> I despair that the lazy, armchair mappers are taking over, but as I say, > there's little I can do to stop it.
Personally I think this project needs all the help it can get. The more data sources and contributors the better. We're trying to build a map from scratch. It's not a simple task. If an armchair-tracing takes it from a blank page to a few roads then that is a step forward towards that goal. If you then go survey it, correct the road geometry a bit, fix a road name or add in some POI then that is another step forward. It's all good. Despair less, enjoy more! > If people want an carbon copy of OS datasets, why not just use OS > datasets and let OSM mature into the best map of the world rather than a > pastiche of imports. I described my approach: I trace roads from Bing and name them from OS Locator. It's not a carbon-copy. The names I add may be the same as OS (and are properly attributed as such) but my traces often differ from the OS version as I can typically see details on the Bing imagery that are not apparent on StreetView (road shape, alleyways, junctions, driveways, traffic lights, etc). Incidentally my Bing traces also seem better than most of the source=gps or source=survey traces I see, which often slavishly follow a GPS track as it zig-zags back-and-forth along a perfectly straight road. You'll no doubt point out that the Bing imagery may not be perfectly aligned and could be warped by lens distortion, atmosphere etc. And I agree. But it is great for getting a pretty accurate representation of the overall shape of the road where there was nothing before. If it then needs tweaked slightly following a ground survey with highly-accurate professional DGPS units then that's fine - but at least in the meantime it is on the map and end-users relying on OSM for their satnavs etc get immediate benefit. Cheers, GrahamS _______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
