Quick Overview/Summary

It’s been a year since my last diary entry on this, and I haven’t done too much (I don’t think) in that timeframe. The GIF below should give a good idea of the progress made. Unfortunately, a couple of the changes made in the bottom left corner haven’t been rendered yet.

What’s changed?

I’m still pushing through and adding buildings, or adjusting existing ones. There does seem to be someone else working here every now and then, as I had some of my changes deleted/modified (although I’m not sure of the reason, as the changeset description is not great).

More recently, I have been trying to add in more landuse=* as there is next to none currently. This is still a challenge, though, as so much has changed in 7 years that you’d need an on-the-ground survey or a local to confirm if certain buildings are shops or not.

Plan Going Forward

… See full entry

Overview

Progress has been solid over the past week. My main focus is still trying to add in as many missing buildings as possible, but I’ve covered the following during the week:

• Micromapping. While fixing two schools and two shopping centres, I decided to micromap them using a combination of aerial imagery and my local knowledge.

• More buildings. I’m still just trying to “fill in the blanks” and get buildings added.

• Small fixes. While doing other mapping, I came across various small issues that I fixed at the same time.

Micromapping

Schools

While updating some details for Victoria Park High School & Victoria Park Primary School, I decided to micromap them while fixing some misalignments. I tried to map in a way that makes sense and not just to make it look pretty on the renderer.

While doing this, I noticed that the park next to the High School had some seemingly strange boundaries. I need to do some more research to confirm where the park boundaries lie, so for now it remains the same.

Shopping Centres

Similar to how I started with the schools, I wanted to correct some details and fix some “wonky” mapping from older imagery. I ended up doing some pretty detailed micromapping except for changing some shop details - I know that they aren’t there any more, but I don’t have the current shop details at the moment.

More Buildings

I’m very happy with the progress that I’ve made. It’s slow at times, but it is moving and I can see the difference. There has been a decent amount of properties that had a node with address but no area mapped for the building. This has come in handy once or twice where I could verify the building to ensure that it is still there, which wasn’t always the case.

Having said that, it would still be great for a local to confirm all of this, there’s only so much I can do from Ireland.

Small Fixes

… See full entry

I’ll start this by saying I wish I had started keeping track of this from the start. I have already done some work on this personal project.

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Project Introduction

Back in December of last year, I decided that I wanted to start mapping in my hometown of Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). There were a lot of buildings missing, and I have personally experienced what it is like to not have an up-to-date map.

Since December, I have been working my way through, adding buildings in admittedly too much detail. Having grown up in the area, I had a little more knowledge of the area than just the aerial imagery could provide.

Mapping Progress

I find (and still do) it therapeutic to sit at my PC and add buildings in OSM, especially once I started using JOSM. The progress was going well, and I could really see the difference; I just wish I had taken some screenshots before starting.

There have been times when it has been really mundane, to help with this I broke down my project even further. I would focus on one area and add in as much of the missing detail as I could. I’ve done this a few times now - in between mapping of buildings - and it has really helped break up the project.

Going Forward

I think there are two main things that I want to change going forward.

1. Taking more screenshots before I start mapping a new area. Seeing the before and after has been a real motivator.

2. Writing more long-form progress updates. This is my first diary update about the project, and the handful of Mastodon toots have not really done it any justice. Making this public also exposes my work to a potentially greater audience, which has the benefit of me learning and improving much quicker.

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Gallery: Before & After

Before: Walmer Golf Club - A lot of details missing and information that can be improved.

… See full entry

After some time away, I am back at validating and helping map buildings in Ireland. The Fingal project is sitting at 30% complete (mapped + validated).

The Map Paint Styles by Jonny really help with the validation process.

Pavement Lights

I’ve been meaning to tag the pavement lights in and around Dublin for a little while now but just never got around to doing it. While walking (briefly) in town to catch the Dart, I added notes for a couple that I noticed. In hindsight, I should have tagged them while I was there, as a couple are tricky to find due to the shadow of the building.

Having said that, I managed to get a couple in the city centre as well as one in Blackrock Village. Big thanks to b-unicycling for the video that details how to tag them!

Overpass Turbo: Pavement Lights in Ireland

Milestone Markers

I came across a TikTok video which mentioned the old GPO milestone markers. They were used to help the postal service and the community figure out how far away they were from the city centre and the General Post Office.

b-unicycling helped map a lot of them down Malahide Road and towards Howth. There was one in Blackrock (Rock Road) that had been tagged a few years back but was missing the historic=milestone tag, which I added today. I will continue to look out for these as I’m walking around - I actually saw one in person that I had gone past a bunch and not stopped to think what it was.

Overpass Turbo: GPO Milestone Markers

Over the last few days I have been chipping away at validating tasks for the #osmIRL_buildings project.

I have now just finished validating all of Howth. There is still a good bit left in the rest of the county, some of it will definitely be quick due to some areas being rather rural.

I started mapping by updating shop details in my area and have now moved on to helping OSMirl in completing the various tasks to get all of Ireland on the map.

I have also started adding buildings to my home city of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The majority of the suburb (that I’ve worked on) does not have any of the houses mapped.