I dared to take my GPS logger with me on the deathmarch.. This is a 100km (62 miles?) walk that starts at 9PM. You have 24 hours to complete. I was not alone. Some 9000 people joined me, but as far as I can tell from the traces, I was the only one mapping for OSM!

Unfortunately, the last 10km are not on the track. I had to give up due to low blood pressure (almost passed out) and a swollen ankle. Next year, I'll get us those last 10 km.

I hope to enter the whole march as a relation, so that I can maybe convince the organisation of using our map next year.

More information:
http://2008.dodentocht.be

The trace:
osm.org/traces/tag/dodentocht

Made for the first time real use of the validator plugin to verify my hometown, Gent, Belgium. I discovered that it's very easy to forget to add bridges to new streets. There were 300+ warnings of crossing ways... Not completely unlogical, as Gent does have a lot of water.

I ran into trouble though. There is motorway that is on a very long viaduct. I gave it bridge=yes and layer=1 for the whole stretch, but the validator keeps coming up with warnings about it. any ideas?

Other than that, it's lovely to have time to map again and make some little cleanup progress.

Just bought a new GPS logger to replace my old BT-338 receiver that drowned in my car. I must say that precision has improved drastically. I am now able to see when I have moved around a parked car, parked myself, .. It's almost too detailed, because I now have to take care to stay really on one lane to get a straight track..

Still love it though :)

I'll add a review to the wiki in the coming weeks. Hope that my experience stays this positive. Very happy to be mapping again after a detox period of 3 weeks (with addiction pains).

I set as a target to complete the northern part of the railway station area, as defined in the city's areas. Some minor paths still to go and some road names to fill in, but it looks already nice. Southern part also grew quite well.

Not bad for a 200.000 inhabitants city being blank 6 months ago..

Target for 2008: tidy up, check current area's and add 3 more area's to the map, starting in the east.

Finally met (online) with someone from my, I admit, little country. Now let's see if two can roll things out faster than one.

Also noticed that what I wanted to do, namely writing a routing application for mobile phones, is already underway. Now I'm in doubt whether to give up the idea and just keep mapping or to join one of the projects. I'm seriously thinking about a joined forces operation, but don't consider myself even close to an expert, so I might frustrate people.

One general remark, and I think this should be further discussed on the wiki, is that we seem to be very good at wasting resources (ourselves). I see more than 5 routing applications (and the list misses GPSmid). It might be time to consolidate efforts? On the other hand, diversity gives choice and competition, thus a benefit for the customer.. if any of the choices did the job it's supposed to do.

In case that you're working on such an application: do not consider this ungrounded criticism. I saw a lot of good stuff, that would together make a very nice application. Only it's distributed over 3 or 4 different ones. Consider this a call for cooperation amongst developers.

I'll have a closer look in the coming weeks. Expect an update. Comments welcome of course.

That email address should have read

my_username.lampo@gmail.com

Started with the open-source GPStrack (java, for mobile devices) and adapted it so that it will log enough data points for use in car. To use it you need a mobile device with java (and bluetooth) support.

If you want to obtain it, please drop me an email at .lampo@gmail.com

greetings,

Sebastiaan

Whow. That was difficult to find my own diary. Now that I got it though, will try to use it in a usefull manner.

Therefore the following question: In Belgium we have a lot of streets in cities which have one lane, than parking spaces on the side and after that a cycling track and pavement. How do i tag these? Simply mark the cycling way on the street, or should the it have it's own segments? And, if I add it to the street itself, do i mark it as a lane or as a track?

Greetings from a brand new user.