[Talk-GB] building shapes from OS Street View

Andy Allan gravitystorm at gmail.com
Tue Apr 6 16:11:42 BST 2010


On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 12:46 PM, TimSC <mapping at sheerman-chase.org.uk> wrote:

> In response to the comment "no imports ever", I would point out that
> building imports is a completely different situation than that of public
> roads. A glance at OS Street View suggests that about 99% of buildings are
> not publically accessible. If we use only manual surveying, we can only
> achieve coverage of about 1%. I don't think that is satisfactory. Imports
> are therefore very much appropriate for buildings.

You're missing the point on several levels. For buildings it's quite
possible to trace the outlines from aerial imagery, where we have it.
And in some parts of the country, we have better imagery than the
building outlines shown on Street View - yahoo, and soon the Surrey
imagery, for starters. So it's not a case of Street View or nothing. I
hope you have seen the vast tracts of London that have building
outlines in OSM already - all of much higher detail than Street View?
None of this depends on whether the building is publicly accessible.

Also, you are confusing the use of multiple sources for editing (GPS,
aerial, maps), with that of importing. Imports is an orthogonal
discussion to that of whether the building outlines in Street View are
useful. Please don't confuse the two issues. If you are not talking
about "bulk imports" then please don't call your ideas imports,
otherwise you confuse people as to your intentions. There are people
who are supportive of imagery recognition to help editors, who are
strongly opposed to bulk imports.

Cheers,
Andy




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