[Imports] [OSM-dev] USGS VGI Workshop: Worldwide Geographic Names

[Apollinaris Schoell]

Hi David,

moving the thread to imports list

Just did a quick check on some places I know and lat/lon  might be good enough for import. elevation is wrong for all poi or doesn't exist. Names are wrong too and the ADM1 code is all but correct for many features.
line/area features are represented by a point only. this is good enough to render some labels on a map but of limited use for a project like osm
technically an import is easy and can be done with a little perl or phyton scripting quickly. Only a translation table of attributes into osm tags is required.

The challenge here is osm is primarily a community project and in many countries this will create tons of conflicts with existing data. without local knowledge and verification a plain import will do more harm than good. user created data should always be considered more valuable than imports of unknown quality.
I see different options to make use of it

1) import it in a "hidden" form only. all tags have to be unique from existing and supported tags in renderer, routing and other commons consumers of osm data. local community can verify and convert tags to official tags. In empty areas without better dat anyone might do this.
This approach was used for imports in Iceland. 
For some really well mapped countries even this shouldn't be done since it doesn't add any value and add disturbs local mappers.

2) verify each point before upload against existing data. This is quite tricky and requires fuzzy matching in multiple languages against POI, line and area features conflict resolution opens a can of worms … to make it really useful matching has to be done on all tags. some of the attributes in this dataset will for sure not contain the richness of local meanings and used osm tags.
For a real GIS expert setting up such a system could be very useful for other imports too. I think corine import did part of it in postgis. 

3) do all the scripting and convert to osm format and provide it for download to local mappers for verification and upload to osm.




On 20 Feb 2010, at 19:34 , David Gunn wrote:

> Hi Apollinaris - At this point, I am referring primarily to GNS data (http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/index.html). I am very familiar with the data. Sections of the data are very good and ought to be considered for import into OSM. Are you familiar with the GNS?
>  
> Dave
> On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 7:19 PM, Ian Dees <ian.dees at gmail.com> wrote:
> Also, most of the USGS GNIS names have already been imported (if that's what you were talking about). 
> 
> On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 7:12 PM, Apollinaris Schoell <aschoell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Dave,
> 
> I have done some imports and may be able to help. Can you describe in more detail what kind of data. POI, ways, area, …
> What format and license.
> 
> Apollinaris
> 
> 
> On 20 Feb 2010, at 9:55 , SteveC wrote:
> 
> > bouncing to dev...
> >
> > On Feb 20, 2010, at 5:53 AM, David Gunn wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Steve - We met briefly at the USGS VGI Workshop. I work professionally with geographic names collection and standardization. I'd like to volunteer to help add large datasets of standard geographic names to OSM. I have an OSM account, but I haven't contributed anything yet. I need to speak with someone who can answer my questions about entering large datasets. Would you please help me find someone who can answer my questions? It would help if the person were in the US, due to time zones, etc.
> >>
> >> I'd greatly appreciate any help you can offer.
> >>
> >> Kind regards,
> >>
> >> Dave Gunn
> >
> > Yours &c.
> >
> > Steve
> >
> >
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