[Talk-ca] OpenStreetMap Canada & GPS Tracks & Status update

[Sam Vekemans]

Hi Silo & talk-ca
Yes, GPS Tracks are always helpful, and everyone is encouraged to continue
to post and share their gps tracks for wherever they go.
GPS Tracks help by:
* - They re-affirm the physical existence of roads.  The Imported data from
GeoBase NRN was acquired some date in the past and aquired from sources
other than GPS, mainly Vector data.   So there are chances that roads are no
longer used or perhaps the road type has changed (ie. a public road became a
private road or logging road, and the map hasnt been updated).
* - They show the existance of trails / hiking /walking / cycling.
* - they show the existance of possable routes,
* - they show where foot briges are, and other maap features which might not
be available as part of the CanVec dataset.


So basically, we can never have enough GPS Traces :-)

Status Update:
Currently, most of Northern Alberta's road network has been uploaded from
the GeoBase NRN, (and with road names)  So now this whole area needs to be
physically checked and re-tagged where needed to accurately reflect what is
on the ground.

This now leaves room to import all the CanVec data.  The most logical
conclusion is to start the import only in Northern Alberta, as we know that
the roads are all good.   (So this will wait until canvec2osm script is out
of Beta phase.)

The 1 snag i have is that part of this CanVec data set includes map some
features which are available in the Geobase NHN (National Hydro Network)  So
to handle this, i am creating the script geobaseNHN2osm which looks at all
the GeoBase NHN features and attaches the appropriate tags.   So in area's
where the feature also exists in CanVec, the duplicate will be omitted in
the least-detailed dataset.   For example, CanVec has rivers listed, but the
names are omited.  NHN does have the names, so the NHN name tag features
will be made available.

The obvious conclusion is that the geobaseNHN2osm map features data gets
uploaded BEFORE canvec2osm

The other snag is for GeoBaseNRN data, this has be handled by creating a
separate folder which indicates those features which are already eithor in
OSM, or on their way to being imported.  This data is available for
temporary viewing reference only, during the waiting time before geobaseNRN
gets imported.  This makes viewing the sample area easier.

In the mean time (as i said before, and continue to repeat)  your help is
needed by going through the 11 canvec charts and ensuring that the chosen
tags are the best choice to be used for the import script.  Please let me
(or note on the talk page, or change the chart yourself) of tags that need
to be changed.

I feel that importing all of the canvec features, as well as using the
geobaseNHN2osm script can be done at the same time. This would reduce the
possability of finding major errors in the tagging technique and (hopefully
reduce) the probability of needing to revert the import process further
along the line.

Cheers,
Sam
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