Hello there, my name is Ævar and I'm from Iceland (the other side of the mid-Atlantic ridge) and I'm writing to inform you that I've improved the map of the Tristan da Cuncha archipelago in my own free time as part of the OpenStreetMap project, see:
http://openstreetmap.org/user/%C3%86var%20Arnfj%C3%B6r%C3%B0%20Bjarmason/diary/4525 The OpenStreetMap project is a collaborative project by ordinary people around the world with the aim of creating a free map of the globe, see: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Main_Page But to business. I'm interested in getting in contact with some people on-site in Tristan da Cunha to get them to bike/drive around roads on the island with a GPS device (locally provided) so that the OpenStreetMap project can make a map of the island, further details on how the OSM project normally does map making can be seen here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapping_techniques The benefit to the people of Tristan da Cunha would be obvious; Currently the archipelago isn't mapped on any of the big commercial mapping sites like Google Maps or Yahoo Maps. The reason for this is obvious, the island is remote and the market for maps of Tristan da Cuncha isn't commercially viable for these big mapping companies. Tristan da Cunha *is* commercially viable to the people living there however and a map showing the road network, shops, the main amenities (swimming pool etc.) could be used locally, given out (or sold) to tourists at no cost, and used on Tristan da Cunha's official website (tristandc.com) if someone would merely go through the one-time effort of collecting the required ground data to make it. If this is something you're interested in please stay in touch, I'd be glad to help in any way possible. I'm sending a copy of this message to OpenStreetMap's Talk-GB mailing list in for records and in case other users are interested. _______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
