[OSM-talk] Practical tips wanted for mapping weekend

[Andy Robinson]

Lars,

To answer your technical question...

I was not at the IoW workshop but can tell you what we did at Mapchester and
Bath.

In Manchester we had access to a wifi network at the meet venue. This was
free for our use. SteveC and I principally used the connection to upload GPX
files. One or two other users also did the same independently. I had the
laptop with a serial cable so I dealt with the serial transfers from the
batch of older Garmin units we had. SteveC did the USB connected devices.
Big tracklogs over serial is painfully slow.

In Bath we did not have a free full time internet connection. All of the
tracklogs were collected on my laptop so that we could produce the coloured
montage of tracks to show what we had achieved. This was done using JOSM.
NickB and I each paid for a 24hr wifi connection costing £5 each in a
coffeshop. GPX files were uploaded  and the wiki page updated using this
connectivity.

The hardcore users uploaded their own tracks - those that are desperate for
a push up the leader board ;-)
I uploaded the others (task split with SteveC in Manchester).

For both Mapchester and Bath I produced a schematic map formed from the
major roads and certain other features (eg the river in Bath). These can be
found on the respective workshop pages. Individuals noted their names down
on a master held at the meet venue so that we had some idea of what was
being mapped. All participants were free to map wherever they wanted, even
if this meant overlap. After the first day it's easy to see from the montage
of traces where the focus for the next day should be.

The reality is that beyond mapping, socialising and drinking coffee there is
little chance to actually edit map data. That’s left for when you get home
after the weekend.

Finally there are photos and hand written notes to think about. Those with
digital cameras were encouraged to provide a copy of their images to us at
the time. These could then be sync'ed with their tracklog if required and
especially if they were not planning to edit themselves. This was especially
true for Mapchester. We had a large amount of handwritten notes at
Mapchester which were scanned at Manchester University and are still
available for use if required. Thus someone really needs to be given the
task of collating and managing the different data coming in so that it's of
use after the weekend.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Andy

Andy Robinson
Andy_J_Robinson at blueyonder.co.uk 

>-----Original Message-----
>From: talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org [mailto:talk-
>bounces at openstreetmap.org] On Behalf Of Lars Aronsson
>Sent: 24 August 2006 8:47 PM
>To: talk at openstreetmap.org
>Subject: [OSM-talk] Practical tips wanted for mapping weekend
>
>
>When you're mapping the Isle of Wight, Manchester or Bath, how do
>you get an Internet connection, and how much do you depend on it?
>If you can't get online (which could be hard in remote areas), do
>you swap tracklogs between users and view them offline in JOSM
>during the weekend?  Or do you divide the area in advance, so
>everybody knows exactly which parts of a town to cover, and then
>everybody goes home to upload and process their tracklogs?
>
>Did you combine these excursions with taking photos for and
>georeferencing Wikipedia articles about the area?  There's a
>special WikiProject on the English Wikipedia for U.K. geography,
>that I suppose you could collaborate with,
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_UK_geography
>
>I'm almost about to suggest a meeting in Växjö, southern Sweden,
>on September 22-24.  But I'm not sure how much I need to prepare.
>Växjö is the nearest bigger town to me that is not yet mapped.
>
>
>--
>  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
>  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
>
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