Welkom op OpenStreetMap. Heb je je ook aangemeld voor de talk-nl lijst? Zie [1]. Hierdoor blijf je op de hoogte van alle recente ontwikkelingen op OSM-gebied in Nederland. Soms zijn de discussies vrij technisch, maar gezien het feit dat je ruim een kwart eeuw geo-ervaring hebt, moet dat geen probleem zijn :)

Zoals je ziet zijn de straten in Nederland grotendeels compleet dankzij een import van AND data een paar jaar geleden, maar ondertussen wordt er stug doorgebouwd. Ook ontbreken er nog steeds veel recreatieve paden, e.d. Verder is de OSM community druk doende met het toevoegen van andere data, zoals fietsroutes, landgebruik, huisnummers, e.d. Afhankelijk van je ervaring met kaartvervaardiging, zou deze ook ingezet kunnen worden voor nieuwe, innovatieve toepassingen. Kortom, het werk is nog lang niet klaar, en je kunt je geo-skills volledig in OSM kwijt! Veel succes gewenst.

[1] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-nl

Minh, thanks, it's working.

Regarding aerial / satellite images: there is already OpenAerialMap. It contains Landsat data, because this is in the public domain, but there's not really much else. Unfortunately the website doesn't seem to be working right now.

I was also wondering about how to draw landuse: let ways share nodes or not.

In downtown Quebec I chose for sharing, because it's hard to get parallel lines straight, but it is hard to get the right node. In JOSM it is possible to pull the ways apart by dragging the red cross in the middle between two nodes, so at least you can get to the correct way. However, in Potlatch this was not possible. I just tried to correct a letter to a capital, but couldn't select the street! See here: osm.org/go/cKZjkD4iw- How to select Rue des Commissaires Ouest?

On the other hand, it is also hard to get parallel lines straight and even. When you zoom in at lv 18, and ways are not sharing nods, then you'll see a small sliver not covered by landuse. Sometimes even at level 17. See also the south side of Oxford Street. At such detailed level it might make more sense to draw / render roads as areas.

An important question is also what would be the most obvious for the majority of users. I think that will actually be not sharing nodes. At least it will be much easier to edit.

Some other questions: should "islands" in landuse be cut out, or could you just draw on top of it? So far I've seen that smaller areas are always rendered on top, so they're always visible. And when should you split up a landuse area? In Quebec I have a few very large residential areas, but what size would make sense?

I'm not discarding the usefulness registering benches in OSM on beforehand, but for me it is quite a big leap toward triviality. Where does it end? Trash cans? Lamp posts? Trees in a forest?

One can just expect to find some benches, trash cans, etc. in a park. It is not a disaster if they are not mapped.

Maybe I was more surprised to find that tags like length, orientation, material, last_paint_date, armrest, etc. missing, although there is one for backrest!

Hey, and I thought I did a good job!
Just kidding, go ahead, those small road splits aren't worth it, but when it is a longer stretch (50m+?) I think we should correctly represent the situation in OSM.

Too bad I missed you while you were in Quebec. I haven't been very active as of late, and the winter isn't really cooperating either.

Which street is it? I'll probably start with Orsainville (N. Charlesbourg) next week, so I can have a look.
Will you / your sister continue with mapping in the Quebec area?