<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Thanks Kevin for the followup - sourcing imagery for use in editors is indeed a complicated topic! </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I think the key takeaways (TL;DR):</div><div class="">- there are lots of public sources of aerial imagery available, especially at the us-state level, and we could use help collecting them.</div><div class="">- <a href="https://github.com/osmlab/editor-layer-index" class="">https://github.com/osmlab/editor-layer-index</a> is the place where we coordinate these efforts.</div><div class="">- anybody can lookup what imagery their state makes available, and open an issue on that GitHub repository.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">replies inline below:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">There is lots of public imagery out there, but we need volunteers to:<br class="">1. find it in the first place<br class=""></blockquote><br class="">I know where it is for my state:<br class=""><a href="http://gis.ny.gov/gateway/mg/index.html" class="">http://gis.ny.gov/gateway/mg/index.html</a><br class=""></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div>Great! The first step is making sure we know about it. Anybody, even non-technical, can go to <a href="https://github.com/osmlab/editor-layer-index" class="">https://github.com/osmlab/editor-layer-index</a> and open an issue. This is immediately helpful!</div><div><br class=""></div><div>(I already did this for the NY State Orthos: <a href="https://github.com/osmlab/editor-layer-index/issues/345" class="">https://github.com/osmlab/editor-layer-index/issues/345</a>)</div><div><br class=""></div><div><br class=""></div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">2. contact state GIS agencies for permission, if the website does not make<br class="">license clear<br class=""></blockquote><br class="">I have contact information, which I'm not going to share here.<br class="">A template for the letter requesting permission would be very helpful,<br class="">since it's not immediately clear how to describe the intended use to<br class="">an agency. It would be even more helpful to be able to have contact<br class="">information for a resource person to answer any legal questions that<br class="">the agency might have. Surely someone's done this before, for the<br class="">specific case of a state's orthoimagery with this being the intended<br class="">use!<br class=""></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div>Yes, this can get a bit legally complicated. I got lucky with NJ, because their “metadata” sheet makes it very clear that the orthoimagery has no use or access constraints, and that attribution is appreciated but not necessary. Absent of a clear statement like that, we do just need to contact someone in the state GIS office to ask for permission.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>TODO: We don’t have a template letter, or clear guidelines on which imagery licenses are compatible with our use, and we should. See <a href="https://github.com/osmlab/editor-layer-index/issues/166" class="">https://github.com/osmlab/editor-layer-index/issues/166</a> . Like you said in your other email, tracing is very different from importing, so the existing ODBL advice is not what we need.</div><div><br class=""></div><div><br class=""></div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">3. figure out whether the WMS server can serve the imagery (some serve<br class="">TMS/WTMS tiles that can be consumed directly in iD, others serve WMS which<br class="">can sometimes be proxied)</blockquote></div></div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">4. add the source to editor-layer-index, along with a boundary polygon where<br class="">the imagery is valid.<br class=""></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="">This question seems to be asking for technical details about which I'm<br class="">rather ignorant -</div></div></blockquote>(... snipped ...)<br class=""><div><div><blockquote type="cite" class="">subtleties that may be obvious to someone accustomed to maintaining<br class="">the software stack, but surely are not obvious to the average<br class="">mapper. When I look at it, I wind up mentally saying, "yeah, maybe one<br class="">of these days I'll have time to tool up with all this stuff.”<br class=""></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></div><div>You’re absolutely right that a layperson won’t be able to help much with steps 3 and 4, as this requires some technical knowledge. We could use more volunteers on <a href="https://github.com/osmlab/editor-layer-index" class="">https://github.com/osmlab/editor-layer-index</a> who want to learn about this, and there is a backlog of work for adding imagery sources to the index.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>TODO: I should write up a getting started guide for the editor-layer-index project that can bring people up to speed, including examples. I think I can put something together that make this topic accessible to anyone with a bit of free time, basic knowledge of how computers talk to each other, and not too afraid of acronyms.</div><div><br class=""></div><div><br class=""></div><div><br class=""></div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="">I'm sorry if I'm sounding harsh here. I really would like to see this<br class="">move forward. Help me to help you!<br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">No apology needed! Your responses are very helpful, and it made clear some next actions for us to work on..</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Thanks, Bryan</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>