hi all, just wondering who will be the 2 millionth editor :)?

A big pat on the back for all the 1,999,999 other edits :)

Cheers,
Sam

Current number is 1999573

I figured i'd finally take the city bus tour of the city. And learned a few new things while i was at it.

I'm thinking of having it as a route=bus_tour for the relation, any ideas?

Anyway, I also dropped in more canvec data, so you can see lighthouses and piers.
rocks (waterway obstacles) show up on the Garmin, so thats handy for boaters. :)

Next week im hosting a mapping party, so hopefully we can get downtown fully mapped.
osm.wiki/Victoria_mapping_party

That's all for now,
Sam

Hi,
I added more roads to the area, and as predicted a few new mappers popped up, so now i just need to be carefull when working, and just work on a small area at a time, then grab the latest, just incase someone else is working at the same time.

Hopefully by the end of the week i should have the GeoBaseNHN sample rivers and water which isn't yet shown, as examples. It's just hard when there is no roads to get a good grasp on the other features. When new mappers look at the area and see all the other features. They would want to put in the roads. (Not knowing that im going to.
So the best bet is to get the road layer in 1st, then get all the trails that i can import. After that it's more OSM - unique POI that gets placed in.

That's all for now,
A litle scatter-brained on this entry, i know :)

I added more roads in the area, so then it would be easier for me to add in the canvec data. So far i just added in the natural=peak's and the parks.
This is still part of the sample area.
Me thinks that it's getting close to launch of the script :)

Cheers,
Sam

Im working on making this cyclemap better for the area im working on.

Im not 100% sure about how i tagged it, i've added in fences and a few dirt paths through the grass, where it would be relatively easy to make it gravel or paved and have it as a cycle route.
This intersection is rather dangerous. .. and confusing to cyclists. ... people dont know that there are great paths through Cuthert Holmes Park, that makes a nice connection to Colquitz Trail system.

The Highway renders a little wide, so i need to fix that, there is actually an embankment from the highway to the cycleway on the south of the trans Canada Highway.

More work for next time. :)

Hi All,
I went and mapped out a bit of Sooke, BC built more from what the other mapper did before me.
This was the spot where i 1st started using the GPS, and figuring out how it works ... back before i learned about OSM. .. and the spot where i had a flat and had to walk the bike. ... and lost all the GPS Tracks from those first couple weeks :(

So i remembered all the great things to see and do in town. And now there on the map.

My hopes is that one day the Trans Canada Trail will connect to this town.

For some reason the bike shop didn't render.. hum, gotta investigate.

Once the rest of the stuff gets imported, it'll be easy to see what amenities are left to map, ... things that visitors would want to see. Then i'll go back there and give a printout of the map to the bike shop, for visitors.

That's all for now.
Cheers,
Sam Vekemans
Across Canada Trails

Wow,
This is awesome, big thanks goes out to SteveS for importing all the data for the Road network..

The area im pointing to is South-Central, Ontario Popular cottage country for the city dwellers.... all who migrate north for the long weekends.

My guess is that we will start seeing more mappers all over, once they find out this is here :) ... Hopefully, i'll get this CanVec data imported so then it will 'clear the trails' for mappers to start listing cycleways and hiking trails. (among other things)

... great for the geocachers out there too :)

Great work!

I took a short bus ride to the community of Langford, BC
So while i was there i found that they have a Langford City Trolley Service which takes you all around the town. ... I was planning on mapping the park, but did the whole ride 1st.

I marked alot of the trolley stops. .. but will wait to map out the relation route until after the geobase import of the area. There's lots of other features that will be imported with the CanVec stuff, so that's why it looks a little funny (as i already know what will and will not be imported (off by heart).

I mapped out the trail connection where i was told by a local on the trolley that there was no access to the lake from the south west corder, and it was all private property.... I guess that local hasn't been to the lake in some time :)

i looks like there is alot of construction, and that area will be built up in the next year. So i'll have to be back later.

On the northeast corner, the trail continues... but i didn't have time.
Instead, like an avid mapper. .. I went back on my tracks to make sure everything was tagged right, and to make a cleaner trail more accurate.

I got about 5 meter accuracy for most of it :) Garmin GPSMap60Cx

I've contacted the other local mapper, so they know were i left off and whats next on my list to map, if i dont get back there sooner. :)

What is this?

Some crazyguyonabike thought it would be cool to take along his GPS and record where all the local area cycleways are and note down what it said on signs, and noted where the Bikeshop; washrooms and shelters are. ... and get this...
decided to actually share this information on the web for everyone to see, and perhaps fix if THEY see errors. Then, as a courtesy, to go ahead and contact me to see if i'm still working on the mapped area.

Good greef :)

Have A super day,
Sam Vekemans
Across Canada Trails

BTW, i still have the rest of the 'wooded areas' and 'waterways' to import, as well as the GeoBase roads. (im keeping the named="0" roads there on purpose)

I fixed up Cranbrook with all my edits, as well as the importing of the CanVec data, in search of more errors.

.. and I found one. It looks like all the canvec roads show up named "0". So the easy fix is to simply not use the canvec roads, and wait for the geobase2osm roads. But i fixed the script so that wont happen again.

This is why im not releasing the canvec2osm script out of beta. It wouldn't be cool to have done hundred of tiles before finding this error.

I haven't made A relation route again for the Trans Canada Trail. Hopefully, in the next couple weeks, i'll get official word on if it's OK to use the gps data from the tctrail.ca website, and routing information. (listing the website as the source). Once i get that, it it should be easier.

For now, it's still mapping what I see on the ground.

Oh ya, for somethings, im noticing that the canvec data is 20 meters off. So i know that my GPS tracks were less than 10, so it's fine to move the canvec data within the 20 meters, to be more accurate.

That's all for now. :)

Hi all,
osm.wiki/Canada:British_Columbia:Ucluelet
I just uploaded a picture of the map area.
It was just a quick render playing with the options. Im sure i could make a nicer map if i took my time.

But this is a quick reminder of the tools we have available. Thanks Igor great job!

http://igorbrejc.net/kosmoshome

I was thinking about how we dont have contours to view, as there not used. ...but wait.. they ARE. Cool. :)
So now i can just focus on making the Garmin contour only Canada map... and not need to worry about the contours for printed maps anymore.

Thanks,
Sam

Ok so here's the idea.

I make the canvec.osm files available to download, i can store them on a server somewhere. (and accessed from the wiki), the city page it's covering.

I then use that file as a tool while im working on an area. ie, adding details to a park. All the features (as well as roads) that are close by that i physically can verify, i'll add in. By copying the features on 1 layer, then select the other layer and paste it in place.

I figure this way, it's a good method; Although slow, it ensures the accuracy of the data that is added. And so, it's only a few features at a time, as my focus area is just around my tracks that i loaded.

And my downloading the local are GPX traces, i can compare it with what the roads have been traced like, and only fixing it when adding to the map. ... ie, i'm adding in sidewalks and paved paths that follow along the road, as well as bus stops that i see along the way.

And so, this way, it wont be overloading the servers as it would only be a few large multi-polygons per day, and less than the max for josm.

While on a walk to the coast, i noticed that there is the cycle route not yet mapped.
Mt. Douglas Park Local Connector
So i started mapping it. Im now focusing on the finer details as i know that all the roads will be imported, like sidewalks, crosswalks stop lights; post boxes; bus stops. and of course footpaths and cycleways.

Im having a difficult time with JOSM adding the route relations.. it seems that Potlatch is easier on this respect, as there is the option to select the clostest already existing route, where in JOSM there isnt a drop down menu option to add to route.

On the other hand, when adding the route, i need to split up roads/paths in order to select just the segments i want. Thats easier todo in JOSM. So i end up spliting the ways in JOSM, then uploading, and playing with it in Potlatch. Im slowely getting the hang of it in JOSM, but a bit harder to work with.

Looking forward to see it rendered on the cyclemap, :)

Im adding more traces from Tracks that i did back in summer 2007, as well as from the tracks from the tctrail.ca website.
AFAIK, it's fine to trace. .. but i use extra caution, and tagged with the source, because i wasn't that person who made the tracks.

For the part that is shown on the map, it was some of my traces.. so now with 2 tracks, it helps with accuracy.

CanVec Import:
In this NTS tile area (082g12 cranbrook north) there are other trails which are available to import (hiking trails). ... i just havent imported them yet. Why? Because of the Bug 12 where the french translation doesn't how up right. (as little boxes characters) and also because its still in BETA phase with the other bugs.
osm.wiki/Talk:Canvec2osm#Bug_11:_French_Characters

Hey, does anyone have any objection to me using JOSM to upload the trails file??? as it really isnt THAT much data (just about as much as my manual editing)?? .. and also, the french for Trail is 'Sentier' (which doesnt have accents)
(and I could do so, using the Geobase:Acrosscanadatrails login, so it could be removed on-mass if needed. or just that import session would be removed if needed.

Thanks,
Sam Vekemans
Across Canada Trails

Hi all,
I'm wondering if there is a maximum size for a route relation?

The Trans Canada Trail will be made up of Many Many Many sub- route relations, as that's what it is.
So far, with a quick search there is only a few segments of the trail with the name 'Trans Canada Trail'.

But that will change by the end of the year :)

Any ideas on how to tag better?

Thanks,
Sam Vekemans
Across Canada Trails

Hi all,
A quick question.
What tag do i need to add so that the description will show up on the garmin POI.
ie. .. a bus stop showing more details, such as the phone number to call.

Cheers,
Sam

Hi all,
So I loaded the CanVec Roads area for Victoria, and had it as a layer in JOSM. Then i selected the road that i was interested in, Copy & went to the active layer, and pasted it down. .. then moved it to the right place. Then hid the canvec layer. And uploaded the changes.

What i found, was that it's actually easier just to quickly trace that road with the GPS tracks layer also showing, to be sure where the road (most likely) is, and how it's layed out.

In many cases, the roads arn't as detailed as a mapper can do on the ground.

Ie. where the road doesnt actually turn, it's just a hill, where there is a footpath to the next street.

The default i put the road type is 'highway=road'. So it needs to be changed anyway. Although, i can change the script so that road names get listed, but not for provinces that dont have road names.

So the solution is to use the geobase2osm script, to handle the roads, so it will automatically insert all the roads that weren't hand-mapped, leaving the easy work of adding a node and attaching a segment to the OSM road.
osm.wiki/Geobase2osm

In conclusion, great work SteveS! (Currently working on the Ontario dataset)

Happy Mapping,
Sam Vekemans
Across Canada Trails

This history tab is cool. .. it's great to zoom in and see what has been done to the area. .. nice..

Note to self: dont use the 'save GPS track' function on the GPS device. ... i forgot that it purges the GPX file, so it holds less nodes. .. The solution when the Device starts to get full of Tracks and less memory is weekly (or more) upload the raw Daily Tracks to OSM, and save a backup of the tracks. Using Garmin Mapsource (that comes with the device) you can easily load all the points and tracks. .. save the file as a GPX. and just keep on adding to the file. Using it as your working copy when using JOSM to trace over your waypoints.

... I lost my last couple day's tracks :(

Hi all,
Im please to see that SteveS has sucesfully imported the 092c area, this is the bottom left corner of Canada.

As you can see, the AutoMatch worked well, it was able to omit all the roads that OSM mappers added in, and only import the roads that OSM Mappers didn't get to yet.

On the coast road, which is from Victoria to Port Renfrew
(which was the road i cycled on 2 years ago, on my Bike Across Canada Trip :)
You can see the duplicate. This is because the OSM Mapped road continued on in 1 connected way, rather than a few ways with a relation. So the AutoMatch script didn't know what todo, and added it in. If the way would have been shorter and fit into an NTS tile area, it would have caught it.

So now what i'll be doing it getting in touch with all the mappers who worked on the area, and show them what was imported, and they can decide on how they want to merge the data.

If the OSM road is more complex in tagging, then (most likely) the mapper would want to retain it, and go through the process of adding in more nodes and refining the location of the way. ...
Or (like this hwy) there are a few BIG highway switchbacks which really should be clearly defined .. i think that no matter how many times you navigate that road it will be different. (unless your walking it)
But i wont touch it intill after consulting with the OSM mapper who drew in the road.
The map is zoomed out to about the size of the area. (excluding the USA at the bottom)

I needed a walk today, so i decided to go over the park again that i dont think i mapped that accuratly before. .. I think this one is better (it's 4-7m accuracy) better than 10 or so that i had with my old GPS)

Anyway, JOSM seems to be taking forever and a day... but that's expected as all the new changes needs some time to get oiled and greased to get all the gears working right :)

I like the new option to write in a blurb about what your uploading. That's cool :)

The only concern is that (... but maybe not a biggie?) it doesn't prompt to check and see if im logged in as soon as i start JOSM. ... thats handy for times when other people are using the same computer, or (like me) has a separate login for my BulkImport data for Ucluelet Sample area. .. so then it's easy to wipe that users data if needed. .. and it wont effect my personal manual traces.

.... so anyway I waited 5 mins, and then canceled, and will try again tommorow as im sure its being worked on. I'll try a little Potlatch ... but i'm a right-brain so it wont be too much :)

Cheers,
Sam Vekemans
Across Canada Trails

:: And yup, Potlatch also seems to take a bit of time. It's says that my point ID is -2 ... it might just be 'cause of a lineup. I'll try again tommorow and save my edits for later.

Back to work on CanVec Data :)