On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 3:38 PM Anders Torger <and...@torger.se> wrote:
> I think it's more about that most OSMers are interested in urban areas, > street routing and stuff like that, and outdoor maps haven't really been > much of a thing other than for simple illustrative purposes. > Most OSM'ers are sophisticated computer users. Most humans are interested most in mapping the features that they interact with. Most sophisticated computer users live in cities. Those of us who map in the wild areas of New York State (which are surprisingly large; the Adirondack Park is slightly smaller than Belgium; larger than New Jersey, Massachusetts or Slovenia), deal with the problem of "too much ground to cover, too few people to map it." The Adirondack Park, for all that its land area is comparable to the states and countries that I mentioned, has a population of only about 130,000. Only about a quarter of the residents have broadband service; many do not even have land-line telephone. Cell service is spotty in the villages and nonexstent in the back country, even on I-87 (the one freeway that crosses the park). There are no computer geeks, because there are no computer geek jobs. On one mapping trip through the park, I had to plan a 100-km segment without resupply. (The segment included one stop at a developed campground, but nowhere to buy groceries or charge batteries!) The Catskill Park is not quite as remote, but nearly so; it certainly has wilderness areas big enough to get lost in. Given the overwhelming size of the area, and the scarcity of mappers, I don't expect the area to be mapped well in OSM. Nevertheless, for certain features such as hiking trails, campsites, and similar amenities, OSM is the best data source that I have. In producing my own maps, such as what you might see in https://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test4.html?la=44.1408&lo=-74.1034&z=15, I've had to depend on external data sources to a great extent. Even the external data sources are not "boots on the ground" surveys; for instance, I know that the landcover has largely been derived from computer-based analysis of multi-band, multi-season satellite imagery. (The multi-season aspect allows for estimating the leaf cycle.) This is far from an ideal rendering for outdoor maps, but it's at least an attempt at a proof of concept. Because I'm combining so many data sources, the map takes on rather a 'cubistic' aspect, with, for instance, many shorelines drawn for the water bodies. I actually find this to be an advantage in practice. If I see shorelines that vary widely, I know that I can expect that the water level will be correspondingly variable, according to season and level of beaver activity. If I see that different databases have multiple routings of a trail giving a 'braided' appearance, I have reason to expect that the trail in that area will be indistinct and difficult to follow. Indeed, my chief concern in rendering (beyond things like the open problems of better lettering of area features, suppression of river names inside lakes, representation of features such as mountain ranges, valleys, ridges, passes, ...) is how better to manage conflation of features when I have up-to-date information in OSM and out-of-date information in the external databases. Duck Hole, for isntance, is rendering peculiarly because OSM has it as a wetland with a rather different boundary. The Cold River dam failed in 2011 and there are no plans to rebuild. but NLCD (National Landcover Database) and the APA (Adirondack Park Agency) hydrography database have never been updated to provide that information. Nevertheless, hydrographic features are pretty stable and those datasets are considerably more complete (albeit less reliable) than OSM. It's a common mistake for the urban micromappers to think that if the country folk cared about their mapping, they'd micromap to the same level. It's just not feasible to do so. The lack of mapping does not indicate a lack of interest. In any case, I hope that this side project indicates that you're not alone in your interest in mapping outdoor recreation. Note that this particular project is very much US-specific, owing to the fact that I'm building it from US-specific data sources, and its iconography is also distinctly USAian, but I think the principles could apply anywhere. -- 73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin
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