[OSM-talk] Introducing SwiftAddress, an highly efficient way of collecting housenumbers

Matija Nalis mnalis-openstreetmaplist at voyager.hr
Mon Jan 25 04:55:19 UTC 2021


On Sun, 24 Jan 2021 01:22:53 +0100, Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch> wrote:
> The address adding is really not complex, when I've used it the=20
> surveying time has been purely determined by my walking speed.

Not in my case.

While I do like Vespucci, and agree that it has few nice features especially
useful for address entering, I do not often use it for address mapping. 
It's a pity, but here is my breakdown of on-the-site address collecting
tools, with pros and cons:

- StreetComplete
  PROS:
     - very easy and simple iterface
     - big enough keys/letters
     - simple and fast interface to increment housenumbers
     - usually puts addresses at exact location due to OSM building data (provided they are correctly mapped in the first place!)
     - can kind-of work offline if you know and prepare mapping area in advance...
  CONS:
     - buildings have to be drawn in advance in order to collect addresses
     - building types have to be mapped in advance in order to collect addresses
     - street name of the house is separate task from housenumber (which needs to be mapped in advance for quest to appear)
     - unless all of the above is pre-mapped, you basically can't enter addresses at all and/or you end up having to survey same area several times
       (so I often end up using OSM Notes and JOSM editing later)

- Vespuccy
   PROS: 
     - can overlay aerial/satellite imagery, which makes is good to pinpoint exact building location
     - can put addresses at exact location due to visual feedback (OSM building and/or aerial photos)
     - AI for address guessing (pays off if loooong streets, but not in other cases)
     - some consistency checking
     - can draw building polygon (but at a loss of ease of use)
     - can kind-of work offline if you know and prepare mapping area in advance...
     - can use it for almost all of my other more complex editing needs (but I still prefer JOSM - probably mostly due to vastly bigger screen estate)
   CONS:
     - interface is much harder than competition (often due to many features and small screen!)
     - require manually pointing at exact location for each address node
     - entering initial addresses to seed AI (and any not-correctly-guessed values) is more complex than in most other tools
     - classic full Android keyboard is small and unoptimized for this specific use

- OsmAnd
    PROS: 
     - can work with completely offline country-level maps without any special preparation
     - can overlay aerial/satellite imagery, which makes is good to pinpoint exact building location (but that requires online or special offline preparation)
     - I tend to use it for navigation anyway, so no need to use multiple apps
     - can put addresses at exact location due to visual feedback (OSM building and/or aerial photos)
    CONS:
     - way too complex / repetitive interface for adding housenumbers, so...
     - ...so I usually just enter OSM Notes on the field and then do addresses in JOSM later, which is double-work

- Keypad Mapper
    PROS:
     - extremly fast and simple in-the-field address entering (housenumber + arrow for the side of the road). Best so far!
     - automatically puts adresses on the correct side of the street, without requiring me to think in which way 
       I'm going, how is the map oriented, where am I currently etc.
     - big keyboard specialized for housenumber entering (can do OSM Notes too for special cases / non-address data collecting). Best so far!
     - works offline (although online is prefered in order to auto-fill street name).
     - low CPU and other resource usage (due to low features), blazingly fast even on old hardware
    CONS:
     - no easy increment / AI for address prediciting (big con!)
     - no visual feedback of OSM builings / aerial maps (so in tighly packed buildings there is sometimes confusion which number 
       is exactly where, so they remain as address nodes instead of being coflated in JOSM to building polygon)
     - requires some validation double-work (while data is prepared for upload, some validation / dupe removing is usually required in JOSM)
       but still way less double-work then manually processing and reentering Notes...
     - for old android versions, no updates/support...

- SwiftAddress - didn't try yet, but as it looks like is improvement on Keypad Mapper, it looks promising replacement!
     - address increment seems to be there
     - has some visual feedback (needs work though)
     - will be doing some real-life testing soon!



Some notes:
- I *do* love entering data only ONCE instead of having to do postprocessing in JOSM. 
  But that REQUIRES allowing me entering stuff that I can validate on phone, WITHOUT adding extra complexity OR slowing me down in the field.
  StreetComplete comes close (but ONLY when all building are correctly pre-mapped, which is not all that often). All other fail for me.
  (Vespuccy *might* work if I only had looong streets with nicely sorted numbers. In vast majority of cases, I don't. YMMV.)

- online is problematic as it requires device with SIM + paying for data plan, AND it eats battery almost as much as screen.

- small letters are problematic, especially if using phone and not tablet, and especially if winter and in gloves. 
  Keypad Mapper and StreetComplete work nicely this part of the year, OsmAnd and Vespuccy do not.

All that being said, KeypadMapper3 is *still* my favourite (and fastest in the field!) tool for address entering, 
despite its many failings!
StreetComplete is second (only due to address entering being impossible / delayed in many situations).



-- 
Opinions above are GNU-copylefted.




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