<div dir="ltr">There is a fairly standardized set of tags that are used frequently. There's no requirement that they be used, but they are common conventions that make the data more usable. So, the <b>database</b> doesn't make sure things are right--the <b>community</b> does. If you haven't seen it yet, many of these common tags--possibly too many ;)--are collected on the Map Features page (<a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Map_Features">http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Map_Features</a>) and used in other ways such as editor presets. Another, often fascinating, way to look at tag usage is at Taginfo (<a href="http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/">http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/</a>). 125 million building=yes features! <a href="http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/building=yes">http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/building=yes</a><div><br></div><div>OSM to shapefile (or database) stuff is always a pain, because of the tabular structure that shapefile/databases expect versus the freeform key=value structure of OSM data. So you're bound to get a certain subset of tags, unless you do some customization. There are lots of ways to create shapefiles--see <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Shapefiles#Create_your_own_shapefiles">http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Shapefiles#Create_your_own_shapefiles</a> (or for PostGIS, see <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osm2pgsql">http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osm2pgsql</a>)</div><div><br></div><div>Tagging is sometimes chaotic, inconsistent and poorly documented, but for the most part it keeps improving--what more can you ask for? :)</div><div><br></div><div>Cheers,</div><div>Brad</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, May 23, 2015 at 1:52 AM, Springfield Harrison <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:stellargps@gmail.com" target="_blank">stellargps@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
Hello Blake,<br><br>
Thanks for those references. I understand the first one although it
does certainly appear daunting.<br><br>
The problem I see is that the long list of attributes/keys/values that
are specified for inclusion in the shapefile can go out of date very
often as crowd-mappers or new projects invent new key/value tags.
Having to manually inspect the "other_tags" field looks like a
bottleneck that could lead to unintended query results, most likely
overlooking items that have new keys. This is a long list to keep
up to date and there are quite a few of them in your example:<br><br>
<pre>attributes=name,type,aeroway,amenity,admin_level,barrier,boundary,building,craft,geological,historic,land_area,landuse,leisure,man_made,military,natural,office,place,shop,sport,tourism
</pre>Anyway, I understand what you're driving at but the process seems
to be overly complex and not given to reliable automation.<br><br>
Has anyone created a GUI for this? Your example for hand wiring all
these INI files looks tedious and easy to screw up. I can see that
a query builder tool that presented all the keys and their values in pick
lists along with the relevant operators would boost the reliability and
ease the workload in creating these queries.<br><br>
<u></u> <u></u>Thanks for
bearing with me again, Cheers . . . . . . . . Spring Harrison<div><div class="h5"><br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
At 22-05-2015 06:55 Friday, Blake Girardot wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Hi Springfield,<br><br>
Here is how I get useful thematic layers out OSM:<br><br>
<a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Bgirardot/How_To_Convert_osm_.pbf_files_to_Esri_Shapefiles" target="_blank">
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Bgirardot/How_To_Convert_osm_.pbf_files_to_Esri_Shapefiles</a>
<br><br>
And here is an example files generated through what I would guess is a
similar process every 30 mins:<br><br>
<a href="http://nepal.piensa.co/" target="_blank">
http://nepal.piensa.co/</a><br><br>
Actually, I see they use a slightly different process with the same basic
method, and the same software for the conversion/extraction:<br><br>
<a href="https://github.com/GFDRR/osm-extract" target="_blank">
https://github.com/GFDRR/osm-extract</a><br><br>
(feedback on my thematic layers is always welcome, we want to create the
most useful layers we can. Examples can be found in the wiki entry for
Vanuatu typhoon response)<br>
<br>
cheers,<br>
Blake<br><br>
<br><br>
On 5/22/2015 8:26 AM, Springfield Harrison wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Hello John,<br><br>
Thanks for your patient explanation, I'm beginning to see that OSM is
a<br>
very different flavour of GIS. At the outset, my assumption was that
it<br>
was entirely emergency oriented. I was puzzled by the references to<br>
hairdressers and gymnasiums but I guess they result from a different<br>
process.<br><br>
I do think that some emergency related features such as potential<br>
helipads, powerline crossings, towers, cable cars, landslides,
glacial<br>
lakes, emergency shelters and such like might be better left to
those<br>
with experience with those types of features. They wouldn't
necessarily<br>
need to be experienced with OSM, just familiar with identifying
those<br>
features. I'm surprised that there is no process for identifying
and<br>
directing the more highly qualified mappers.<br><br>
I had intended to help with the helipad project but quickly became<br>
discouraged with the less than adequate imagery and the weirdness of<br>
leisure = common. Merely verifying the leisure = common sites would<br>
probably overlook lots of other qualified sites. And how many sites<br>
with this tag are actually sports fields as per the original
intention?<br>
Then, mapping existing helipads marked with H in a circle, might be<br>
redundant as such official sites would probably be already mapped by
a<br>
national agency. I would recommend that potential helipads be tagged
as<br>
aeroway = helipads_potential, verified = no. Proper assessment of<br>
helipads requires an oblique, 3-D view. I attempted to introduce
Google<br>
Earth into the process but licensing fears put the kibosh on
that.<br><br>
I found this surprising because Google Earth does have several other<br>
products and does make a lot of noise about community and not for
profit<br>
mapping without any references to licensing. They appear to
actively<br>
promote user generated files being placed into the public domain. I<br>
have spent some time attempting to talk to them about this but the
best<br>
I could do was an e-mail. Will advise.<br><br>
Thanks again for your time on this, I'm sure you have larger fish to<br>
fry, Cheers . . . . . . . . Spring Harrison<br>
</blockquote></blockquote></div></div></div>
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