[Talk-ca] Adding buildings.

[john whelan]

 OpenStreetMap is highly decentralised which is both one of its strengths
and also one of its weaknesses.

There are a number of sources of building data, the first is an experienced
mapper adding in buildings with something like JOSM and the buildings_tool
plugin working from Microsoft imagery.  Esri, and Maxar and Mapbox
satellite imagery are also available.  That one is the least contentious
and is acceptable to everyone.

Second is iD which is the default mapping tool on the OSM web page.  You
can map buildings accurately with this one but in inexperienced hands you
get some very poor results.  Pierre noted in disaster mapping with new
mappers the results were really very bad.  There is something called a
mapathon where inexperienced mappers are invited to map.  Yes it gets a lot
of data into the map but the clean up effort required afterwards is fairly
horrendous.  Stats Canada pilot project was going to be based on this until
they were persuaded to go Open Data and use the City of Ottawa's Open Data
and the import process.

In Ottawa today practically every building has been mapped and has the
correct address.  There are one or two new buildings that haven't yet been
added to the map.  It took a fair amount of effort and organisation and
included help from Mapbox.  One problem was the license for the data.
Toronto has Open Data but the license has not been confirmed to align with
OpenStreetMap.

Although there are guidelines the authoritative body in OpenStreetMap is
consensus of the local mappers.  So Ottawa local mappers decided the import
could go ahead, were very involved in it and were happy with the data
quality. We'd seen iD mapping of buildings before and the City of Ottawa
data was fairly good.

After the pilot there was no serious money available at Stats so the second
part was going to be "community led".  They managed to talk to various
municipalities to allow them to release the municipality data under the
Stat Can license.  Following a discussion in talk-ca I put forward the
formal import plan.  The data quality was different for each municipality
and was questioned.

Normally you look at the client requirements to see what is required.  This
is something that OpenStreetMap very rarely does.  Mappers basically map.
Each has their own individual standard of what is acceptable.  For your
purposes if the angle of the corners isn't quite 90 degrees it really
doesn't matter.  What you're interested in is something within two meters
of the right place.  However consensus requires agreement from everyone.

However the problem for you is the local mappers in Toronto and I assume
York would like a higher standard even if it means fewer buildings get
mapped.

Today we have two other sources of building data that could be imported.
One is the Microsoft building data and the other is NR Can LiDAR data but
neither are much use without the local mappers support.

Some courier companies have hired mappers to add data to the map.
Bangladesh is one area where this is done.  Some are very good, some are
not so good.  I don't recommend this route, one danger would be they'd just
import the Microsoft buildings and charge you for mapping then someone
would challenge the data and have it removed.

If you have a specific problem area email me directly and I have been known
to add in buildings with JOSM.

Once we get the building outlines added then adding the address is fairly
simple with a smartphone and something like StreetComplete.  Also Stats
Canada has address information that can be imported.

Does that help clarify and define the problem?

Thanks

Cheerio John

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019 at 22:03, Eric Geiler <eric.geiler at abcourier.com> wrote:

> Team Canada, (unsure who this should be address to)
>
>
>
> We are a local/regional courier and trucking company in southern Ontario
> with a decent sized fleet.  We are using Mapbox for our mapping / nav
> engine, therefore subject to using OSM data.  We have noticed a number of
> “issues/lack of data” for southern Ontario.  This ranges from lack of lane
> info, to lack of buildings, missing streets, missing exit/on-ramps to for
> Hwy 400 (which we added, and had Mapbox expedite the changesets) as it
> affected navigation for our drivers.
>
>
>
> We are currently using a few devices to provide street level imagery via
> Mapillary, with a push coming shortly to map 1000km per day of street
> imagery.  We are currently mapping about 250km per day in York Region.  Our
> internal goal is to provide /gathered street level imagery for 75% York
> Region by end of January 2020.
>
>
>
> We are not in a position to provide map edits etc, as due to staff
> resources and lack of experience, our staff are not suited to become ‘map
> editors’ as our core business is transportation.  We are just trying to
> assist the editors with accurate ground level info.
>
>
>
> I would be interested in further understanding how we can become involved
> on a regional level to improve OSM in southern Ontario.
>
>
>
>
>
> [image: EricGeiler-1]
>
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