[OSM-talk] Shuttle Radar Topography

[Peter Miller]

> 
> Message: 8
> Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:09:23 +0000
> From: Tom Hughes <tom at compton.nu>
> Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] [OSM-legal-talk] Shuttle Radar Topography
> 	Mission
> To: legal-talk at openstreetmap.org, talk at openstreetmap.org
> Message-ID: <yeky7dj9pm7.fsf at dellow.uk.cyberscience.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> In message <000e01c81bdd$05b94750$0300a8c0 at peter>
>         Peter Miller <peter.miller at itoworld.com> wrote:
> 
> > Can someone explain why we can't include this height data in OSM (with
> > acknowledgement as requested)? I can't see anything that says that they
> do
> > claim copyright and there is this statement from the Guidelines that
> seems
> > to say you can used it for whatever (but needless to say IANAL)
> 
> I think it's more a technical issue than a legal issue - how
> exactly would you propose to include it? Contour lines as ways?
> 
> Ignoring the question of the massive size of the data, and the
> storage we would need, I imagine it would make editing very hard
> if the map was covered in contour lines crossing everything else.
> 
> It is such a clearly defined data set, and so different to the
> rest of our data, that I think it makes more sense to keep it
> separate - develop tools to work with the two together by all
> means but I don't see any need to import it wholesale.
>

Personally I would like a height associated with every node to allow a cycle
trip planner to calculate a route taking into account height gain and loss
(I guess it might also be necessary sometime to include a new node at the
highest and lowest point.

Thinking about it, I think I agree and it may be best to keep it out of the
core OSM DB although it might be good if someone published a version of OSM
each week with Radar height data in it in the form I am describing. What we
won't have in that case is the ability to correct the Radar data where it is
wrong (for example in urban areas with tall buildings where I understand the
height data gets confused and takes the tops of the buildings). Sounds like
a separate project is needed to manage a tweeked Elevation dataset based on
NASA but with adjustments from the commmunity.



Peter

 
> Tom
> 
> --
> Tom Hughes (tom at compton.nu)
> http://www.compton.nu/
> 
> 
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> End of talk Digest, Vol 38, Issue 119
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