcan to a standard acceptable to all mappers in
Canada, IMO the best bet will be to split this into much smaller
batches and support local mappers who would be interested in getting
the data in.

In my browsing of neis-one.org statistics for Canadian mappers and the
Notes active in Canada, I've seen active mappers and small communities
in at least Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Victoria
metros, and I might have missed some more. Many of them I have never
seen on the mailing list (which is a whole another issue), but
contacting them directly (via osm.org messages?), asking if they are
aware of other local mappers, if they would be interested in having
building data, if it is of acceptable standard to them, and if they
would be willing to help validate-and-upload the data (with help of
the central tooling) might get some success.

I hope that will go better than the previous attempt which could be
read - uncharitably - as a bunch of mailing list insiders throwing
federal data over the fence with little consultation.

It'll be a lot of work communicating and organizing. But getting
buildings is a lot of work, and if data producers can't do better,
whoever wants the buildings will have to do the work. Maybe with more
local support even the imports list will be more bearable.

Thanks,
--Jarek

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Jarek Piórkowski]

Hi all,

To be a bit more positive:

If we want to get buildings on the map, but we can't get Canada-wide
data improved by Statcan to a standard acceptable to all mappers in
Canada, IMO the best bet will be to split this into much smaller
batches and support local mappers who would be interested in getting
the data in.

In my browsing of neis-one.org statistics for Canadian mappers and the
Notes active in Canada, I've seen active mappers and small communities
in at least Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Victoria
metros, and I might have missed some more. Many of them I have never
seen on the mailing list (which is a whole another issue), but
contacting them directly (via osm.org messages?), asking if they are
aware of other local mappers, if they would be interested in having
building data, if it is of acceptable standard to them, and if they
would be willing to help validate-and-upload the data (with help of
the central tooling) might get some success.

I hope that will go better than the previous attempt which could be
read - uncharitably - as a bunch of mailing list insiders throwing
federal data over the fence with little consultation.

It'll be a lot of work communicating and organizing. But getting
buildings is a lot of work, and if data producers can't do better,
whoever wants the buildings will have to do the work. Maybe with more
local support even the imports list will be more bearable.

Thanks,
--Jarek

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Pierre Béland via Talk-ca]

Je comprends que c'est la saison des tomates. Mais essayons de les utiliser 
pour nos conserves et non comme argument pour convaincre les autres 
contributeurs !  ;)
Comme les autres l'ont exprimé, c'est à ceux qui proposent de faire des imports 
de bien documenter le processus, non l'inverse. Et les menaces d'agir de façon 
impériale et négliger les communautés locales, cela ne tient évidemment pas la 
route.
Pour discuter sur la qualité des données, il est nécessaire de pouvoir 
facilement examiner les données. Et je ne penses pas que les données soient 
comparables d'un endroit à l'autre. La qualité des images, la densité du bâti 
en milieu urbains sont autant de facteurs.
 Les fichiers accessibles aussi bien pour StatCan que Microsoft sont très gros. 
Simplement pour analyser les données de nos municipalités respectives, il faut 
traiter de gros fichiers et tenter d'extraire les données. Ce qui n'est pas 
nécessairement facile et va bien sûr limiter la participation.
Question de donner des exemples sur les limites d'observation des images par 
les technique de AI, j'ai publié des images avec les 2 tweets suivants montrant 
des bâtiments au centre de Toronto :
https://twitter.com/pierzen/status/1177976517902684160
https://twitter.com/pierzen/status/1177978125377884160
On voit bien qu'il ne suffit pas de valider si les angles sont droits. Ces 
exemples montrent bien comment le tracé peut varier significativement vs la 
réalité au sol. Et tout comme les humains, les techniques de AI ont de la 
difficulté à identifier les bâtiments individuels.

cordialement 
Pierre 
 

Le vendredi 27 septembre 2019 22 h 52 min 59 s UTC−4, Jarek Piórkowski 
 a écrit :  
 
 On Fri, 27 Sep 2019 at 11:45, john whelan  wrote:
> ...
> About that time an American mapper, Nate, who was living in Toronto ...

Sorry, one more thing.

Nate was an active editor in Toronto at the time of the initial import
conflict/objection and has remained so as regularly as we can ask of
any community member. In Toronto we call people living here and
contributing to the community "Torontonians".

As you will recall, I disagree with Nate about the suitability of
initial building import data. Notwithstanding, the description quoted
above reads unfairly dismissive to me. You can maybe make arguments
about Torontonians discussing what shouldn't be imported in rest of
Canada, or about whether we should expect mappers to be subscribed to
talk-ca, but let's leave places of birth out of this.

--Jarek

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Jarek Piórkowski]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2019 at 11:45, john whelan  wrote:
> ...
> About that time an American mapper, Nate, who was living in Toronto ...

Sorry, one more thing.

Nate was an active editor in Toronto at the time of the initial import
conflict/objection and has remained so as regularly as we can ask of
any community member. In Toronto we call people living here and
contributing to the community "Torontonians".

As you will recall, I disagree with Nate about the suitability of
initial building import data. Notwithstanding, the description quoted
above reads unfairly dismissive to me. You can maybe make arguments
about Torontonians discussing what shouldn't be imported in rest of
Canada, or about whether we should expect mappers to be subscribed to
talk-ca, but let's leave places of birth out of this.

--Jarek

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[John Whelan]

Both your input and Nate's are useful in that at least they confirm my thoughts 
that there is little chance of moving forward on a Canada wide basis.

Hopefully the Toronto mappers can sort something out for Toronto and the rest 
will follow in time.

As a Toronto mapper, I'm happy to load data into JOSM and press Q on
it if that's approved, but for sake of mental health I will not be
posting to the imports mailing list.

and I totally agree with that comment.

Cheerio John
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Jarek Piórkowski]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2019 at 20:43, John Whelan  wrote:
> The Stat Can data comes directly from the municipalities so each municipality 
> will have a different quality of data.  The Microsoft and NR Can data maybe 
> more consistent.

Statcan could improve the data and make it more consistent. On this
front I agree with the dissenters - I appreciate that Statcan has put
the licence stamp on the data, but otherwise they're basically
throwing it over the fence and hoping people do work for them for
free. I personally don't care about 89 degree angles, but it's tough
to argue in Statcan's favour here.

> Both your input and Nate's are useful in that at least they confirm my 
> thoughts that there is little chance of moving forward on a Canada wide basis.
>
> Hopefully the Toronto mappers can sort something out for Toronto and the rest 
> will follow in time.

As a Toronto mapper, I'm happy to load data into JOSM and press Q on
it if that's approved, but for sake of mental health I will not be
posting to the imports mailing list.

> I seem to recall Montreal thought it would sort something out internally was 
> it as soon as they reached three mappers per square kilometer?

Last I recall from Montreal on this mailing list, they were saying
they added about 2500 buildings per month by hand. So they should be
done within 20 years. Maybe they've discussed more locally.

--Jarek

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[John Whelan]

The Stat Can data comes directly from the municipalities so each 
municipality will have a different quality of data.  The Microsoft and 
NR Can data maybe more consistent.


Both your input and Nate's are useful in that at least they confirm my 
thoughts that there is little chance of moving forward on a Canada wide 
basis.


Hopefully the Toronto mappers can sort something out for Toronto and the 
rest will follow in time.  I seem to recall Montreal thought it would 
sort something out internally was it as soon as they reached three 
mappers per square kilometer?


Thanks John



Jarek Piórkowski wrote on 2019-09-27 7:47 PM:

On Fri, 27 Sep 2019 at 11:45, john whelan  wrote:

I do know that a number of departments and agencies would like to use buildings 
and although they can use the open data sources using OSM would be more 
convenient.

Then you can encourage these agencies to urge Statcan to improve the
quality of their data.

If we expect some volunteers to come up with a building squaring
algorithm and implementation, surely an agency whose whole job is
collecting and massaging data can do better.


I'm not sure what if anything is happening at the moment.

Nothing.


My gut feeling is with three sources of data we'll see new mappers importing in 
buildings without going through an import process.  Are we content to let that 
happen?

It seems basically impossible to prevent this, and given the number of
active editors in Canada who care about this, would be difficult to
even detect this. That would make the question of whether we're
content about it moot.

That's the effect of strict import guidelines here - those who would
like to keep to them usually give up, and those who don't care (or
don't know) go ahead anyway. (See, for example, trees in London, Ont.)
That works in Germany which has 3 nitpicking OSM editors per square
kilometer to notice, less so in Canada.


Have whoever it was who was going to come up with a preprocessing plan done so?

There's been work towards this but my understanding is that it's far
from complete and stalled.


Can we get a consensus about what to do next?

I don't believe so. Sorry - you asked.

Thanks,
--Jarek


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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Jarek Piórkowski]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2019 at 11:45, john whelan  wrote:
> I do know that a number of departments and agencies would like to use 
> buildings and although they can use the open data sources using OSM would be 
> more convenient.

Then you can encourage these agencies to urge Statcan to improve the
quality of their data.

If we expect some volunteers to come up with a building squaring
algorithm and implementation, surely an agency whose whole job is
collecting and massaging data can do better.

> I'm not sure what if anything is happening at the moment.

Nothing.

> My gut feeling is with three sources of data we'll see new mappers importing 
> in buildings without going through an import process.  Are we content to let 
> that happen?

It seems basically impossible to prevent this, and given the number of
active editors in Canada who care about this, would be difficult to
even detect this. That would make the question of whether we're
content about it moot.

That's the effect of strict import guidelines here - those who would
like to keep to them usually give up, and those who don't care (or
don't know) go ahead anyway. (See, for example, trees in London, Ont.)
That works in Germany which has 3 nitpicking OSM editors per square
kilometer to notice, less so in Canada.

> Have whoever it was who was going to come up with a preprocessing plan done 
> so?

There's been work towards this but my understanding is that it's far
from complete and stalled.

> Can we get a consensus about what to do next?

I don't believe so. Sorry - you asked.

Thanks,
--Jarek

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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[John Whelan]

I'll try to sum up my understanding.

Currently your view is the existing import plan for Canada building 
imports does not meet the import guidelines and cannot be amended to 
meet them.  I was hoping that something might have happened in the last 
six months on the preprocessing of data side which would have meant we 
could have got a consensus to move forward but no movement on this has 
apparently happened.


Second no consensus exists for importing all the buildings or how it 
should be done.  My personal view is originally I didn't think this was 
achievable for all Canada.  There were simply too many players and 
getting complete unanimous consensus was always going to be a problem 
but it was found the most difficult part of the Ottawa buildings import 
was the import mailing list and the OSM guidelines for imports so based 
on input from outside the original Ottawa group the decision was made to 
go for a Canada wide import plan to minimise the requirements for 
multiple people to submit import plans.  The technical side of the 
import by comparison was fairly simple and much more interesting.  So it 
was worth trying a country wide import plan.


The Ottawa import was thrashed out over coffee and the local mappers are 
happy with the data quality even though some non-local mappers were not.


I still have reservations about the ability of some of the smaller 
groups of mappers to get an import plan through all the loops.


So I think we are at the point where ideally we expect local groups to 
come up a decision on data quality and submit individual import plans. 
All three sources, Stat Can, Microsoft and NR Can LiDAR data meet the 
licensing OpenStreetMap licensing requirements but your plan will have 
to specify which license is being used for the import and how it meets 
the OSM guidelines.


I note some imports in Africa are done by mappers who live outside 
Africa so I'm unclear if you need to live in the area to import or not 
or how far away you can be and still be counted as a local mapper.


Since in Nate's opinion the Canada wide import plan does not meet the 
guidelines please do not use it as a template.


Have fun

Cheerio John






Nate Wessel wrote on 2019-09-27 12:03 PM:


John,
You are once again purposely mischaracterizing my position on this and 
I do not appreciate it one bit. Your import did not follow the import 
guidelines and was not approved by the broader community. It was not 
sent out to the mailing list, it was barely documented, it was not 
posted on the import page on the wiki... I could go on. I was not the 
only person who had a problem with it - I was just the first to say 
something. The buildings imported in Toronto were very low quality IMO 
and the changes were happening very, very quickly and without notice.


But we do not need to rehash old fights.

I would like to see buildings (re)imported in Toronto (the rest of 
Canada is not really my business), but I would like to see it done 
right. I can elaborate what I mean by that, but so can the archives of 
this mailing list. If people are interested in engaging in a serious 
discussion about moving forward with a building import for Toronto, I 
am happy to engage constructively with that.


Respectfully,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

On 2019-09-27 11:44 a.m., john whelan wrote:
From memory we have imported Ottawa's buildings under the correct 
license (Stat Can so the federal government's open data license) and 
the quality was deemed acceptable by the local mappers.


Then we opened up a second import plan to import buildings and a fair 
number were imported.  This included an task manager set up with 
tiles to assist the mapping.


The data sources were different as each municipality created their 
own source.


My understanding is some mappers thought the data should be 
preprocessed and two or three were going to come up with a plan to 
preprocess the data.


About that time an American mapper, Nate, who was living in Toronto 
took exception to 1,000,000 buildings being imported in Western 
Canada and requested the DWG to remove them without waiting for 
discussion on talk-ca to address his concerns.


We do have three sources of correctly licensed data, the Stat Can 
data sets, the Microsoft data sets, and the NR Canada LiDAR data.


I do know that a number of departments and agencies would like to use 
buildings and although they can use the open data sources using OSM 
would be more convenient.


I'm not sure what if anything is happening at the moment.

Are we expecting local groups to draw up their own import plan as 
Ottawa did since we seem to be unable to get a consensus across Canada?


My gut feeling is with three sources of data we'll see new mappers 
importing in buildings without going through an import process.  Are 
we content to let that happen?


Have whoever it was who was going to come up with a preprocessing 

Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Nate Wessel]

John,
You are once again purposely mischaracterizing my position on this and I 
do not appreciate it one bit. Your import did not follow the import 
guidelines and was not approved by the broader community. It was not 
sent out to the mailing list, it was barely documented, it was not 
posted on the import page on the wiki... I could go on. I was not the 
only person who had a problem with it - I was just the first to say 
something. The buildings imported in Toronto were very low quality IMO 
and the changes were happening very, very quickly and without notice.


But we do not need to rehash old fights.

I would like to see buildings (re)imported in Toronto (the rest of 
Canada is not really my business), but I would like to see it done 
right. I can elaborate what I mean by that, but so can the archives of 
this mailing list. If people are interested in engaging in a serious 
discussion about moving forward with a building import for Toronto, I am 
happy to engage constructively with that.


Respectfully,

Nate Wessel, PhD
Planner, Cartographer, Transport Nerd
NateWessel.com 

On 2019-09-27 11:44 a.m., john whelan wrote:
From memory we have imported Ottawa's buildings under the correct 
license (Stat Can so the federal government's open data license) and 
the quality was deemed acceptable by the local mappers.


Then we opened up a second import plan to import buildings and a fair 
number were imported.  This included an task manager set up with tiles 
to assist the mapping.


The data sources were different as each municipality created their own 
source.


My understanding is some mappers thought the data should be 
preprocessed and two or three were going to come up with a plan to 
preprocess the data.


About that time an American mapper, Nate, who was living in Toronto 
took exception to 1,000,000 buildings being imported in Western Canada 
and requested the DWG to remove them without waiting for discussion on 
talk-ca to address his concerns.


We do have three sources of correctly licensed data, the Stat Can data 
sets, the Microsoft data sets, and the NR Canada LiDAR data.


I do know that a number of departments and agencies would like to use 
buildings and although they can use the open data sources using OSM 
would be more convenient.


I'm not sure what if anything is happening at the moment.

Are we expecting local groups to draw up their own import plan as 
Ottawa did since we seem to be unable to get a consensus across Canada?


My gut feeling is with three sources of data we'll see new mappers 
importing in buildings without going through an import process.  Are 
we content to let that happen?


Have whoever it was who was going to come up with a preprocessing plan 
done so?  Has it been accepted by the rest of us?


I note that Pierre has noted there is now a validation process in JOSM 
for correcting buildings that are not quite 90 degrees on the 
corners.  Would an acceptable approach be to import then return to 
check the angles on the corners and correct them?


Does Nate still have unaddressed concerns about buildings being 
imported in Western Canada?


Can we get a consensus about what to do next?

Thanks John
*
*
*
*

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[Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[john whelan]

>From memory we have imported Ottawa's buildings under the correct license
(Stat Can so the federal government's open data license) and the quality
was deemed acceptable by the local mappers.

Then we opened up a second import plan to import buildings and a fair
number were imported.  This included an task manager set up with tiles to
assist the mapping.

The data sources were different as each municipality created their own
source.

My understanding is some mappers thought the data should be preprocessed
and two or three were going to come up with a plan to preprocess the data.

About that time an American mapper, Nate, who was living in Toronto took
exception to 1,000,000 buildings being imported in Western Canada and
requested the DWG to remove them without waiting for discussion on talk-ca
to address his concerns.

We do have three sources of correctly licensed data, the Stat Can data
sets, the Microsoft data sets, and the NR Canada LiDAR data.

I do know that a number of departments and agencies would like to use
buildings and although they can use the open data sources using OSM would
be more convenient.

I'm not sure what if anything is happening at the moment.

Are we expecting local groups to draw up their own import plan as Ottawa
did since we seem to be unable to get a consensus across Canada?

My gut feeling is with three sources of data we'll see new mappers
importing in buildings without going through an import process.  Are we
content to let that happen?

Have whoever it was who was going to come up with a preprocessing plan done
so?  Has it been accepted by the rest of us?

I note that Pierre has noted there is now a validation process in JOSM for
correcting buildings that are not quite 90 degrees on the corners.  Would
an acceptable approach be to import then return to check the angles on the
corners and correct them?

Does Nate still have unaddressed concerns about buildings being imported in
Western Canada?

Can we get a consensus about what to do next?

Thanks John
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Pierre Béland via Talk-ca]

Merci Daniel, je vais consulter la documentation.

 
Pierre 
 

Le mardi 7 mai 2019 16 h 06 min 40 s UTC−4, Begin Daniel 
 a écrit :  
 
 Tim, Pierre and all,
I have just published the documentation about orthogonalizing building 
footprints on Github. People can then easily access it as it evolves. I have 
made the code available with the test dataset proposed by Jarek. 

So far, I have documented the different concepts behind the approach I use. The 
next step is to detail the different algorithm used to process the building 
footprints.

Running FME requires a licence. However, since the application could eventually 
be translated in an open-source code, the repository could be used for both FME 
and an open-source code.

The repository will also be used to show results on expected problematic 
footprints people would like to see processed, like the test area proposed by 
Jarek.

Thanks,
Daniel

https://github.com/jfd553/OrthogonalizingBuildingFootprint

-Original Message-
From: Begin Daniel [mailto:jfd...@hotmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2019 15:13
To: Tim Elrick; talk-ca@openstreetmap.org; Begin Daniel; Pierre Béland
Subject: RE: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Bonjour Tim,
Je ne sais pas si Pierre souhaite fusionner les approches, mais il démontre un 
intérêt à programmer. Pour ma part, je n’aime pas beaucoup programmer (python, 
scripts SQL, etc.), mais j’aime bien développer des processus (d’où 
l’utilisation de FME). 

Je vais rendre à terme la documentation du processus (de l’algorithme) et des 
exemples sur Github. Par la suite, ceux qui sont intéressés à développer 
l’application en open source seront les bienvenus et je serai heureux de 
répondre aux questions et d’en discuter :-)

Daniel 

-Original Message-
From: Tim Elrick [mailto:o...@elrick.de] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2019 13:30
To: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org; Begin Daniel; Pierre Béland
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Bonjour Daniel,

C'est une bonne nouvelle ! Pierre et moi avons déjà commencé à en parler 
dans des messages privés, et Pierre y a déjà beaucoup réfléchi - en 
partie d'un ancien projet, si je comprends bien. Il a également déjà 
publié ses approches précédentes sur github il y a quelques jours.

Voyons comment nous pouvons fusionner tes approches et celles de Pierre 
pour en tirer le meilleur parti pour le processus d'importation. Ce 
serait bien si nous pouvions trouver des méthodes d'orthogonalisation et 
  de simplification pour toutes les données OSM nouvellement importées 
(et peut-être même déjà existantes).

Tim

On 2019-04-30 12:07, Begin Daniel wrote:
Based on previous comments I improved the application and everything
seems right now. I’ll start publishing results/documentation in
following days J

We may then start developing an “open source” version of the application.

Daniel

*From:*john whelan [mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com]
*Sent:* Saturday, April 27, 2019 16:41
*To:* Talk-CA OpenStreetMap
*Cc:* Alasia, Alessandro (STATCAN)
*Subject:* [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

We now have three sources of data with the correct licensing.

I'm proposing that I amend both the import plan and the import mailing
list to include the three alternative sources.

I'm tempted by the idea of splitting the country up into regions of some
sort.

We have a couple of groups currently who I think would like to import
what is available in Alberta and Manitoba.  Are we asking them to hold
off until Pierre and company have come up with a cleansing routine?

Thoughts ladies and gentlemen please.

Thanks John


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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Begin Daniel]

Tim, Pierre and all,
I have just published the documentation about orthogonalizing building 
footprints on Github. People can then easily access it as it evolves. I have 
made the code available with the test dataset proposed by Jarek. 

So far, I have documented the different concepts behind the approach I use. The 
next step is to detail the different algorithm used to process the building 
footprints.

Running FME requires a licence. However, since the application could eventually 
be translated in an open-source code, the repository could be used for both FME 
and an open-source code.

The repository will also be used to show results on expected problematic 
footprints people would like to see processed, like the test area proposed by 
Jarek.

Thanks,
Daniel

https://github.com/jfd553/OrthogonalizingBuildingFootprint

-Original Message-
From: Begin Daniel [mailto:jfd...@hotmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2019 15:13
To: Tim Elrick; talk-ca@openstreetmap.org; Begin Daniel; Pierre Béland
Subject: RE: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Bonjour Tim,
Je ne sais pas si Pierre souhaite fusionner les approches, mais il démontre un 
intérêt à programmer. Pour ma part, je n’aime pas beaucoup programmer (python, 
scripts SQL, etc.), mais j’aime bien développer des processus (d’où 
l’utilisation de FME). 

Je vais rendre à terme la documentation du processus (de l’algorithme) et des 
exemples sur Github. Par la suite, ceux qui sont intéressés à développer 
l’application en open source seront les bienvenus et je serai heureux de 
répondre aux questions et d’en discuter :-)

Daniel 

-Original Message-
From: Tim Elrick [mailto:o...@elrick.de] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2019 13:30
To: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org; Begin Daniel; Pierre Béland
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Bonjour Daniel,

C'est une bonne nouvelle ! Pierre et moi avons déjà commencé à en parler 
dans des messages privés, et Pierre y a déjà beaucoup réfléchi - en 
partie d'un ancien projet, si je comprends bien. Il a également déjà 
publié ses approches précédentes sur github il y a quelques jours.

Voyons comment nous pouvons fusionner tes approches et celles de Pierre 
pour en tirer le meilleur parti pour le processus d'importation. Ce 
serait bien si nous pouvions trouver des méthodes d'orthogonalisation et 
  de simplification pour toutes les données OSM nouvellement importées 
(et peut-être même déjà existantes).

Tim

On 2019-04-30 12:07, Begin Daniel wrote:
Based on previous comments I improved the application and everything
seems right now. I’ll start publishing results/documentation in
following days J

We may then start developing an “open source” version of the application.

Daniel

*From:*john whelan [mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com]
*Sent:* Saturday, April 27, 2019 16:41
*To:* Talk-CA OpenStreetMap
*Cc:* Alasia, Alessandro (STATCAN)
*Subject:* [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

We now have three sources of data with the correct licensing.

I'm proposing that I amend both the import plan and the import mailing
list to include the three alternative sources.

I'm tempted by the idea of splitting the country up into regions of some
sort.

We have a couple of groups currently who I think would like to import
what is available in Alberta and Manitoba.  Are we asking them to hold
off until Pierre and company have come up with a cleansing routine?

Thoughts ladies and gentlemen please.

Thanks John


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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Begin Daniel]

Bonjour Tim,
Je ne sais pas si Pierre souhaite fusionner les approches, mais il démontre un 
intérêt à programmer. Pour ma part, je n’aime pas beaucoup programmer (python, 
scripts SQL, etc.), mais j’aime bien développer des processus (d’où 
l’utilisation de FME). 

Je vais rendre à terme la documentation du processus (de l’algorithme) et des 
exemples sur Github. Par la suite, ceux qui sont intéressés à développer 
l’application en open source seront les bienvenus et je serai heureux de 
répondre aux questions et d’en discuter :-)

Daniel 

-Original Message-
From: Tim Elrick [mailto:o...@elrick.de] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2019 13:30
To: talk-ca@openstreetmap.org; Begin Daniel; Pierre Béland
Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

Bonjour Daniel,

C'est une bonne nouvelle ! Pierre et moi avons déjà commencé à en parler 
dans des messages privés, et Pierre y a déjà beaucoup réfléchi - en 
partie d'un ancien projet, si je comprends bien. Il a également déjà 
publié ses approches précédentes sur github il y a quelques jours.

Voyons comment nous pouvons fusionner tes approches et celles de Pierre 
pour en tirer le meilleur parti pour le processus d'importation. Ce 
serait bien si nous pouvions trouver des méthodes d'orthogonalisation et 
  de simplification pour toutes les données OSM nouvellement importées 
(et peut-être même déjà existantes).

Tim

On 2019-04-30 12:07, Begin Daniel wrote:
Based on previous comments I improved the application and everything
seems right now. I’ll start publishing results/documentation in
following days J

We may then start developing an “open source” version of the application.

Daniel

*From:*john whelan [mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com]
*Sent:* Saturday, April 27, 2019 16:41
*To:* Talk-CA OpenStreetMap
*Cc:* Alasia, Alessandro (STATCAN)
*Subject:* [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

We now have three sources of data with the correct licensing.

I'm proposing that I amend both the import plan and the import mailing
list to include the three alternative sources.

I'm tempted by the idea of splitting the country up into regions of some
sort.

We have a couple of groups currently who I think would like to import
what is available in Alberta and Manitoba.  Are we asking them to hold
off until Pierre and company have come up with a cleansing routine?

Thoughts ladies and gentlemen please.

Thanks John


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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Pierre Béland via Talk-ca]

Bonjour à tous
Je suis à tester les fonctionnalités Topologie de PostGIS qui tient compte des 
relations entre les différents polygones.  Cela est prometteur  et je pense 
aussi arriver à une solution très bientôt.

Les fonctions PostGIS et la documentation sont disponibles à 
https://github.com/pierzen/OQ_Analysis 


Pierre 
 

Le mardi 30 avril 2019 13 h 29 min 37 s UTC−4, Tim Elrick  
a écrit :  
 
 Bonjour Daniel,

C'est une bonne nouvelle ! Pierre et moi avons déjà commencé à en parler 
dans des messages privés, et Pierre y a déjà beaucoup réfléchi - en 
partie d'un ancien projet, si je comprends bien. Il a également déjà 
publié ses approches précédentes sur github il y a quelques jours.

Voyons comment nous pouvons fusionner tes approches et celles de Pierre 
pour en tirer le meilleur parti pour le processus d'importation. Ce 
serait bien si nous pouvions trouver des méthodes d'orthogonalisation et 
  de simplification pour toutes les données OSM nouvellement importées 
(et peut-être même déjà existantes).

Tim

On 2019-04-30 12:07, Begin Daniel wrote:
Based on previous comments I improved the application and everything
seems right now. I’ll start publishing results/documentation in
following days J

We may then start developing an “open source” version of the application.

Daniel

*From:*john whelan [mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com]
*Sent:* Saturday, April 27, 2019 16:41
*To:* Talk-CA OpenStreetMap
*Cc:* Alasia, Alessandro (STATCAN)
*Subject:* [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

We now have three sources of data with the correct licensing.

I'm proposing that I amend both the import plan and the import mailing
list to include the three alternative sources.

I'm tempted by the idea of splitting the country up into regions of some
sort.

We have a couple of groups currently who I think would like to import
what is available in Alberta and Manitoba.  Are we asking them to hold
off until Pierre and company have come up with a cleansing routine?

Thoughts ladies and gentlemen please.

Thanks John


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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Tim Elrick]

Bonjour Daniel,

C'est une bonne nouvelle ! Pierre et moi avons déjà commencé à en parler 
dans des messages privés, et Pierre y a déjà beaucoup réfléchi - en 
partie d'un ancien projet, si je comprends bien. Il a également déjà 
publié ses approches précédentes sur github il y a quelques jours.


Voyons comment nous pouvons fusionner tes approches et celles de Pierre 
pour en tirer le meilleur parti pour le processus d'importation. Ce 
serait bien si nous pouvions trouver des méthodes d'orthogonalisation et 
 de simplification pour toutes les données OSM nouvellement importées 
(et peut-être même déjà existantes).


Tim

On 2019-04-30 12:07, Begin Daniel wrote:
Based on previous comments I improved the application and everything
seems right now. I’ll start publishing results/documentation in
following days J

We may then start developing an “open source” version of the application.

Daniel

*From:*john whelan [mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com]
*Sent:* Saturday, April 27, 2019 16:41
*To:* Talk-CA OpenStreetMap
*Cc:* Alasia, Alessandro (STATCAN)
*Subject:* [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

We now have three sources of data with the correct licensing.

I'm proposing that I amend both the import plan and the import mailing
list to include the three alternative sources.

I'm tempted by the idea of splitting the country up into regions of some
sort.

We have a couple of groups currently who I think would like to import
what is available in Alberta and Manitoba.  Are we asking them to hold
off until Pierre and company have come up with a cleansing routine?

Thoughts ladies and gentlemen please.

Thanks John


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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Paul Norman via Talk-ca]

The sources of the data are different in different regions, as well as the existing communities. A Canada-wide process won't work when each import is going to vary.On Apr 27, 2019 1:40 PM, john whelan  wrote:We now have three sources of data with the correct licensing.I'm proposing that I amend both the import plan and the import mailing list to include the three alternative sources.I'm tempted by the idea of splitting the country up into regions of some sort.We have a couple of groups currently who I think would like to import what is available in Alberta and Manitoba.  Are we asking them to hold off until Pierre and company have come up with a cleansing routine?Thoughts ladies and gentlemen please.Thanks John
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Re: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

[Begin Daniel]

Based on previous comments I improved the application and everything seems 
right now. I’ll start publishing results/documentation in following days ☺
We may then start developing an “open source” version of the application.
Daniel

From: john whelan [mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2019 16:41
To: Talk-CA OpenStreetMap
Cc: Alasia, Alessandro (STATCAN)
Subject: [Talk-ca] Importing buildings in Canada

We now have three sources of data with the correct licensing.

I'm proposing that I amend both the import plan and the import mailing list to 
include the three alternative sources.

I'm tempted by the idea of splitting the country up into regions of some sort.

We have a couple of groups currently who I think would like to import what is 
available in Alberta and Manitoba.  Are we asking them to hold off until Pierre 
and company have come up with a cleansing routine?

Thoughts ladies and gentlemen please.

Thanks John
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