[Openhiking] Hello and Welcome

[Brian Scott McLaughlin]

Welcome to the mailing list Felix and Michael. Please don't get discouraged
if there's not a lot of talk yet, we're less than two days old. Another
member has started a wiki page http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenHiking
. There's not a lot of information there yet.  We want to give other members
the opportunity to voice their opinions and help guide us in the direction
we want to go before we develop it further.

My goal is to have the forum up by the end of the week so we'll have another
line of communication, and the website running by the end of the month. Let
me be clear that we don't have a server capable of rendering maps yet. But,
I believe in the not too distant future we will. Even if we had the server
available, we wouldn't know what to do with it since we need to first bring
enough people together working with the same goals in mind to make this
project a reality.

The following thoughts are just my opinions and vision for the project,
please feel free to disagree.

What I hope to create is an online slippy map using the OSM database that
distinguishes hiking and walking trails from ordinary paths, similar to what
opencyclemap has done for bicyclist. In order do this we need the OSM hiking
community to agree on a very basic set of key tags to render them properly. 

I believe the reason this project hasn't already been done by somebody else
is because there are so many existing trail classification systems worldwide
that were created long before OSM was even a dream, and getting everybody to
agree to one single system is going to be an impossible task. But we don't
have to, and to attempt to do so would be fruitless. Instead what we do is
create a system where each individual systems can coexist under one
umbrella. You can review a sample of the trail classification system at
http://www.wyatt-family.com/phil/Overview+of+Existing+Walking+Trail+Classifi
cation+Systems.pdf.

To do this we need to create a key tag dictionary to make sure we are
consistent when we are tagging attributes. We start with some very basic
required tagging guidelines, and we expand that with some recommend optional
guidelines. Other key tags will be reserved by individual styles. When we
get our own slippy map running users will have the option of using one of
the default OpenHiking style sheets or select from a library of possible
styles for their own region. OpenStreetMap already does this with cyclemap
and transport map. 

There are at least two advantages of doing this. First, mappers in different
regions can continue to map using the trail classification systems already
in place. Second, users that use our system can have digital maps that match
the paper maps, and trail sign maps that have already been created for their
area leading to less confusion on the ground.

 

This sounds like a lot of work, but the individual styles can be created by
future users. We just need to document the process clearly so future users
can contribute to the project. 

Please let me know your own opinions on how we should proceed.

 

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