The same person who helped by walking with me at a small park in Hyderabad has now come to my place to have fun at mapping .

Its really nice to have someone who can share the driving recording trails, writing POI's in plain paper .. and finally someone who can edit neatly in JOSM :D

http://look-pavi.blogspot.com/2010/10/mapping-companion.html

Yes finally achieved it despite previous bitter experiences !

This time I approached the head of the muncipality who is an elected representative . She is quite knowledgable and uses google earth which is quite contrary to expectations people have on a politician .

She also was asking me if the stuff I am doing is GIS !! Wow that was a big surprise altogether , I rarely heard someone mentioning that word even in geeky circles :D

Lucky to have a understanding chairman , I went on to explain the 'openness' and 'freedom' aspect of open street map to which she was very much in agreement .

Now all which remains is to take photos and switch them !!

I was told by my dad that there was a map somehwere attached in the muncipality ( town council) I went there and roamed all roads to find none of it . When I asked the clerk near the entrance door . He directed me to the town planning office .

I went inside to see lot of people waited. Patiently awaited my turn to find that I have to ask at another desk where the person incharge was not present . Again waited till she came . Since mine was a non important I let others ask and get their work done .

She told me that the original map is with some head office in hyderabad ( state capital) . I asked when this is a muncipality you are supposed to have one map . She told she has a copy . Then she asked me to apply at muncipal commissioner . After some thought she asked me which 'dept ' I was lol I told I am an independent person .

Then she suggested me to go to some 'singh' in some street who is an 'independent surveyor' . I went to him who is under an office named ' city builders'

Pavi: are you Mr Singh ?
Singh:Yes
pavi: Namaste
Singh: yes .
pavi: do you have the map of the town .
Singh: yes
pavi: can I have it ?
Singh: Yes ! do come in evening.
pavi: sure
Singh: ( after some pause) the map will cost
pavi: how much do you want ?
Singh: The map costed my Rs 5000 (108 $,87 euros)
pavi:(again) ok How much do you want for it ?
singh: I want the same amount .
pavi: cant I get for cheap ?
singh: no I bought it for 30,000(644$,522euros) and we 5 people are sharing it . The amount you pay will be shared among 5 .
pavi: cant you give it for cheap . I am like using it for non profit (didnt mention OSM as I didnt want to give more details)
singh: no . the map is in pdf format and scanning itself costed me 2000(43$,35euro) !
pavi: oh .. I wish you could give it to me cheap ( again mentioned non profit)
singh: map data is always COMMERCIAL ( loudly)
pavi:thankyou for your time

Left with a disappointment !

Let my post not discourage any mappers :D

My mistake to think of taking traces in the night because days are hot . I was at begining afraid of police who ask every 'tom dick n harry ' about where what anyone is doing outside house .

Well the wonderfull thing is was greeted by almost a barricade on the road with the police jeep parked perpendicular to the road . I went on with a confidence stare ignoring them . Luckily they did the same :)

I was going on a mototrcycle and I hate it when I reach end of the road because I need to turn back which is irritating and also makes lot of noise . At one remote end of the road as I was about to turn back .. a chill went on my spine when a dog started barking loudly ( that was very sudden and in middle of peaceful night ) needless to say I reversed immediately but to my dismay I was not on a low gear and the bike stopped . The dog was still barking .. huh staarted and got the hell of the road .

Then as I was going through one road which was bumpy I almost lost control and bike skipped but could get it straight .. I felt the need for a drink and went to a main road and all shops were closed .

I then went on a path which looked long on google satellite view .. I really should trust my life to google satellite view . I was expecting a bumpy road and yeah its the same no gravel bumpy road .

As I was going on this road at one point I heard a dog shout in front . I tried to put a brave face and moved forward to realise that it was A BIG mistake. Its not ONE dog . It was 25 stray dogs in a pack !! They all started barking . Some even came close to bite me . I advanced on the bumpy road .

The dogs were still following me . my hope on google satellite imagery that the road was straight so I need not slow down because the dogs decreased to 8 .. I was going on 40 kmph which was the max possible on the bumpy road .I moved on to hear only 2 dogs close . I went on till I could find a right turn .

… See full entry

I finally have changed almost all the tertiary roads in my town to residential roads on popular demand !

well people at #osm have convinced me that tertiary is only a road which is used for going to far off places in the town while my argument was based on hierarchy trunk-primary-secondary then tertiary .

The town will look less yellow :D

I had two GPS devices .
One was a Iphone the other was Globalsat USB based GPS logger hence I took it with my netbook on a back pack .

Afternoons in India with sunny weather is almost impossible . By the time I got a bike and refuelled it . It was time for dinner. Then I moved on osm.org/browse/way/52010115 which was well lit in the residential area as i moved near the lake side it became damn dark and bumpy .. I couldn't see where the pot holes are . I also had to avoid the vehicles coming from front with a high beam (lights )

I was checking Iphone with xgps ( which is also recording tracks) to check the google map . Sometimes also checking out with openmap app to see if the road is mapped or not . After covering a secondary highway I went on a long road which connects the other roads .

with very less traffic and neat road the journey was pleasant . I just had to sit back and enjoy the cool breeze while the iphone and my netbook toiled hard to calculate the coordinates lol . Suddenly I saw all the street lights vanished . I wondered if it was just a patch of no houses . After some distance OMG the road became desolate . It was dark and foxes /dogs howling scared me off LOL

I entered a no_name village osm.org/browse/node/764883727 then moved on to see that there was no road only some gravel . Hell I went on till I could meet wyra road .
osm.org/browse/way/45033651

After that I went on a special journey beside a canal and was surprised to see people crossing the canal inside it ! Beelsebob at #osm suggested me to map it as weir osm.org/browse/node/764899987

After some apple juice I went on to do some internal roads till I got tired .

I went to 'THE CITY ' Hyderabad for attending a LUG meet. The venue for the LUG meet was a IT park Ascendas which was marked in the maps. But individual buildings were not covered in OSM( google local could give more info ) . Even I didn't map as Iphone couldn't catch GPS signals in the presence of High rise buildings .

Next day my friend Kaushik came with me to a park in posh Jubilee Hills area. It is called Kasu Brahmananda park .

… See full entry

People are marching into my territory . I have to shoo them off LOL

First thing I noticed was rail route which I planned to map later by taking a train from upstream to downstream stations . It came thanks to planemad's clever usage of railway route map .

Next I noticed that the highway junctions on outskirts which I screwed up were looking good . That was done by the katpatuka whom I earlier bugged for drawing a road totally off the place.

Next I learned that LandSat imagery is available and lakes and water bodies started appearing . I had to correct the rectangle looking Lakaram lake to something more accurate :)

LandSat imagery is good . I have to now mark all rivers and canals in my area. Does any one know how to judge a river to be a line or a closed water area ( I mean how much width ?)

At higher zoomlevels . Mapnik was able to show by default the tiles only upto a certain level . Well google does it better . I wanted to add more detailed information but the current rendered tiles show very less informaation than what google does by default .

Is it due to the reason that tiles generation is a costly process and an additional zoom level adds heavy loads on servers ?

Is there a simple way to generate custom tiles with all whistles and bells for a small area say 20 square kilometers ?

Here is a strange case . My town is the regional head quarter for a district ( region of 16029 Sq kms )

The health facilities in small towns and villages are meagre or non -existent both by Govt or Private . The regions people come all the way to my town for health care . from past 5 years there has been a growth in private hospitals and almost every part of a body has a hospital of its own .

Problem mapping: Now as I tag every health centre/clinic/hospital as hospital . I can't differentiate between a big hospital which is more important to a small one.

Mapnik : As I look at the town in lower zoom levels mapnik gives priority to hospitals hence it feels as if the town is fully filled with hospitals and nothing else :(

There are many public buildings in india like

1 . e-seva which is an counter where citizen is provided services .

2 . Zilla Parishad which is the district office ie where district officials like revenue and educational officers meet.

3. collector office - ditrict collector's office

4. Municpality - could be called town hall but there are also offices assoiciated with it .

There are also many areas/land which could be best classified as Govt land because govt owns it . How do I tag such areas ?

Please have a look at osm.org/go/y8Dq4prad-?layers=0B00FTTT with both osmarender and mapnik . Also add the overlay data to get clear information .

I am stuck up at this point.

I add many tags in JOSM according to presets . But where do additional tags end up ?

is there an api which can fetch the entire information I mean something more than what is just shown via OSM

It may sound strange but there are many shops which are dedicated to only selling watches & clocks. These shops also do repair works for them .

I searched for that tag in wiki . Looks like no one even proposed it ! There was one tag for public 'clock tower'

OMG there are many of them !!

Its a fact that western world and its shops are represented in open street maps . But strangely why a 'car service' shop was not represented ? Also why shops like automobile showroom ( stores to buy cars ) are not represented?

I know and quite feel like ranting by saying "that is not available, this is not available" Anyways the better place to talk is at osm.wiki/Proposed_Features#Proposed_Features_-_Shop :(

One strange question before I close this entry .. "how do I represent a telephone company's customer service centre ? "

I marked the platforms for both rail and bus station .

But the platforms are not shown in the map while JOSM clearly shows them.

Has the tag not been implemented or awaiting community acceptance?

These are some dificulties while mapping 'fat' roads and their connections :(

In India while driving we drive on 'left'. I was collecting GPS traces on some big roads.

This road now appears as 2 lines as forward direction line will be on left while reverse direction on the same will appear on right.

I could mark the road as average of these 2 lines. but how do I mark the connections ? For connections i need to extend the actual road which means drawing a non existing road . I also need some practice marking junctions and creating round abouts

Geo tagging really made mapping points easy . Thanks JOSMfor implementing the feature .. loved it ;)

Well the GPS device is not with me anymore :(

Hence have to utilise whatever traces I could obtain in that limited time .

Some of the mistakes I did were :

Points: I should have taken a camera to mark the points . Now I am just left over with routes.

leftovers: I had to leave many routes . Some were due to obstructions on roads due to construction . The others were due to my errors ( forgetting to go to routes)

Anyways now I got an abstract idea of my town and most importantly .. how to effectively use tools like JOSM,Potlatch .

I have a gpx trail and I noted some points which are at a particular time . I cant find editing with the help of time in potlatch editor.

Is this feature available in JOSM ? The default binary in ubuntu 9.04 is unable to fetch maps .. maybe I should download from the website .

I started mapping Khammam town thanks to a GPS reciever inside N82 . I am using Nokia Sports Tracker for recording trails. It also allows us to export in GPX format .

Can someone help me easily mark places ?