[OSM-talk] Raw GPS layer

[J.D. Schmidt]

80n skrev:
> At the moment we are not signalling clearly enough that *every* track log is
> valuable to the project, even for places that have already been mapped.
> 
> Does anyone have any stats on number of edits vs. number of tracklogs by
> user?   It might be quite revealing about who does and who doesn't upload
> their tracklogs (coastline uploaders and serial Yahoo! tracers excepted, of
> course).
> 

I can only speak for myself, but 98% of the edits I've made in JOSM, has 
been made from my gps logs. The remainder 2 % has been from yahoo 
imagery, mostly while fixing the danish coastline.

My workflow generally is like this :
1) Open tracklog in JOSM.
2) Get OSM data for the area covered by the tracklog.
3) Make, tag and name new ways, correct possible bad ways along the 
tracklog.
5) Upload edits.
4) Gzip tracklog, and upload it via the website, tagging it with area, 
and give fairly detailed description of roads covered by the tracklog.
5) Drive out and cover a new area.
6) Repeat, rinse and lather...

and lately

7) Hope TomH doesn't throw my logs away... Again... :P

I used to have around 5000000 gpspoints in 512+ files in the stats, but 
since the last GPX Trace displacement, I'm down to 2763239. I haven't 
bothered with reviving my 3000000 part of the 55949581 orphaned 
gpspoints, since the perlscript supplied for that operation indicates I 
have to re-enter the detailed descriptions again, and that would 
probably mean re-entering descriptions for 200+ files. It was enough of 
an ordeal the first time around.

But I concurr, the importance of GPS tracklogs tends to be forgotten, 
after we got the possibility to trace over the Yahoo imagery. I still 
feel that "gettin' out there with the GPS" is necessary. Both for my own 
enjoyment (and health), as well as for observing changes and getting 
street and POI names.

So a GPS trace layer gets my vote, although technically we should look 
into some way of "merging" multiple tracks into a single line. I know 
that a lot of my tracks runs along the same roads a fsckin' great many 
times, with the inherent "jitter" of GPS tracks being different by a few 
meters due to sat constellation, H/VDOP, Receiver sensitivity and what 
not. I.E. a map layer plotting all the traces in for instance central 
Copenhagen, would end up being one black box in layers below 15.

I've just for kicks plotted 12 months worth of gps traces using a 
trackwidth of 1 pixel with Kismet's gpsmap utility, and Copenhagen 
definitely is just a blur at what is equivalent to our Layer 10.

Dutch