Hi Kirk

If you open your browser at osm.org or openstreetmap.org, they arrive at the same place, you can start editing.

You will need to log in to do so, but since you are posting you already have an account so this should not be difficult.

If you click “Edit” top left and then “Edit with ID” you can start editing with your browser and making contributions.

Contributions are made by over tracing the shown sattelite images and fillnig out the map in this way.

After over tracing tags have to be added to identify the structure you have outlined. Dots are called “nodes”. Dots joined as a line are called “ways”.

I would just start by (re-) searching and reading to see how things work. You tube might be a good place to start. OSM wikis on tags are also great.

It will take a while to “get it”,

Hope that helps

Having older video’s like the poll presentation video is very helpful.
The results of each poll as well as the question’s asked are very informative.
I learnt about http://blogs.openstreetmap.org from this.
A very helpful aggregated blog :)

Hi @RobJN,

I’ve had a think about 12.5cm maps.
The overtracing benefits need no explanation.

Here are suggestions that can potentially be taken forward, though I am out of time regards helping at the moment

1. Communities Cabinet Secretary in Scotland’s Government Aileen Campbell is very helpful and might have some level of budget for maps for Scotland, and further afield, eg globally, if she can be shown how interconnectivity helps social cohesion. I beleive OSM is a great example of how people can be better connected, especially given the street level detail that can be filled out and custom maps that can be created using the many layers and renderings available.

A pitch about getting local communities involved in mapping I think would be especially attractive. Two good examples of improved connectivity might be
* placing numbered and named fairways on a local government run golf course. Often people living beside facilities have no idea what is next door. When it’s easy to see on a map whats around you everything changes. ps Golf is a sport for everyone in Scotland, Europe, and is not considered exclusive here. Understanding what’s around you opens the possibility of visiting and engaging. Getting people outdoors improves health and wellbeing including mental health. eg this example I completed the day before yesterday https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/57.1614/-2.0835
* mapping a zoo with detail in Dundee, Scotland, Europe, so that the local community can see what is there. Again, understanding what’s around you opens the possibility of visiting and engaging. Getting people outdoors improves health and wellbeing including mental health. eg this example I initiated and completed https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/56.48138/-3.04421

Paul Wheelhouse is also very approachable and is responsible for Energy, Connectivity and the Islands including 100% broadband.

I can recommend both as approachable (though very busy), serious and committed to the development and furtherance of Scotland’s interests, and wider interests, at home and abroad.

Bear in mind that at this time the covid priority is sucking all time and financial resources and therefore there might be no budget available or time to discuss the benefits of mapping at this time.

2 National Lottery. I am sure this avenue has been explored many times before.

That is a good candidate statement :)

Hi @Zkir

The diary post above contains a link to a screencast youtube video I made of my experience which spans 13 minutes. Here, https://youtu.be/JtyhdFH39cY

No I was not able to figure out how to get it to overtrace buildings; becasue I do not think it does, for anywhere here in Scotland, Europe.

It seems that Facebook is working on AI recognition for roads, and Microsoft (MS) is on AI recognition for buildings.

I think how this AI works, as far as I know, is MS (or other) would provide suggested AI generated over trace “way” files for buildings in the JOSM plugin or RapidID. Within the JOSM plugin these pre-generated files would be loaded and corrections applied as needed.

There seem to be files available, within the plugin, for parts of California, USA, but these files seemed to me, to have been over traced with ways already.

If it works any other way, then perhaps someone will outline how it does actually work.

If you look at the tail end of the video you will see what I mean

Hi @RobJN,

> “I might be wrong but I think the new datasets that are the topic of this diary post have come from local governments GIS team’s rather than from AI image detection.”

Do local government planning departments not derive all their data from OS data sets in any case, or do they have an agreement with OS to share ownership, given it is likley local authority surveyors make contributions. How does this work.

> “Nevertheless AI buildings is something that Microsoft has been releasing whilst Facebook focused on AI road detections.”

ah, that is interesting. Thank you. I was not aware of Microsoft making building trace contributions via AI.

> “.. we have good road coverage for the UK but would benefit from more buildings. It’s unlikely that we’ll get any “official” data as this is all done by Ordnance Survey and they clearly don’t want to release this as open data.”

Yes, I have gathered over the years that Ordnance Survey won’t release data as open data.
If I ever did know the reason, I can’t remember why.
I don’t know why they don’t.

/> OSM UK has an option to access 12.5cm imagery (at a tiny cost for a company interested in OSM) so let’s discuss… :-D

I don’t currently have access to any funds. Will let you know if that changes. If you have numbers message me, as it would be useful to have at hand.

Hi @Sanderd17

Thanks for your reply. That is useful to know.

Which tool did you use, and since I got no where with this, any chance you could do a screen cast to show what you are doing, or describe how you did this.

Hi Øukasz,

Thanks for the useful query. I used it as such o the industrial site:

[bbox:{{bbox}}][diff:”2015-01-02T09:55:00Z”,”2020-07-10T10:00:00Z”];
(
node;
);
out geom;

and no out line nodes for the ways I might have traced appreared.

So I assume I never actually put it in.

This is a very useful query as I have not re-familiarised myself with osmcha, which does not seem straightforward, at all to use. It probarly is easy to use, and it’s a simple case of the initiated never see the reason it is not easy to use. Could’nt quickly find a simple short usage video on youtube so had to apss on that.

This diff command is going to be a really useful way of checking for local map vandalism, though usually threse are just unintended errors.

Since I mapped 99.99% of the local town, and surrounding vilages, do you know if I can look for all changes not by me. I tried this query, which works, but when I tried to put the ! , to not it, in all the possible places, it did not work

[bbox:{{bbox}}][diff:”2010-01-02T09:55:00Z”,”2020-07-10T10:00:00Z”];
(
node(user:”ABZ_OSM”);
);
out geom;

Thanks for the expanation on out; vs out geom;

I have used the data tab quite extensivley in the past for collecting counts and other street level information. eg outputting addresses of local schools as a list

Thank you again for your long post which was very informative and useful.

A youtube link to a screen cast video, I have made, of my experience using the “mapwithai-dev” plugin for the “josm-latest.jar” version of JOSM is contained within my diary entry linked here https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/ABZ_OSM/diary/393621

I did not find the plugin very useful, becasue, locally, here in Aberdeen, Scotland, Europe, all our roads are already in OSM.

What we need is for AI to suggest auto traces of buildings, for completing the next level of detail.

Surely all Facebook need to do is run the ai algorithim on a world map satelite imagery data set and release the building tracing files?

Thank you again for your long post which was very informative and useful.

Thank you for your post. I did not realise all this very beneficial mapping work was going on at Facebook. I saw the linked video on your site which shows that Facebook work has populated hundereds of thousands of kilometers of roads in Thailand. This is good work!

At least a couple of us on here, discussing talks at a recent STOM 2020 Baltic, in Riga, Latvia, https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Zkir/diary/392427 had subsequently tried the AI over trace plugin for JOSM. Neither of us could get it to auto over trace buildings, which would then be human verified as acceptable traces.

Auto over trace of buildings would be a signifcant technology change for mapping, as it would allow us to detail our local communities much much faster. The laborious nature of hand tracing is what is holding things up, as so many of us know.

If you know how auto tracing buildings can be done with JOSM, then perhaps you could make a video, demonstrating this, to make everything clear, or point me to a working resource, and I will make a youtube video and link it on the wiki and post the link up here on the diary forum.

Thank you again, this is very good work.

Hi Øukasz ,

It does help thank you.

Thank you also for your response, which includes nice overpass queries, which is very informative.

I am quite familiar with overpass and have used it extensively, but am certianly no expert, and often struggle with putting queries together, particularly the complex queries.

I can indeed see the remaining and the deleted node, at the camp, by time.

I had, during my searches, some days earliear, found and used a very similar, if not exactly the same query, for isolating changes to the chemical plant. Your query shown below :

[bbox:{{bbox}}][date:”2020-07-02T09:59:00Z”];
(
node[amenity=refugee_site];
);
out geom;

Specifically I used the

[date:”2020-07-02T09:59:00Z”] \

statement.

I feel that something looking like this

[date_between::”2020-07-02T09:50:00Z”,”2020-07-02T09:59:00Z”] \

would be much more useful, for such a query, simply to know the query is isolated in a time frame. Certianly SQL does allow a query between two time stamps.

I searched for such a possibility but found nothing in my searches.

Also, I do not understand the difference between

out;

and

out geom;

why would you choose one and not the other?

If I tag you @GOwin, as @AkuAnakTimur has done above, does that flag up so you will see it?

That is very helpful, thank you :)

That is a very interesting reply, thanks, with lots of useful information.

>“Numbering on one side of the street jumps from 3 to 13.”

I have never seen that. I am surprised by this becasue often the builder / developer leaves number 13 out. Apparently it is an unlucky number. Do you have any anecdotal information regards the reason 3 to 13 is left out.

When I mapped Newtonhill, Aberdeen, Scotland, Europe, I found this very curious situation. 2, 2 and 2a. Click on the house to see the associated street. This must create some difficulty for folks on that corner https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/57.03258/-2.14992

Later, below, I have included a neat MapCSS query which makes everything clear. Scroll down to see link.

I mapped 99.9% of Newtonhill, having surveyed it countless times, and it is just south of West Cammachmore. If you croll down just a bit from West Cammachmore you will see it. Around Skateraw there is an interesting mixture of names and numbers.

And here is a case of number 52 beside number 52, again in Newtonhill. That will have caused some interesting situations. https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/57.03721/-2.14890 Click on the house to see the associated street.

Later, below, I have included a neat MapCSS query which makes everything clear. Scroll down to see link.

>“Houses with an address on one street, but their entrance on a different street.”

Yes when I mapped Portlethen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Europe, I found an interesting case of this. You can see houses on Rowanbank Road with an entrance on Cookston Road https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/57.06349/-2.13136 I mapped 99% of Portlethen, just north of West Cammachmore. There was a lot of walking and checking. It’s not perfect but all the buildings and addressing information is in there.

>“A block of flats where most flats use a communal entrance, but where some flats on the first floor have their own external staircase.”

Yes, this is curious. I have across that before but I have never mapped it, or seen it on OSM. If you have a link to an example I’d appreciate it.

>“Some cul-de-sacs numbered anti-clockwise.”

Do you know if there is an international, Scottish or European defined way of doing this, or does each place follow some sort of local tradition?

>“A single “logical” road having two or more different names, with different numbering schemes. (See Charlton Lane and Greenhills Road.)”

For this reason alone colouring the map becomes imperative. It would give a distinct advantage over GM. I think OSF should consider a colouring the map option to sort this confusion. This will lead to better community connectivity in all sorts of ways.

This query shows clearly which streets 2, 2 and 2a belong to http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/W2F

This query shows clearly which streets 52 and 52 belong to http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/W2H

>“As such, I think it’s useful to add all addresses to the map, even “obvious” ones.”

Yes, and then people can search. I find overpass queries particularly useful for sorting the confusion, I will be doing a number of posts on overpass queries, asking for help in areas where I have no understanding, to follow.

I’ve cleaned it up. Should be easiear to read .. hear goes again. Comment edit would be much easiear. Do you know if it’s there?

How do you edit a comment to improve layout for quotes etc.

I just realised kramdown can show quotes neatly.

Admin, can you add the capability please?

That is a very interesting reply, thanks, with lots of useful information.

• “Numbering on one side of the street jumps from 3 to 13.” I have never seen that. I am surprised by this becasue often the builder / developer leaves number 13 out. Apparently it is an unlucky number. Do you have any anecdotal information regards the reason 3 to 13 is left out.

• When I mapped Newtonhill, Aberdeen, Scotland, Europe, I found this very curious situation. 2, 2 and 2a. Click on the house to see the associated street. This must create some difficulty for folks on that corner https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/57.03258/-2.14992 I mapped 99.9% of Newtonhill, having surveyed it countless times, and it is just south of West Cammachmore. If you croll down just a bit from West Cammachmore you will see it. Around Skateraw there is an interesting mixture of names and numbers.

And here is a case of number 52 beside number 52, again in Newtonhill. That will have caused some interesting situations. https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/57.03721/-2.14890 Click on the house to see the associated street.

• “Houses with an address on one street, but their entrance on a different street.” Yes when I mapped Portlethen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Europe, I found an interesting case of this. You can see houses on Rowanbank Road with an entrance on Cookston Road https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/57.06349/-2.13136 I mapped 99% of Portlethen, just north of West Cammachmore. There was a lot of walking and checking. It’s not perfect but all the buildings and addressing information is in there.

• “A block of flats where most flats use a communal entrance, but where some flats on the first floor have their own external staircase.” Yes, this is curious. I have across that before but I have never mapped it, or seen it on OSM. If you have a link to an example I’d appreciate it.

• “Some cul-de-sacs numbered anti-clockwise.” Do you know if there is an international, Scottish or European defined way of doing this, or does each place follow some sort of local tradition?

• “A single “logical” road having two or more different names, with different numbering schemes. (See Charlton Lane and Greenhills Road.)” For this reason alone colouring the map becomes imperative. It would give a distinct advantage over GM. I think OSF should consider a colouring the map option to sort this confusion. This will lead to better community connectivity in all sorts of ways. This query shows clearly which streets 2, 2 and 2a belong to http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/W2F This query shows clearly which streets 52 and 52 belong to http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/W2H

• “As such, I think it’s useful to add all addresses to the map, even “obvious” ones.” Yes, and then people can search. I find overpass queries particularly useful for sorting the confusion, I will be doing a number of posts on overpass queries, asking for help in areas where I have no understanding, to follow.

“The main problem is that OSM data processing is still an art only accessible to the insider. There is no progress here.” (quoting your diary text as produced using google translate)

Yes I have thought about this and potentially volunteering to go out into local universities, and or high schools, to present the advantages of OSM through - an introduction to OSM, and - showing custom maps that can be created with overpass queries, and - giving an introduction to JOSM and mapping with a outdoor survey followed by data entry and upload.

A meaningful introduction takes some time, perhaps 2 half days.

Such an introduction could cross Computer Science, Geography, Social History, History and Modern Studies departments.

Do you know anyone who has done this, and is there an advocacy group?

Thank you for your diary report which I found interesting.

I did not know about the AI plugin for JOSM. I have tried it this morning but could not see any ability to auto over-trace buildings, which would make very useful and save much time.

Hi Øukasz,

thank you for your response.

Quote: “I think there are a lot of issues to unpack in here”. Yes.

The particular question I put was about a particular installation, however I see there are a range of possible answers and interpretations about what constitutes a sensitive location, and there are many possibilities for sensitive site types.

eg a refuge for women from abuse, as was already pointed out in this post. Clearly such a location is sensitive and only a person intended to be there and relevant Social services should know the location. Not somewhere to be mapped.

There is always more to learn.

This chemical plant in question was a hush hush topic locally, even though I had to walk all the way around it within the site, where I was welcome.

Quote: “As for the example you mention - it could be the locals who deleted the plant, or it could be anyone else in the country - or outside of it - that knew of its sensitive status and just checks in every now and then if it didn’t get mapped by someone. “

I think it was something like that. Though I can’t remember how to use https://osmcha.org to find out if I ever mapped it in the first place.

I’m happy to leave the deletion, if it was indeed deleted, alone; I understand that what is a good mapping opportunity to me may constitute an threat to others.

This should be respected.

In any case antagonising anyone over this seems poinless, but exploring the ideas around what makes something a sensitive issue is always worth it (If you have enough conversational energy left and it’s not to far towards the end of the day :-) ).

All insights on sensitive sights are welcome :)