[OSM-newbies] Newbie

[Ramey]

On Jul 13, 2010, at 12:00 , anil kumar wrote:

> I am located in Bangalore, karnataka,India . Live close by to MSRIT where pycon2010 india is being organised.
> 

It doesn't appear [1] that there's a whole lot of armchair cartography left in that area, other than landuse (residential, commercial, retail, etc.).  So, that leaves surveying.  Take a look at Walking Papers [2], you could print out a map and take it out with you, and make notes on what you see so that you can add them to the map.  You don't have to scan the map you print with Walking Papers back in, you can just use it as scratch paper to locate where you need to add things on the map.  To edit the map, you need to create an account (it's free!) and the easiest editor is Potlatch [3], it's the page you go to when you hit the edit tab on openstreetmap.

When comparing with google maps [4], I see that in general OSM has a little more detail, but google has neighborhood names that OSM doesn't.
If you could get those, without copying from other maps (or google), either from your own knowledge, or asking residents, that would be helpful too.

The nice thing about OSM is that you can scratch your own itch, that is, you can map what's important to you.  If you drive, you could make sure the street network is complete, has traffic lights, and speed limits.  If you bike, you could make sure that bike routes and paths are on the map.  As you go out to eat, you could make sure the restaurant you went to is on the map.

Good luck, and enjoy the exploration.

Ramey

[1] http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=13.03646&lon=77.56117&zoom=16&layers=B000TTF
[2] http://walking-papers.org/
[3] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potlatch
[4] http://tools.geofabrik.de/mc/?mt0=mapnik&mt1=googlemap&lon=77.56117&lat=13.03646&zoom=15