[Imports] Alaska National Parks

[Clifford Snow]

On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 11:54 PM, Dave Swarthout <daveswarthout at gmail.com>wrote:

> I'm new to this list but have been mapping on OSM for a couple of years,
> mostly in Thailand where I spend winters. My home state is Alaska where
> very little OSM mapping has been done. I have been wanting to add national
> parks, wilderness areas and national wildlife refuges to the Alaska map
> but with the exception of a few wilderness areas, have not done so because
> I don't have any experience with such large projects.
>
> I obtained from the National Park Service, Denali National Park office,
> shape files for all the Alaska National Parks. I see no reference to any
> Alaska imports of national parks on this list so I'm asking for input,
> suggestions, etc., on how to go about this. Naturally, I think you'll agree
> that having these areas in the OSM database is a very worthwhile project.
>
> The file I have is 9 MB in size and includes boundary information for ALL
> national parks in Alaska. I was able to load the entire dataset into JOSM
> using the OpenData plugin. It took quite a while, roughly 30 minutes on a
> pretty fast laptop with 8 GB of RAM, and the data looks good. But it's
> complex. No, I'm not going to upload any of that data at this point. My
> plan is to discuss it here and then if all goes well, split that large file
> up using Qgis and then deal with one park at a time.
>
> The data was obtained from the Denali National Park Resident GIS
> specialist, who is also an OSM mapper, although he's very new to the OSM
> world. He is user:NJSkunk
>
> That's my initial question then. How to go about this in a responsible
> manner?
>

Dave,
>From a quick survey of US National Parks, I agree that Alaska's National
Parks are neglected. At the time I did the survey, some only had a single
node representing the park. It is great that you are willing to improve the
parks.

To get started, take a look at the Great Smoky Mountain NP import wiki
page:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Great_Smoky_Mountains_National_Park

You will need to create a similar page for your Alaska Plans. I'd suggest
starting with one park to get started. You can also look at the Seattle
Import page for a more compact format.
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Seattle_Import.

I would also highly recommend joining in the US Import Conference Call.
Join the US Import mailing list for announcements. They occur every other
Monday at 1PM EDT. We use google hangout for the call. You can discuss your
plans with the group.

For handling the data you have some options. Python is a great tool,
unfortunately, I'm not familiar with python, I'll tell you about using
PostGIS, QGIS and ogr2osm.py.  I find using PostGIS along with QGIS a great
way to clean up the data. Once you've simplified the data, export the data
as a shapefile and run through ogr2osm.py to convert to a .osm file that
can be loaded as a layer in JOSM. I use JOSM to simplify ways. It can also
be done using PostGIS or QGIS. The resulting .osm file should be made
available to the community for validation before importing.

The NPS is fully behind moving their data into OSM. If you need more parks
help, we can call on them for assistance.

Good luck,
Clifford

-- 
@osm_seattle
osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us
OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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