[Talk-ca] importing geobase data for the Canadian boarder

[Ben Konrath]

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 10:48 PM, James Ewen <ve6srv at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 8:31 PM, Ben Konrath <ben at bagu.org> wrote:
>> Ok, I did some more poking around and it seems that the land border
>> with the US is really borked. For BC and Alberta, there are 3 - 4
>> different border lines with the US. I'm willing to do the work
>> required to clean this up by deleting the lines that don't make sense.
>> I just need to know if the Geobase information is the best one to use
>> for the border?
>
> I did a little poking around on this a couple months ago, but never
> got going on cleaning things up... I checked with the International
> Border Commission about using the IBC monument locations for defining
> the Canada/USA common border.
>
> My query was replied to by:
>
> Doug Culham O.L.S., C.L.S.
> Canada Centre for Cadastral Management
> Earth Sciences Sector
>
> who gave permission for use of the monument locations.

Great! Do you have a record of this communication so that we can
archive it in a public place? And is this communication enough to
satisfy OSMs requirements to use the IBC data in OSM?

>  My idea was to
> simply compare the IBC monument locations with the GeoBase locations.
> I did this for a handful of sites along the BC border near the
> continental divide, and found them to be congruent.

What about creating a way with all of the IBC monument locations to
define the border rather than using the geobase data. It's seems to me
that the IBC is the authoritative source for the Canada-US border.

> Defining the international boundary is pretty easy, but then you have
> to figure out where the state, and county boundaries end up. A number
> of these are defined as polygons, with varying degrees of accuracy.
> What should happen IMHO is that the international boundary should be
> defined, and then the provincial/state/county borders be defined as
> relations along the appropriate sections of the international border.

I agree that the international boundary should be the base for the
provincial / state / county boundaries. I am willing to do the work
here if you don't mind me taking it off your hands. Or we could work
together.  Let me know what you think.

Cheers, Ben