[Imports] Importing Beirut building data

Tue May 2 10:06:53 UTC 2017

Hi Majd,

I can show you how to draw more complex buildings using JOSM. L-shaped,
C-shaped, using "extrusion". All still very quick. Buildings with rounded
corners, all you like. That doesn't solve the low resolution imagery, I
realise that.

The data you want to import, does it include number of floors//height? They
seem to be mostly high rise buildings.

Jo

2017-05-02 11:47 GMT+02:00 Majd Al-shihabi <majd.al at gmail.com>:

> Hi folks - thanks for all of the replies.
>
> I have a meeting with the AUB-NI folks to see what we can do about
> licensing. From the sound of it, I don't think that they're strictly
> against it.
>
> Tracing over the entire city from aerial imagery is doable, but I'm afraid
> about a few things:
> 1. The aerial imagery from Bing is mostly unusable, partly because it's
> cloudy. Mapbox imagery is better, but not of a very high resolution.
> 2. The architecture in most of Beirut is not as clean and well-defined as
> most European/North American cities. Buildings are separate but are *very*
> tightly packed. The low resolution of the aerial images does not help with
> this.
> 3. The building tools plugin for JOSM only draws rectangular buildings,
> which is not the shape of most buildings in Beirut. Drawing the irregular
> shapes of the buildings is very important, especially because there is no
> commonly used address system here, so buildings (and their irregular
> shapes) become used as landmarks for people to find places.
>
> I'll let you know what is the result of my meeting with AUB-NI is.
>
> Cheers,
>
> /majd
>
>
>
>
>
> On 2 May 2017 at 11:51, Rory McCann <rory at technomancy.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> So here's a suggestion, rather than doing a semi-manual "import" of this
>> data, why not just trace the buildings manually from aerial imagery?
>> You're suggesting a very manual "import" process anyway, so I don't
>> think a proper tracing mapping party would take much longer? You can use
>> something like the Tasking Manager, or MapCraft to split the city up
>> into "cake slices" and just go through them one by one, mapping buildings.
>>
>> The JOSM Building Tools plugin is fantastic and can allow you to map
>> buildings very quickly.
>>
>> This has the advantage of not being an import, and you don't need to
>> think about licencing, you don't need to write software to "show a
>> random building". You'd be surprised at how fast some people can map
>> once they get the hang of it.
>>
>> Rory
>>
>> On 28/04/17 15:35, Majd Al-shihabi wrote:
>>
>>> Hi folks,
>>>
>>> I have been working with an organisation called Public Works Studio to
>>> create a map of housing evictions in Beirut over the past couple of
>>> years. As a part of it, we need a good base map containing buildings in
>>> the city, but unfortunately, OSM doesn't have that yet.
>>>
>>> Through our network, we found out that a group at the American
>>> University of Beirut called The Neighbourhood Initiative (AUB-NI) has
>>> done a survey of all of the buildings in the city. The data can be
>>> viewed here
>>> <https://scholarworks.aub.edu.lb/handle/10938/10283?show=full>. As far
>>> as I understand (and of course i'm not a legal expert), the license on
>>> the data from the AUB-NI is not incompatible with the Open Database
>>> License. In any case, my understanding is that they got the data freely
>>> from the municipality.
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, the Lebanon OSM mailing list has been inactive since
>>> 2012, but at a recent HOT training, and through my work, I have met a
>>> few people who are interested in activating the community again.
>>>
>>> What we would like to do is to start importing all 20k+ building
>>> polygons into OSM, but do that in a special way. We would like to run a
>>> series of mapathons where people enter the buildings one by one. We
>>> would create a simple tool with the following workflow:
>>>
>>>  1. Display to the mapper a random building from the available 20k+
>>>     buildings
>>>  2. Overlay the building on the mapbox satellite images (Mapbox is
>>>     clearer than Bing)
>>>  3. If
>>>       * the building already exists in OSM, discard the new polygon
>>>         (maybe we can avoid this option by doing some cleaning of the
>>>         data using QGIS)
>>>       * the building does not exist on OSM, and the polygon matches the
>>>         satellite image, then add as many tags as we know, and upload it
>>>         to OSM
>>>       * the building does not exist on OSM, and the polygon does NOT
>>>         match the satellite image, then modify the polygon so it
>>>         matches, add as many tags as possible, then upload to OSM
>>>
>>> This process serves an important function: to verify the accuracy of the
>>> data from the AUB-NI, especially since the dataset is from 2004, and the
>>> city has changed A LOT since that date.
>>>
>>> From a technical point of view, I can see three options to do this:
>>> 1. The simplest way is to find a way to pass the polygons to the iD
>>> editor (through GET or POST parameters) and have it preselected for the
>>> user to make any modifications to it.
>>> 2. Alternatively, we could build an interface that would save the
>>> polygon to OSM *and then* ask the user to verify it.
>>> 3. Otherwise (and least desirable option) is to build an entire
>>> javascript app that would implement the workflow.
>>>
>>> I've done a bit of research and option 2 seems like it's the most
>>> feasible one, but I'd like to hear some more thoughts from the community
>>> about this.
>>>
>>> Many thanks for your advice, in advance :)
>>>
>>> /majd
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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