[OSM-talk] Imagery Boundary?

[Stephan Knauss]

Florian Lohoff writes: 

> As they were wrong and nobody cared i deleted them.
A better way of dealing with updated data in OSM is usually to fix and not 
to delete data. Had you considered mailing the users who created the 
original data before removing their work? 

In contrast to eg. underground power lines (seen them mapped in Munich) or 
TMC data or obscure boundaries, this is data which is easy to verify and 
used in the more remote areas of the world. 

You might not believe it, but there are areas which still have only the 
low-resolution landsat images.
Quite often it's the same areas that lack mapping of major highways.
As China was mentioned: Did you know it's illegal to use a GPS there to map 
data for an international project?
Google yourself for more detials:
http://www.telecomasia.net/content/foreigners-using-gps-face-arrest-china-0 

Having aerial imagery allows to add most road geometry already to the 
database. Adding names to existing features is a lot less risky. 


The imagery boundaries are used to give oversea mappers a hint where areas 
are that can benefit from remote mapping, to complete at least major 
highways and water features. 

For South-East-Asia I'm running a service to highlight unmapped data and 
regions with aerial coverage. I believe in these areas the boundaries are 
quite well maintained. In case there is full coverage they will be 
immediately removed. But until then they are useful for the community and 
created/maintained with a lot of time invested. Deleting them is vandalism! 

http://compare.osm-tools.org/?zoom=10&lat=19.69827&lon=104.71222&layers=BTT 

Stephan