[Imports] MassGIS Building Import Start

Thu Dec 13 01:15:32 UTC 2012

Hello Everybody,

I would like to kick off the MassGIS building import. This following is
copy/paste from the current wiki (
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/MassGIS_Buildings_Import). The external
links will work on the wiki.

--------------------------

On Dec, 2012 MassGIS <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/MassGIS> released
a high quality data layer for all
buildings<http://www.mass.gov/anf/research-and-tech/it-serv-and-support/application-serv/office-of-geographic-information-massgis/datalayers/structures.html>
 in the entire state of MA. Previously
MassGIS<http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/MassGIS>
 only had buildings for Boston and its nearby suburbs.

The plan is as follows.
Source Data LicenseAll MassGIS
<http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/MassGIS> data
is in the public domain. See MassGIS<http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/MassGIS>
 page, and talk-us
archives<http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2012-December/thread.html>
 for detailed discussion. A previous (incomplete) version of this data that
covers the Boston area has already been imported. From the MA Secretary of
state Office Frequently Asked
Questions<http://www.sec.state.ma.us/pre/prepdf/guide.pdf>,
first question is  What records are public? Every document, paper, record, *
map*, photograph, etc., as defined by law, that is made or received by a
government entity or employee is presumed to be a public record  From the
MA Secretary of state Duplication
Services<http://www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcres/residx.htm>,
last section.  Records created by Massachusetts government are not
copyrighted and are available for public use. Copyright for materials
submitted to state agencies may be held by the person or organization that
created the document. Patrons are responsible for clearing copyright on
such materials. For more information on copyright law, please see the U.S.
Copyright Office's web page at lcweb.loc.gov/copyright. ScriptsA script was
written to convert MassGIS shp files to OSM file. Each town has its own
zip. Inside of the zip is two OSM files. The first file has all of the
buildings, the second file has only the buildings missing from OSM. This
has been completed, data is
here<https://docs.google.com/a/twincoastmetrology.com/folder/d/0B6HixOxli_6ldGVkREtxdk5lWGM/edit>.
jremillard will update these files. The scripts used for the shape to OSM
conversion are also at the same link as the data. Status TrackingA google
docs spreadsheet<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ar0iC0thXzOjdFc4c3diOGZiNlNtX2ZoOVNacTE3R3c>
 will be used to track progress on each town. People helping with the
import will be able to claim a town, mark as town as already building
complete, or mark it as "skip" for the final automated import because of
data problems. Who Is Doing ThisSo far OSM users ingalls and jremillard are
working on the import. We will work on getting as much help as
possible. Getting
HelpUse the MA osm database extract to get a list of users that have added
10 or more buildings in 2012. We will contact these users and ask if could
help with the import. Not completed. Manual Imports - Step 1It is expected
that users doing the town by town import will use their *normal osm accounts
*. The data<https://docs.google.com/a/twincoastmetrology.com/folder/d/0B6HixOxli_6ldGVkREtxdk5lWGM/edit>
 will be download into JOSM, visually inspected, fixing any problems, then
uploaded. SchemaThe OSM files that are in the ZIP file will only be tagged
with building=yes. The MassGIS building STRUCT_ID will not be included.
First, MassGIS made no attempt at preserving the STRUCT_ID when they
updated the data set to include the entire state. The MassGIS STRUCT_ID, is
based on X,Y centroid, when they updated the building locations, all of the
ids changed. Second, No actual scenario came up in the discussion on why
somebody might want to link the OSM structure back to the MassGIS data. In
fact, nobody could come up with a case where previous imports that did
include the original id turned out to be useful to somebody. Thirdly, if
somebody really, really does need to link the OSM building to the MassGIS
source layer, they can always link them them based on the building
centriods of the two sets, and to get even more precision, rolling the
change sets back to the import time and doing a more exact match will
always be possible. Basically, the STRUCT_ID is redundant with the actual
building geometry. Lastly, including the STRUCT_ID is not free. It will be
confusing to future mappers. What to do with the STRUCT_ID, when a building
is moved, deleted, or copied/ pasted? The wiki will not have this tag
documented, it will not be clear what it is for. If even one fix is not
made because of confusion over the STRUCT_ID tag, we will have lowered the
final quality of the map for no apparent benefit. CreditCredit to MassGIS
will be included in all changeset comments. It will read as follows *Building
Structures (2-D, from 2011-2012 Ortho Imagery) - Office of Geographic
Information (MassGIS), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Information
Technology Division*. No source tag will be used on the buildings
themselves. See
talk-us<http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2012-December/thread.html>
 archive for a discussion. By including the credit in the change comment,
it does not need to be managed by future mappers who will be
correcting/improving on the data. For the people that want to know where
specific data came from, the change history on the way will have all the
needed information. Automated Import - Step 2 - Project CompletionSometime
after May 2013, the towns that have not been imported by hand or marked as
"skip" will be imported directly by an automated script. This automated
script will done under its own account. This script has not been written
yet.

-------------------------

The import has been added to the catalog page.

Omitting of the source tag, and massgis::id tag have already been discussed
in talk-us. People where going both ways, but I would like to skip them at
outlined above. However, we need help more than we need to get our way! If
you feel strongly about the id and source tag, sign up to import a bunch of
towns by hand and we can be made to change coarse.

 The user account has not been discussed yet. I am hoping to get some
guidance. We are planning on using our own accounts on the "hand" imports.
The automated import at the end of the project will get its own account,
which I think is intention of the import guidlines wiki. If this is not
acceptable, and we in fact do need our own account for each hand imported
town, I will make a new OSM account, and give out its password out to
everybody that asks for it to do the import.

The last area I would like some help on. Could somebody look at the script
in the data directory and verify that the MassGIS datum was correctly
converted to the OSM datum. The output data is well aligned visually, but I
have been warned in a private email that messing this up will results
in < 1 meter error, which may not be apparent with a visual inspection.

Thats it!

Jason
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