It’s been a while since I have organized a field survey mapping party. I wanted to write up some instructions for the participants, and realized that there may very well be techniques and methods I am not aware of. So I thought I’d share what I wrote to the group and see if you have any ideas on how to improve on it. Thanks! Oh and if you’re in the Salt Lake City area, please join us tomorrow at 10am!

Message to field mapping party

Here’s a quick run down of common ways to do on the ground surveying for OSM. I recommend any (combination) of the first three, but if you feel adventurous, feel free to give any of the other methods a try.

• Photo Mapping This is the simplest technique. Just take photos of things of interest. Be sure your phone is set so that it stores location information with the photo. You can then later load the photos in JOSM or otherwise visualize them on a map to remind yourself where it was taken. See here for details on this technique.
• Mobile Mapping Download a mobile OSM editing app for your phone. For Android, there’s OSMAnd and Vespucci. For iOS there’s GoMap! Please familiarize yourself with these apps, there is a bit of a learning curve, especially if you’re an inexperienced OSM mapper.
• GPS Tracing If you have a phone with GPS or, even better, a dedicated GPS receiver, you can record a GPS trace as you walk around. Most devices / apps also let you record ‘waypoints’ to remind you of points of specific interest. You can upload the recorded trace to OSM and load it into any OSM editor. This method can be used side-by-side with any of the other methods described here. More info.
• Field Papers This is the low-tech (but fun and equally usable!) method. You take with you a printed map of the area you want to survey and make notes on it. You can later scan or take a picture of the paper map with your notes, and load it as a background layer in the OSM Editor. I don’t have any recent experience with this method, but if you feel adventurous, you’re welcome to give it a try!
• Audio Mapping Some people prefer to record quick audio notes to later remind them what they wanted to map. This can be done with a smartphone or a dedicated digital recording device. I have used OSMTracker in the past and found it worked well. You can even have the locations of your recordings show up in the JOSM editor. See here for more info on this method.