[Talk-us] HI: Hawaii GIS Data

[Shaun McDonald]

On 5 Dec 2009, at 00:47, Scott Atwood wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 4:12 PM, Shaun McDonald <shaun at shaunmcdonald.me.uk> wrote:
> Why oh why oh why do some people insist on wasting time trying to import loads of data?
> 
> Please take a read of 
> http://www.gravitystorm.co.uk/shine/archives/2009/11/10/the-pottery-club/
> 
> Please go out and map what's out on the ground, as usually imported data is of a rather low standard or the import isn't done right, and it's really, really hard to do an import correctly.
> 
> 
> On 5 Dec 2009, at 00:00, Scott Atwood wrote:
> 
>> The Hawaii state government has a sizable repository of GIS data that could be useful to import into OSM:  http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/gis/.  I have contacted a manager in the GIS department by telephone and verified that this GIS data is in the public domain, and therefore available for import into OSM.
>> 
>> Hawaii has pretty good road coverage from a import of 2007 TIGER data on O'ahu, and an ongoing import of 2009 TIGER data for the remaining islands, so the roads data provided by the GIS department probably doesn't need to be considered.    But there is a lot of other data available that isn't currently in OSM, such as:
>> 
>>    * Streams, waterfalls, dams, and canals (Does the National Hydrography Dataset cover Hawaii?)
>>    * Coral reefs
>>    * Offshore islets
>>    * Mile markers
> 
> Not so sure these belong in OSM.
> 
> I would argue that streams, waterfalls, dams, and canals are extremely relevant things to map.    Many of these features are in areas of heavy vegetation and extremely rugged terrain which makes surveying them by hand or via satellite imagery very challenging.
> 
> Coral reefs are extremely import to coastal navigation, recreation, and tourism in Hawaii, and once again, very difficult to accurately map.
> 
> Offshore islets can probably be mapped via satellite imagery.  Mapping them by direct survey is difficult or impossible, since many of them are protected seabird sanctuaries and/or hazardous to get to.
> 
> Road navigation in Hawaii tends to reference mile markers far more often than in any other location I've been to.  Travel guides often give directions using mile markers as landmarks, and tourist maps often include mile markers.

Erm, I was only referring to the mile markers. Those other items would probably be useful for openseamap.

>  
>>    * Trails
>>    * Parks
>>    * Schools
> 
> Um haven't these already been imported? Not just current ones, but historic ones too, and schools that opened 4 years ago aren't in there?
> 
> Some trails, have been import, some have been manually survey.  Many are missing entirely.
> 
> National Park boundaries have  been imported, but most other parks seem to be missing.
> 
> I don't know about schools on O'ahu, but there doesn't seem to have been any schools imported on the neighbor islands. 

Again, I wasn't clear enough, and was primarily referring to the schools.

> 
>>    * Hotels
>>    * Assorted administrative boundaries
> 
> You'll probably find that most of these are in there already.
> 
> Hotels, no.  Some administrative boundaries have been imported.   Others have not.
> 

Grr, seems like a bit of a failure on my part with that mail and not being clear enough that I was only referring to the last item in each section.

>  
> Do some publicity, run some mapping parties. The reason OSM has worked in Germany is due to plenty of publicity.
> 
> Mapping parties are great and will certainly help improve the quality of the more compact urbanized land areas of Hawaii.  But much of the state is undeveloped and difficult to access, so importing data from external sources should be considered as part of the strategy of filling out the map.

I'd recommend doing the import on an item by item basis based on other surrounding OSM data rather than pull all the data in automatically, thus it would be more like a copying or tracing exercise.

Shaun

> 
> -Scott
> 
> -- 
> Scott Atwood
> 
> The hill isn't in the way, it is the way.
> 
> 

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