[Talk-us-massachusetts] Instructions for using MassGIS Layers

[Peter Cooper Jr.]

I really appreciate the recent posts here about getting information on 
streams. I've included some instructions on using those resources (and 
some others) on the wiki, and (since I know the wiki at least feels 
semi-authoritative) wanted to get a bit of feedback. I'm sure those of 
you who have been doing this for a while it may seem easy, but it took 
me some effort to figure out how to use the layers within iD. (And I 
don't yet feel confident using some even *more* sophisticated editor.) 
So I thought I'd document what I did and what URLs to use, mainly for my 
own reference so I didn't have to figure it out each time I wanted to 
use it but it seemed other people would probably find it useful too. A 
couple of the URLs were already there, but I added more layers that I've 
found helpful (like the MassGIS Basemap, some older Orthos, the 1:25,000 
Hydrography, and the Bridges data that have been referenced here 
recently) and I reformatted things a bit to make more sense to me.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/MassGIS#Imagery_and_Feature_Services


I guess I just wanted some sort of review that I didn't screw anything 
up too badly. In particular, I did some trial and error to get the 
Hydrography to show up in iD (since it doesn't seem to be a "tile 
service" like the others) and I'm not sure I'm doing it in the "best" way.

(And as a side note, the MassGIS LiDAR data is *incredible*! I didn't 
add the URL for it; it was already in the wiki and I just added some 
description and another link for information on it. But I can clearly 
see the old dirt road trail by my house, and stone walls, and better 
tell where streams are. That's an amazing resource that I was surprised 
I didn't know of existing before.)

Thanks,
Peter