[OSM-talk] Easy to use system for countryside surveying

[bvh]

On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 04:57:17PM +0100, Nick Whitelegg wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> Have thought of an approach to make countryside OSM mapping using phones 
> with inbuilt GPS (N95, etc) easy to the end user.
> 
> A user could survey their walk using an N95 or similar, and then, using a 
> very simple interface, select whether they are on a footpath, bridleway, 
> unclassified road, track, etc every time the type of path or road they are 
> on changes. So if they're on a road, then turn off down a footpath, they 
> could select "footpath". Then if the footpath merges into a bridleway, 
> they could select "bridleway".  The result would be a GPS track with 
> sections "tagged" with footpath, bridleway etc.
> 
> A track simplification algorithm could be applied and ways generated from 
> the GPS trace automiatically. This could then be uploaded to OSM for a 
> more expert user (who could subscribe to an RSS feed to inform them of 
> such uploads in their area) to refine the way, i.e. remove extraneous 
> points and connect the auto-generated way to existing ways.

Why do track simplification and way generation before uploading? Why not
work with tags on the nodes of the gpx file and upload that? This would
preserve more of the original data and would give the more expert user a
change to judge on the accuracy of the way nodes/way guessing.

cu bart