[Openhiking] Hello and Welcome

[Michael Collinson]

Thank you for the welcome Brian.

I am off to SOTM now but look forward to getting more engaged when I return.

The only hiking map I aware of the moment is the England/Wales-only 
http://www.free-map.org.uk run by OSM contributor Nick Whitelegg.  
However I think reading Brian's comments that  it is more of a path map 
a hiking trail map per se.

Mike

On 03/09/2012 18:19, Brian Scott McLaughlin wrote:
>
> 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+Classification+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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