OpenStreetMap
For the past week I've been on holiday in Scotland, spending time in Edinburgh & Blairgowrie up in Perthshire, so I took the opportunity to brandish my GPS and collect a lot of mapping data.
I was quite surprised to find that only the main road was present through Blairgowrie, so I've now uploaded quite a few traces, and have edited the main map to add lots of back streets, and a few A and B roads.
There's still a hell of a lot missing here though - still one or two A roads to map, not to mention all the residential streets, footpaths, etc. The yahoo aerial imagery is simply not detailed enough, so we will most probably need GPS traces.
It makes me wonder how we encourage and publicise OSM in such areas. Maybe email tourist information centres and ask them to put up a poster? Or contact local newspapers with an article?
Discussion
Comment from David Martin on 26 February 2009 at 23:25
Ah, it is you who has added most of the road through to Dunkeld then.
I have been slowly working my way out from Dundee, but can only manage so much when a decent run on the bike is 50-60 miles. I've done the roads nearest me - just have to get further afield.
I've been concentrating on getting roads in, and I'll worry about detail later. It's certainly getting me fit.
Comment from FraserKp on 24 December 2009 at 10:36
Hi - I am originally from Blairgowrie and was up there over the last couple of days so have added a bit more detail to your sterling effort! Mostly on the South side of the town for now, but I'll be going up again so will try to add more & more as I go.
My father is actually a geography teacher at the local school and is showing a healthy interest in OSM so we might try and arrange something through the school - perhaps some of the older kids can be dispatched to get GPS trails of the town etc etc but I agree it could be really powerful in rural areas like this as the mainstream maps aren't especially detailed or up to date.
Comment from wonka68 on 25 December 2009 at 09:30
Great to hear that my mapping has proved useful. I was up there skiing, staying at the Angus hotel, and had a couple of hours to kill.
Would be great to see more detail added to the town, like the idea of getting school kids involved, it is good fun, and creates something of value.