andrewpmk's diary
Recent diary entries:
Keepright is now available in Canada
I noticed that as of a few days ago, the keepright validation tool is now available in Canada. This is a good tool for cleaning up after the GeoBase import, as ways from the GeoBase dataset need to be connected to the existing data, and this tool makes it much easier to find areas where this has not been done yet. Check it out at keepright.ipax.at.
Posted by andrewpmk at Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:21:59 +0000 in English (English)Comment on this entry | Reply to this entry | 0 comments
Lost in Gatineau Park
Had an interesting adventure yesterday when we were lost in Gatineau Park in Quebec, near Ottawa. We were trying to drive to the Mackenzie King estate which is located within the park but the main road to it (Gatineau Parkway) was closed except to bikes and pedestrians on Sunday between 6am-11am; we were trying to get there just before 11am when the Mackenzie King estate opened. It turns out the only way to get there before 11am is to take various back roads. We got lost for a while (OSM was still incomplete there and the commercial maps were very unclear), but I eventually figured my way using some official park maps. We parked in parking lot P7 (to the northeast of Lac Kingsmere), which was clearly intended for hikers in the park, not visitors to the King Estate; the official maps were deliberately confusing as to how to get from it to the King Estate, because you were supposed to park at two pay parking lots (south of Lac Kingsmere), but they were only accessible from Gatineau Parkway which was closed before 11am.
Lesson learned: to get to the Mackenzie estate, take exit 12 off Autoroute 5, turn left on Chemin Old Chelsea, left again on Chemin Kingsmere, and continue to parking lot P7 (which is free). Then walk south on Chemin Swamp and west on Chemin Barnes until you get to the estate. Ignore all signs to the Mackenzie Estate because they direct you to the two pay parking lots.
Note to self: There is still quite a lot of mapping to be done here. In particular, GeoBase import is still needed.
Coordinates:Posted by andrewpmk at Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:31:55 +0000 in English (English)
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Adding road names from the Statscan dataset
I have been manually adding road names to previously traced data from the Statistics Canada 2009 road names dataset, which OpenStreetMap has got permission to use. I am currently adding road names to the wonderful 1970's-era "new town" of Bramalea, Ontario, Canada (part of Brampton now) where all the roads in a given area start with a given letter e.g. Addington, Albion, Alexandria, Aloma, Ascot, etc. See Wikipedia.
If you want to help, download the "road network" data from here. The license is compatible with OSM. Select the year (2009), the language (English), the format (several available, shapefile works best in OpenJump), and the area (Ontario). Then download a program called OpenJump, load the file, and start adding road names. Note that this data hasn't been imported directly into OpenStreetMap as the roads in that dataset don't quite line up with reality, but the road names are all correct and can be added with the assistance of Yahoo imagery, GPS traces or Geobase data.
Coordinates:Posted by andrewpmk at Sun, 16 Aug 2009 08:06:13 +0000 in English (English)
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Ed Mirvish Way
Added Ed Mirvish Way, formerly Duncan Street, which was officially renamed today around noon by the city in honour of the late Ed Mirvish, whose company owns several theatres in the area. Unfortunately the city's GIS system seems to have beat me to it.
Coordinates:Posted by andrewpmk at Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:37:46 +0000 in English (English)
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Better weather = more mapping
The weather was better today (+5 degrees C) so I went mapping again around Eglinton & Victoria Park today. I hadn't been doing much mapping in January because of the cold. Unfortunately reading week is coming soon which means essays, essays and more essays due right after so I won't be able to map as much as I like.
Coordinates:Posted by andrewpmk at Sun, 08 Feb 2009 01:30:17 +0000 in English (English)
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The mapping companies get it wrong again...
(Finally) mapped and uploaded a big new subdivision in Kingston, Canada. It is still under construction, so I will have to come back in a year or so to map new roads. This one is by far the largest. As usual, the mapping companies got it completely wrong. Navteq has a slightly outdated but otherwise correct map. TeleAtlas, on the other hand, has downright wrong data; its map appears to be based on an old plan of the subdivision. Not only does it show roads that have yet to be built, but it shows a quite different layout from the parts that have been built. It is utterly and completely wrong! (I reported it to them via the online form, but I fully expect that it will take them about 5-10 years to fix, by which time OSM will be fully complete.)
See http://geo.topf.org/comparison/index.html?mt0=googlemap&mt1=tah&lon=-76.5552449&lat=44.2630579&z=15 and feel free to laugh.
Coordinates:Posted by andrewpmk at Sun, 06 Jul 2008 07:59:48 +0000 in English (English)
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New GPS
Purchased new GPS (Garmin eTrex Legend HCx) last Wednesday. The accuracy is quite good - usually about 5m after obtaining a good fix with WAAS on (it's off by default). Have been using it in conjunction with Yahoo photos to map parts of Toronto - it's much faster to use it plus a voice recorder than it was to use pencil and paper and it allows me to map areas that are difficult to make out on the sat photo. Haven't mapped any areas with no sat photos - yet - but undoubtably I will find some new subdivisions soon enough.
Coordinates:Posted by andrewpmk at Fri, 09 May 2008 15:17:47 +0000 in English (English)
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Mapped all the buildings in U of T and Ryerson
Mapped (almost) all the buildings in University of Toronto (where I'm going to school right now) and nearby Ryerson University, tracing their outlines using Yahoo imagery. I missed a few buildings because they were missing signs or were under construction. I added the addresses of most of the buildings (shown on the signs) so if someone gets a geocoder running then it can use them. They should show up on Mapnik tomorrow.
Coordinates:Posted by andrewpmk at Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:14:46 +0000 in English (English)
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TIGER
Sorry about that. The email is dave (ATSYMBOL) sr71 (DOT) net. See the dev mailing list for more info.
Posted by andrewpmk at Sat, 01 Sep 2007 21:23:42 +0000 in English (English)Comment on this entry | Reply to this entry | 0 comments
New York
The TIGER import has restarted again. If you want data for New York City, just email Dave Hansen, the person who is doing the imports, at , and ask him to move New York up the queue.
Posted by andrewpmk at Sat, 01 Sep 2007 21:14:25 +0000 in English (English)Comment on this entry | Reply to this entry | 0 comments
