[Talk-GB] Ordnance Survey

Dave Stubbs osm.list at randomjunk.co.uk
Tue Apr 6 10:09:42 BST 2010


On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 8:17 PM, Andy Robinson (blackadder-lists)
<ajrlists at googlemail.com> wrote:
> I'm in line with this view too. We cannot assume that the OS mapping is
> correct, it may or may not be current or accurate, so it's useful as a guide
> in the absence of any other verification source.
>
> Streetview as a product is still a long way short of the level of detail we
> are routinely creating ourselves. The VetorMap District product that is
> being released next month won't add that much either, yes we can map landuse
> areas a bit better if there is no other source. We also noted that
> residential streets are not named in VMD so like Y! imagery there is little
> point in importing for unmapped areas unless someone is prepared to add the
> street names from ground survey, or (second best) from OS Streetview, which
> may or may not be accurate in terms of what is on the ground.
>
> Please don't be fooled, the OS may be a great organisation and produces
> great mapping that we have in the past relied upon for so many uses, but our
> map is a pretty damn good product too and once verified in an particular
> area is probably always going to be up to date and richer than any OS
> OpenData product.
>

Yeah, it's not the accuracy of the OS data that I'm particularly
worried about -- it's the accuracy of the tracing that gets done from
it. From the looks of it the best data available will be the
streetview rasters, and they're missing all kinds of stuff such as one
ways, connectivity (mostly over connected), some smaller roads (they
probably get classed as driveways), a lot of names, and of course
footpaths, POIs, routes etc.

But, if you're familiar with an area then I don't see a problem. In
that case it's no worse than doing an initial street only survey.
Creating a broken map is a very bad idea, but a merely incomplete one
is just a fact of life we have to deal with.

Or put another way: the data is freely there, it will get traced
whether we like it or not, we might as well encourage it to be done in
the right way.

Dave




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