[Imports] Facebook's AI-Assisted Road Tracing for OSM

Denis Carriere carriere.denis at gmail.com
Wed Mar 15 15:35:25 UTC 2017


Christoph,

Have you even looked at the sample dataset provided before speaking?

Yes it is very clear which roads would be added (add a filter
source=digitalglobe) and the roads without an OSM history are the new roads.

The imagery that DigitalGlobe provides is used for computational purposes
and won't be distributed for free, the imagery data used to create this
data isn't usable for viewing purposes (it's for computers to do machine
learning).

Bing & Mapbox imagery can't be compared since it only has RGB bands vs.
having all 12 bands provided by WorldView 3 or other satellite sources.

As for clouds, you can easily use multiple imagery collection dates for the
same area, this is is offered by DG and a very easy task to do (shouldn't
even be a discussion point).

As for de-conflicting existing roads, from what I've seen in the sample
dataset this is WAY better than what you could expect from even an
experienced OSM mapper.

Why are you even questioning the experience of the OSM Facebook importers
when yourself wasn't even able to determine the difference between the
imported data and the existing OSM data.

+1 this import

*~~~~~~*
*Denis Carriere*
*GIS Software & Systems Specialist*

On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 5:28 AM, Christoph Hormann <osm at imagico.de> wrote:

>
> First of all thanks for finally starting discussion of this in the
> proper channels now.
>
> Here my initial questions and comments in rough order of priority with
> the most important ones first:
>
> * Where is the data to be imported?  The OpenStreetMap project is
> founded on the idea of openness and for the import consultation process
> to work properly we need to be able to look at either the data to be
> imported or the process to generate this data in full.  There cannot be
> a carte blanche to import data that has not been scrutinized by the
> community and that is generated using a proprietary process.
>
> Side note: Because the data is not available in full at the moment i
> will refrain from commenting on this just based on the small sample you
> attached which might or might not be representative for the whole
> country and for which it is unclear to what extent manual editing has
> already been applied.
>
> * Who is doing the import?  What experience do these people have in OSM?
> The wiki page lists a number of import accounts but none of these
> reference a normal non-import mapping account.  Mapping experience in
> OSM is generally of great importance for being able to properly do an
> import so this would be important to know.  Also it has otherwise
> always been common practice in OSM for corporate mappers to show up
> with their real names - you would probably be well advised to follow
> this practice.  You could take the Mapbox approach as an example here
> [1].
>
> * Why don't you make the images used available for manual mapping?  Yes,
> i know you currently don't have the license for that but i am pretty
> sure DG would be happy to sell you a license.  It is not really
> convincing in my eyes that the effort you put into automatic extraction
> of roads is actually cheaper than such a license, especially given that
> the images would allow mapping a lot more than just roads.  In other
> words: For the OSM community imagery contributions would be much more
> valuable than what you propose here so you need to expect a significant
> uphill battle if you want to import but not provide the imagery.
>
> * Do you, and if yes how do you make sure the roads you import are
> compatible with what has been mapped in OSM otherwise (like for example
> roads not crossing buildings, water areas etc.)
>
> * How do you deal with clouds in imagery? (No, DG +Vivid imagery is not
> cloud free [2])
>
> * Are there any other data sources used to generate the roads other than
> DigitalGlobe imagery and OSM data?
>
> One important remark mainly for others participating in discussion here:
> The quality of imagery available in the Bing and Mapbox imagery layers
> is in significant parts not the best that is openly available for
> Thailand.  Although open data imagery is usually not suited for mapping
> smaller roads, especially in densely vegetated areas, many of the
> samples shown of poor Bing imagery in context of this import plan are
> misleading in that regard because they show very old imagery far below
> today's base quality level openly available.  Providing up-to-date open
> data imagery for Thailand would be a fairly useful limited cost effort
> to improve the basis for manual mapping in Thailand.
>
> [1] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapbox
> [2]
> https://dg-cms-uploads-production.s3.amazonaws.com/
> uploads/document/file/2/DG_Basemap_Vivid_DS_1.pdf
>
> --
> Christoph Hormann
> http://www.imagico.de/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Imports mailing list
> Imports at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/imports
>
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