[OSM-talk] Mapping with no GPS data

[Joerg Ostertag (OSM Munich/Germany)]

> I think that's a nice idea, but I don't think it works except for the more
> major roads.
>
> I've lived here for over 20 years and I think I know my area very well
> indeed. But when I started mapping, I found numerous streets I didn't know
> existed, and many more that I didn't know the names of, even withing a km
> of home. Housing estates are warrens of tiny culs-de-sac. I quickly
> discovered I had to trace every street, even if I could see the other end
> of my trace so could in principle join it up with a straight line later,
> because inevitably there would be a small close or avenue or service road
> leading off it that I hadn't known about.
>

If OSM is growing it won't be necessary, that one Person tags hundreds of 
streets. It would be sufficient if everyone only would tag the street he is 
living in and the street he is working in. I think that's the great benefit 
of an easiy to use WIKI. But to achive this we'll have to add another feature 
in the future, which is simply tagging the streets. I'm thinking of a simple 
Web-Interface, where you cannot add new Segments. Where you only can tag 
existing Segments. Just clicking on a segment and you're getting an inputmask 
which asks you for Streetname, Streetclass, ..
Yes this will take some time until we will get this far, but I think this will 
be a really feasible way.

... 

> People will work in their own ways, of course, but I think it is better to
> do less at once but with all the detail and accuracy, than to try to cover
> too much at once, if we are to get a useful and reliable map at the end of
> it.

Well, I think it depends where your focus is. Lets take one example: 
 I want to get a route between two points of which I have the exact 
coordinates of. So for getting good results with this; it is sufficient to 
have all connected roads (segments) and the possible average speed on these 
segments. With this information you can do most of the routing between given 
points. 
I only wanted to show that the mapping Information might be of good use even 
if it isn't complete in the view of Drawing fancy colored maps.

-

Joerg