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Govanus's Diary

Recent diary entries

I’ve found that for a time I’ve been picking the wrong term for pedestian pavements beside the main carrage way. In normal language i’d call these pavements, but for good and well explaind reasoning OSM decided to call them sidewalkd to avoid international confusion (pavement as a term has different meanings around the world). Knowing that I’d need to pick a differenet term I’ve been mistakeingly using footway by mistake (footways on some editors convert to footpaths) and I’m also begining question if some of my “Front Garden paths” should be footpaths or even private byways??? the problem is that what is simple to build with paving or a narrow strip of tarmac can be seen in different ways in osm but is physicaly similar and often used also used in very similar way too.

I’m intending to review the tagging I’ve done on sidewalks in a progressive manner.

I’m also looking at advanced bridge tagging to sort out some issues with some more recent entries. Bridges and rivers can become quite complecated when there is a lot going on like the Magdelen Viaduct/bridge (which has nine arches, 5 “tunnels” placeing places two river courses two-one embankment apontoondock and two sides, {not mentinon the multilane stuctures of the highway running over the top}!!!). I’ll get there in the end but it might take some time. I’ve also been working on find details for the tasked missed off the last task listing and that is utility features like pumpsite and substations……

Current Activity List

Posted by Govanus on 25 June 2014 in English.

this is not exsusitive but outlines my work program for OSM:-

Finish adding CAB offical tags for OxCAB Finish suport services missing from OSM needed for CAB mapping such as third-party support and advice services. Add The Regional CAB sites following toward the rest of the organisation…

Compleat the records and relations to all the garages operated by the council in Oxford. as well as neighbouring others.

finish multilayer buildings for buildings at southfiled park and progressing futher out accross the city as suveying is done.[I’ve had more in notes for a ling time now]

Learn 3dPhoto-survaying to increase accuracy of Southfiled Park features.

Try to develop a decently accurate hight aware suvey technique to add public relm and communial lamps and secuity features across oxford [I done some preservey exploration to the centre of oxford and at southfiled park, hght will be important for the referance number to make sence as a lot are mount high on the side of buildings to avoid haveing poles]

Compleate the NPLG records gathered from lable surveys.[both Oxford City and the Vale of the White horse councils add them in codes on their bins….

compleate the transfer manually of refrances and route codes about railways from official sources like the NESA and line rental matieral [theis is helpful for users of live datafeeds and planning - there also is the issue of details of posaic nameing that passengers use but are different than the rail industry internaly] - Ialso have mapped these three different ways in the past some with some without the use of relations.

Need to review rail tagging especially when addingg the tracks/roads for each line to avoid logical errors being introduced.

See full entry

indoor and street gazettering

Posted by Govanus on 12 June 2014 in English.

I’ve been using the indoor: system to Gazetteer flats in blocks either by outline separated with their corresponding layer/level data or just by entrance nodes were outlines are not clear to me yet.

In basic rendering the view is generally ignored unless you have a renderer that knows how to make a building plan in various possible styles from flat to isometric. big map renderers generally gloss over and ignore these but take the data into a spreadsheet or database and it gives a good postal listing like those that Kelley’s used to make. As a data user this is more useful for me than say a number range especially when I try to add office or owner data into the Gazetteer which due to it being in osm allows it to be automatically to custom maps. It also helps navigation when the dwellings aren’t sequentially numbered which is actually quite common (from both alterations and odd/even splitting schemes as well as say something that tries to combine floor and unit numbers from to separate ranges. The Gazetteer form just cuts though all of this and makes it straightforward and easy to work with automatically

Josm hasn’t been so easy to work with for this needing a layer approach workflow to work and the online editors are very difficult to use with stacked features (think of a 40-story block of flats or halls of residence - the baseplan for most floors in the middle are likely to be very similar with most principle doors and loadbearing walls being in the same horizontal place on each one, with just layer/level/ele/height data to split them up). I have been thinking about writing a new editor to make things easier but I’ve had so much going on recently that I’ve surveyed a lot more than I’ve had time to add to osm lately, especially when I have to work in complex way without online editors, to get the data clear and without unwanted clashes of wrongly joined nodes.

Customised units and dwellings with variant layout features are also easy to handle like this.

See full entry

Location: Cowley Marsh, East Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, OX4 2YF, United Kingdom

rececent change to parking tags

Posted by Govanus on 22 April 2014 in English.

revising mainly parking restictions. mentor prevously updateed the tags to parking lane routes but this along with illegal parking problems is likely to confuse, so removed it all to lok at more appropriate parking lableing. If parking at the side of a garage road you create a blockage problem either for turning vehicals on one side or blocking a garage door on the other. were garages face each other both sides block doors. The police have already athorised garage owners that they can leagaly tow or dispose of vihicals in front of the doors without any warning. The areas are laid to allow 24hr access for large vehicals to the garages. if now used in a storage mode then it is only a loading stop that can be made and you need to be ready to move out of the way. vandalisum and rouge parking has dammaged some low walls and signs and illegal parking followed. originaly parking on the main road on the estate was also banned but recently this began to be increasingly ignored by residents not wanting to pay for garages so now a large parking scheme has been introduced but not on the garage lands as they are private and not adopted highways. I’ll need to rethink the original tagging as I suspect the original is likely to be mass retagged again without local knowledge if I just revet it back to private like a houses drive

I have a couple of files in osm xml format I’m struggleing to find time to finish quickly and given thier stacking node nature they are tough to put up in stages. Some need polygon alignment but incase someone whats a preview I’ll try to upload some of the small ones here:- <?xml version=’1.0’ encoding=’UTF-8’?>

<?xml version=’1.0’ encoding=’UTF-8’?>

See full entry

Location: Headington Hill, Headington, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, OX3 0DR, United Kingdom

longcross

Posted by Govanus on 13 March 2014 in English.

some features at long cross. Site was a contry house and grounds then taken over by the milatary in later years used to test milatary vehicals before being used in closed rally sections and then sold to a film company. site had a golf course developed on in nr the fine original house probably by the army? there are a lot of stuctures for testing vehicals like tanks and lorries.

area still has unmapped features

Merchant's Railway -Portland UK,EU

Posted by Govanus on 10 February 2014 in English.

Tried to use the original (unpart updated) 1930’s 25k map loaded to id editor along with bing aerial surface information and a few other sources to make a reasonable attempt at marking out the “Merchants Railway” on Portland that travelled quite far at both ends of its cable incline. Not actually sure but I don’t think it was adverse to some trips carrying additional non-stone loads over time. But heavy stone was economic base of this and initially most railways reaching up to the top of the island. Local supply goods for other trades did begin to show signs of diverse future as the National rail network spread and gained more influence than sea traffic towards beginning of the 20th and end of 19th Centuries. The Navy and Prison service also utilise the rail capacity mainly around the coasts.

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On the weekend I tried doing more infomation to Southfiled part as there is a suppriseingly large amount unmarked especialy in the large mixed use buildings. Also a the longest terrace of garages also needs to be finshed off too.

Location: Castletown, Dorset, England, DT5 1BE, United Kingdom

Weymouth dock railway.

Posted by Govanus on 7 February 2014 in English.

Did a lot of work to show the unused part tarred dual track railway that runs to Weymouth dock around by the river and under the american bridge. Note this is listed as active though unused till 2015 in NESA ver 11/05/2013. The fate of the line is dependant on rail operators requesting to use it. it was converted to single track but the old unused bit was just tarred over. now all is until reactivation. More tags could be added to clarify this state of affairs.