[OSM-talk] Smartphone mapping in Africa

[john whelan]

So how do we tap the local perspectives?  There should be a few ideas
floating around.

I get the impression that capability and resources vary enormously.  I note
that
https://opencitiesproject.org/ is trying to use open data.  Locally having
open data with the correct licence has been very useful.

Perhaps we need a maturity model along the lines of:

Level 0 blank map.

Level 1 most towns and major villages are mapped.

Level 2 most settlements have names.

Level 3 they have connecting highways.

Level 4 the locals complain about the quality of mapping.  This is
interesting as it shows an interest and some knowledge of mapping.

Cheerio John


On Thu, Aug 19, 2021, 10:06 Rebecca Firth <rebecca.m.firth at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I just wanted to add some perspective on some of the statements in this
> thread
>
> > There are some smartphones in Africa but often internet access is
> expensive and poor.
>
> The phrase "some smartphones" is somewhat of an underestimation -
> organisations like GSMA estimated 477 million mobile internet users in Sub
> Saharan Africa alone at the end of 2019 (
> https://www.gsma.com/mobileeconomy/sub-saharan-africa/). Additionally
> many countries have 'leapfrogged' (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leapfrogging) fixed line & dated technology
> solutions, moving directly to much more advanced mobile solutions. Internet
> access cost and quality is also hugely variable across the whole world.
> Growth in OSM local editing requires local perspective & with that,
> acknowledgement of the specific context of a particular place, rather than
> generalisations.
>
> > I don't think the ability to draw in highways is essential but being
> able to paste a preset building outline might be nice. If possible it needs
> to display the local region and by local I mean say twenty kilometre square.
>
> I absolutely agree that we need more frictionless ways to contribute to
> OpenStreetMap on mobile in order to increase local edits (quantity &
> quality). We should focus on listening to the objectives of local
> communities before jumping to technology solutions,
>
> Thanks, and interested in others perspectives on this,
>
> Rebecca
>
> On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 6:10 PM john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think I hadn't looked at Vespucci for a while but looking at it now it
>> looks much improved.  I like the fact you can vary the amount of map you
>> download.
>>
>> Complexity I think is just a matter of documentation.  I ran a session
>> with new mappers and JOSM once with the buildings_tool.  I just taught them
>> what they needed to be able to add buildings.
>>
>> Thanks John
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 18, 2021, 12:45 Mateusz Konieczny via talk <
>> talk at openstreetmap.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Aug 18, 2021, 17:31 by jwhelan0112 at gmail.com:
>>>
>>> We can do a fair bit of remote mapping but at the end of the day it
>>> works better with local input.
>>>
>>> There are some smartphones in Africa but often internet access is
>>> expensive and poor.
>>>
>>> What is available?
>>>
>>> Osmand is not too bad but I note it's power demands are growing on the
>>> OSMand mailing list.
>>>
>>> See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Editors
>>>
>>> Android:
>>> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vespucci
>>> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/StreetComplete
>>> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osm_Go!
>>>
>>> iOS:
>>> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Go_Map!!
>>>
>>> I think we need some way to make small areas of Africa available in a
>>> compressed format that can be unpacked on a smartphone with limited
>>> storage.  We need software that is lightweight or can be side loaded to
>>> avoid overloading an internet connection and the software needs some basic
>>> functionality such as being able to add or edit tags on nodes or ways.  It
>>> needs to be able to work offline and we need to get those changes home.
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't think the ability to draw in highways is essential but being
>>> able to paste a preset building outline might be nice.
>>>
>>> If possible it needs to display the local region and by local I mean say
>>> twenty kilometre square.
>>>
>>> Local language support would be nice.
>>>
>>> Thoughts on what is available or what could be built?
>>>
>>> Vespucci fulfills your requirements from what I see.
>>> Not sure about OSM Go!
>>>
>>> StreetComplete has offline capability but not via file unpacked on a
>>> smartphone.
>>>
>>> Both Vespucci and StreetComplete have limitations - in short with
>>> Vespuuci
>>> people complain about too complex interface, with StreetComplete it
>>> is extremely limiting (detail can be added to existing objects, no
>>> mapping
>>> of new objects).
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> talk mailing list
>>> talk at openstreetmap.org
>>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> talk mailing list
>> talk at openstreetmap.org
>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>>
>
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