I just completed digitizing a few foot paths as well as what I hope was a conglomerate of small buildings and shacks, for the cause. CAR, Bangassou, #hotosm-­‐task-­‐450 source=Bing

The whole concept of freely digitizing and editing off of other peoples work is completely foreign to me. I have a really hard time “improving” other peoples contributions to OSM. Ground truthing footpaths and buildings digitized off of old satellite imagery is one thing, but getting into attribute edits and spatial locations of point data is another. I have been contributing to mapping San Francisco State University as a cartography assignment/fun project. In reviewing some of my peers work such Gpriceless, I found the contributions made to be pretty accurate. It has been very cool to see how the map of SFSU on OSM has changed in the past week since starting this project. Being able to go out into the field and acctually digitze in a GIS environment based off of my own field notes has been a really cool experience that I have previously not had. I have digitzed literally hundreds of thousands of features sitting in an office chair, not knowing if what I was creating was even really there at the time I drew it. Using OSM and Fieldpapers was a comforting mapping experience, knowing I was making something that truly represents real time data! #SFSUcarto

http://fieldpapers.org/snapshot.php?id=xrvq289h#17/37.72109/-122.47872

I have been mapping and digitizing professionally with ArcGIS for nearly 5 years. This is the first time I have heard of and used OpenStreetMap and it is awesome! So far I have made a few minor edits to the San Francsico State campus. I created and changed a few paths around the Library and Malcom X Plaza. I also added a few locations of handicap entrances and ramps. So far the only difficulties I have experienced is the limitations of the id edit tools. They are perfectly fine for the task of mapping points. For the paths, I found myself accidentally deleting entire paths. I was finally able to figure out how to split the paths and correct an area near the library. As I mentioned I have been mapping and digitizing using ArcMap for quiet sometime. The user interface using id is not much different. It all points, lines and polygons right! I am hoping to be able to add considerable content to both SFSU and areas near my place in Concord.

my edits so far: osm.org/changeset/21091620 osm.org/changeset/21091658 osm.org/changeset/21091915