OpenStreetMap
Finally took the plunge and had my first weekend of mapping. Didn't have much time free, so only mapped two of the very small villages in South Cambs (of which very few remain unmapped). Did a quick survey (re-survey?) of Little Shelford on Saturday since it was listed as "in progress" on the wiki but looked mostly complete (it was - just a couple of minor tweaks and additions needed). Sunday I did a little bit of mapping from scratch and added the village of Croxton. Hopefully will get some more of then done this week and/or next weekend, then maybe start on St Neots.
Discussion
Comment from davidearl on 8 September 2008 at 12:04
Hi Paul, welcome. Yes, you're right, South Cambridgeshire is largely done to street level and it's several villages west of the A1198 Royston to Huntingdon road that are outstanding. It's me who has done most of the street work in Cambridge and South Cambs over the last two years, and there's quite a few people also actively mapping in the area and there's been quite a lot of work recently on footpaths and byways - and the level of detail is increasing dramatically now.
Sorry about the flag on Little Shelford - I was introducing a friend to mapping there (a long time ago) and he never finished it, though I did then fill it in myself and forgot to update the wiki page.
We recently got together to do a day in Bury St Edmunds and have about 70% of it done. I'm working systematically on Huntingdon at present. St Ives is now getting some attention. But St Neots isn't really on anyone's radar AFAICS so far. With Eaton Socon it's getting on for 40,000 people, and we usually reckon about an hour surveying and an hour on the computer per 1,000 people for systematic mapping, so it's likely to be a commitment of about 80 hours if you end up doing all of it - keep you busy for a while! The more you can make clear what's been done the better - perhaps set up a wiki page for it and divide it up into manageable sectors first?
Please do get in touch if you want any help or advice. We had a small Cambridge get together in the summer. Perhaps I should organise another one nearer Christmas.
David
Comment from Mark Williamson on 9 September 2008 at 02:17
Hi Paul,
Welcome to mapping and to Cambridge mapping in particular!
Well done on checking out Little Shelford - I had been wondering what was still to be done there so it's good to have it crossed off the list. Nice one on Croxton, myself and a friend recently popped out and did Eltisley, which is nearby - I think there'd some been tracing from the NPE maps there already, perhaps it was you?
We've been working on the footways, bridleways, bus stops, telephone boxes, etc around Cambridge - particularly the to the west of the city, since that's most convenient and familar to us. I've also recently been working on mapping the power lines around Cambridge, since they're good detail as landmarks... I'm going to start trying to take bearings of the direction of power lines where they cross the road, since it's not always possible to get decent satellite coverage of them.
If you fancy going on a mapping trip with other people, please let me know. My self and my usual accomplice typically bicycle out for Cambs city centre and have a fairly long range - Eltisley is the furthest West we've mapped so far but we took a long route to get there.
Hope you enjoy working on the map as much as we do, it's a great hobby and the Cambridge coverage is some of the better OSM coverage in the country / world, as far as I'm aware!
Cheers,
Mark