[OSM-talk] Survey: notebooks

[Mike Collinson]

At 04:05 PM 12/08/2007, OJW wrote:
>How many people here use paper notebooks to record street names and such like? 
>(i.e. pages full of "waypoint 153 = Hewson Road, 154 = pub: Vine Inn...") 

I first started using a notebook with a system of symbols for every time I turned left/right, U-turned, hit dead ends and recorded street names and also POIs where I could mark them with a track circle (my original GPS device did not record waypoints).  It is a good legal record to show that the data was collected and not copied and has the advantage that my handwriting is total illegible to lawyers, :-).  Good on foot but slow on a bicycle as you have to retrieve the notebook, retrieve a pencil and it is fiddle to open the notebook even if bookmarked.  In a car, even I cannot understand my own handwriting.

I then switched to using a digital camera set to UTC time and am very happy with that and find it faster.  Images also provide a good record but take space to store.  Very fast on foot, fast on a bike except when recording street names which normally involves stopping to aim carefully.   OK in a car but not very practical for street names.

I've also developed a PDA-based notebook application where I can record geo-reference information, select POI types from a menu and automatically turn them into OSM XML tags.  Good as passenger in a car, OK on foot, useless if a car driver or cyclist.

So far I think David Earl has developed the fastest method using a dictaphone.

Mike