OpenStreetMap
I don’t do a lot of ‘on the go’ mapping. I have tried a lot of the tools out there that should help me do that: KeypadMapper, Go Map!!, Vespucci, Pushpin, OsmAnd. Most of these are way too convoluted for me. When I am out and about, I just want to make a quick edit - usually a POI of sorts - and move on.
Pushpin and Go Map!! come the closest to what I want. Both are available for iOS only, I think. (Do Android users not like simple editing tools?) They let me quickly add a node and upload it to OSM. Or add some tags to an existing one.
Still, what I end up doing most is just taking pictures with my phone. Lots of them. I try to get both overview and detail. I end up with a collection of images like this one here from right before I moved to the US.
When I get home, I copy all the images to my computer and load the entire directory into JOSM. It will put the image locations on a map. I can cycle through them easily and map what’s on there using all the convenience of JOSM.
The only thing you need to verify is that your phone saves the location with the image. This is on by default on most phones these days.
How do you prefer to map while on the go?
Diskuse
Komentář od santamariense z 8. 08. 2015 v 18:09
I prefer mapping with an audio recorder + GPS
Komentář od wille z 8. 08. 2015 v 18:20
I think geotagged photos are the most efficient way, because you can capture many details and it doesn’t take you a long time. These days almost all my moves on the city are by bike, so I stop cycling sometimes and I use OsmAnd to add or delete POIs. When I’m on the bus, beyond OsmAnd, I use OSMTracker to take photos and notes.
Komentář od SimonPoole z 8. 08. 2015 v 18:47
@mvexel the basic notion that it can be “simple” to just add a “poi” is mistaken. It is a consequence of the OSM data model for better or worse that a POI can have many many different guises and the only way to handle that without breaking things is to have a full complement of the existing data available with all the complications that implies.
So maybe the answer is that android users would prefer not to break existing data, contrary for example to people that think push pin is good.
Komentář od mvexel z 8. 08. 2015 v 18:53
SimonPoole - do you think Pushpin OSM is a bad, destructive tool?
Komentář od SimonPoole z 8. 08. 2015 v 19:00
Yepp, just as all the other apps which
a) don’t show you what is already in the OSM data
b) take the hammer approach to editing (replace nodes with nails)
pushpin is just one of a number with the same issue not worse or better than the whole lot.
Komentář od SimonPoole z 8. 08. 2015 v 19:11
BTW my recommendation for a survey app on Android continues to be OSMtracker plus OpenCamera if you just want to take photographs (OpenCamera works well Vespucci too).
Komentář od mvexel z 8. 08. 2015 v 19:16
Do you think a mobile editing tool that is friendly to new and casual mappers is possible at all? What should it look like?
Komentář od mvexel z 8. 08. 2015 v 19:18
I broke my Android phone a while ago, but what does OpenCamera do that built in camera apps do not offer?
Komentář od ItchyDemon z 8. 08. 2015 v 19:19
For me, it’s either my tablet, which has a screen barely large enough for the OSM website, or my laptop depending on where I am and whether or not it’s practical to bring the laptop. I can tether wirelessly to my phone, though I normally use a nearby hotspot to save on data.
Komentář od ItchyDemon z 8. 08. 2015 v 19:28
RE your question on OpenCamera:
My Android’s built-in camera app is very limited, basically just controlling the flash and white balancing. No geotagging, face detection, etc. OpenCamera supports: * geotagging * face detection * camera timer * rapid-fire picture taking * turn shutter sound off (which I don’t touch, I want people to hear it and have a chance of saying “I don’t want to be in your picture”) * voice-speaking timer for bursts/timer * prefix names of videos/pictures automatically * configure save location * use my phone’s/tablet’s sensores to detect angle relative to ground so I know if I’m holding it level * adjust camera resolution and quality (can’t set it above max. and don’t know why you’d want to set it lower) * a few other features
I don’t know what features are in the default camera app in iOS, though if my experience with Androids from various manufacturers is anything to go by, default camera apps have only a fraction of the features that OpenCamera has.
Komentář od ItchyDemon z 8. 08. 2015 v 19:29
Sorry about the poor formatting of my previous post, I don’t know why it did that (I did include line breaks in the right places).
Komentář od skorasaurus z 8. 08. 2015 v 19:31
Depends on: my mode of transportation [walking? biking? a passenger in a car? having a friend or one of my volunteers with me in my car as drive?], what I’m trying to map, where I’m going, and if I’ll be there again.
Usually, it’s osmtracker + the voice recording feature; I practically never use the poi icons on osmtracker. before mapillary, i’d use its photo feature as well if I was doing photo.
mapillary: use it some sometimes while walking or bicycling and want to capture a lot of details, like in a dense urban environment; I also occasionally drive for my job and have a co-worker/volunteer hold the phone for me; I haven’t found an useful phone mount yet for my s5.
I very rarely edit OSM directly while surveying, with a mobile phone because: it’s too time consuming; I’d rather edit when I go home, my phone [s5, droid] is too small [can’t see the screen well], sucks up a bit of data [I can just capture the info and then edit at home]; As crazy as it may sound to an outsider, I like the interface for JOSM more than vespucci.
I never used any apple apps, so can’t comment on that.
Komentář od skorasaurus z 8. 08. 2015 v 19:31
Also, thanks for the suggestion on opencamera; I hadn’t heard of it until now!
Komentář od mvexel z 8. 08. 2015 v 19:34
Sounds like a great recommendation, SimonPoole and ItchyDemon. Thanks. The default iOS camera supports geotagging and a very limited number of other controls (‘HDR’, flash yes / no / auto, timer and front/back camera.) This is exactly why I like it, and the default settings usually produce usable images. There are tons of 3rd party camera apps on iOS as well, but I haven’t had a good reason to try one yet.
Komentář od SimonPoole z 8. 08. 2015 v 19:48
BTW I believe that post 1.0 release versions of Pushpin are actually better than what I wrote and provide at least some support for non-node objects (pushpin overall isn’t a large source of edits in OSM in any case for my reasoning on that see below).
As to a user friendly editing tool, sure it is possible, just take the effort for iD and mulitply by 10. iD already tries to do smart things like automatically generating a multi-polygon when you split a polygon/closed-way and it serves as a good example to gauge how much extra effort would be needed to expand that kind of level of abstration to all of OSM and where the pitfalls are.
But the real question is: is there ienough breathing space between pure surveying apps and full blown editors (Go Map! and Vespucci) to actually get a enough of a user base that the developement effort can be justified., I’m fairly sure that either you simply want to survey with implied adding the data post-survey at home, or if you enter it in to OSM directly you don’t really want to touch it again and keep post-survey clean up to a minimum. The consequences of the later is that you really do need to able to do nearly everything that you can do on the desktop. I should point out that surveying on the move is not the only use case for mobile editors so they will tend to have more functionality than “add a POI” apps will have in any case.
Komentář od EdLoach z 8. 08. 2015 v 21:11
Today I was delivering letters to every house in a certain area, as I did last year, to do with checking everyone has registered to vote. The boxes of letters come “sort of” sorted, but as I’d mapped all the addresses in this area previously I used OSM to make sure I didn’t waste time zig-zagging across the road to optimise the route (deliver one side, then deliver the other on the way back to the car). One letter was addressed to a named house which, when I got there, was different to the name at the end of the drive. Fortunately someone came out then and confirmed the house had changed name recently, which had been confirmed officially with whoever is the authoritiitve source (I forget the difference between Royal Mail and the Post Office in these instances) but that change hadn’t reached the local council (who was sending these letters). I could have used Vespucci on my phone to correct the name in OSM there and then, but I used the OSM website to add a note so I could remind my wife (who signed up for these deliveries) to let the council know they had the wrong name. Now I’ve created the now I’ve emailed her a link to it (she is away this weekend), and will get around to correcting OSM tomorrow, probably.
Generally, I prefer to use my phone to make notes so I can use a keyboard and mouse to make the changes when I get the notes via the RSS feed.
Komentář od EdLoach z 8. 08. 2015 v 21:13
(now I’ve created the note I’ve…)
Komentář od mvexel z 8. 08. 2015 v 21:47
Thanks for sharing your insights, EdLoach!
Komentář od SimonPoole z 8. 08. 2015 v 22:06
EdLoach naturally you could have created the note with Vespucci and in 0.9.7 uploaded it when you got home and checked all Osmose reported problems in the area too :-)
But seriously it really depends on what you are doing, some times I’ll just snap a photograph, sometimes I’ll enter stuff on the road immediately (typically POIs and housenumbers). I’m not claiming that there is a one size fits all solution, not even for myself.
Komentář od Vincent de Phily z 17. 08. 2015 v 09:26
For what it’s worth (plenty of good comments here already), I’m currently using Vespucci and Mapillary.
Mapillary is a brilliant way to take survey photos; some rough edges still but they’re getting fixed. Photos are the surveyor’s best friend but they can’t be used everywhere, for example when you have to walk right up to a house to read its number, taking a photo makes you even more supicious. The fact that Mapillary photos are shared with the world also limits what you should upload, for example avoid bystanders in the foreground, and poor exposure/angle.
Vespucci has goten much more streamlined lately, simple edits like new POIs or tag changes are very quick to do. I just start editing as I go past the real-world object and finish editing while I walk. For tedious things like housenumbers I just enter enough for a post-survey JOSM fix.