[OSM-dev] Thoughts on an enhanced GPX api

[Shaun McDonald]

On 28 Jul 2009, at 16:08, Richard Fairhurst wrote:

>
> Frederik Ramm wrote:
>> To be honest, I think that GPS traces are horribly overrated and
>> will only further diminish in importance for OSM. I wouldn't spend
>> a lot of time reinventing anything to do with GPS traces.
>
> Why's that?
>
> For those of you in countries with NMAs that release things, or in  
> urban
> areas where there's satellite imagery, maybe you can do without  
> them. But in
> 95% of the British land mass there is no other way of mapping.
>
> Personally I'd like to see _more_ emphasis on going out there with a  
> GPS,
> and less on "oh, we'll find an import" or "oh, you can do it from  
> satellite
> imagery". OSM as an agglomeration of imports is little more than one  
> of
> those terrible "geodata catalogs" that seem to be discussed  
> interminably on
> OSGeo mailing lists.
>

I think the reason for GPS Trace from the API being less important  
(rather than using a GPS in general) is because there will be so many  
of them that there will be too much noise in places, and the map will  
be nearing completion.

I do agree that people should be heading out on the ground to map  
rather than looking for import. It will be more likely that people  
will be using things like walking papers than a GPS Trace to do the  
mapping.

Shaun

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