dankarran's diary
Recent diary entries:
Self intersecting relations
Trying to add the Isle of Man cycle network routes to OpenStreetMap, I've come across a problem trying to add a self-intersecting one (where the route joins itself again in the centre). JOSM won't seem to let me add two stretches that I need to add in. Does anyone have tips on how to get this working?
The missing section is the A26 from Ballasalla to St Marks: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?relation=192635
Coordinates:Posted by dankarran at Sun, 09 Aug 2009 11:42:49 +0000 in English (English)
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OpenStreetMapping on an iPod Touch
On my way back from getting some lunch today I tried out my new iPod Touch as a tool for quickly taking notes of roads that I passed (all of which had already been skeleton-mapped using the Yahoo imagery). The handy little Notes application allowed me to tap out the street names as I passed them so I could enter them onto the map when I got back home.
Benefits:
- Small and very portable
- Nice on-screen touch keyboard for taking quick notes
Constraints:
- Spell checker corrects things automatically, which doesn't work well for street names and abbreviations
- No direct access to OpenStreetMap for immediate editing
- Easy to walk into lamp posts or trip over broken paving stones
- Prime target for thieves
I think I'll stick to the traditional pen and paper for now, at least then I can draw little sketches to aid my memory as well as just taking notes of street names.
Posted by dankarran at Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:18:36 +0000 in English (English)Comment on this entry | Reply to this entry | 5 comments
Stuttgart's Bohnenviertel
Most of the Bohnenviertel and red light district in Stuttgart is now mapped. I went down there after work yesterday with the intention of mapping the area, but shied away, feeling very conscious that I was getting some strange looks, stopping on every corner to note down street names. It was a little earlier in the day today so it didn't feel quite so intimidating.
I also filled out some more bits of the Innenstadt while I was in town. There is an anonymous mapper in the centre as well... if it's you, maybe send me a message so we can coordinate?
Coordinates:Posted by dankarran at Fri, 19 Oct 2007 23:05:06 +0000 in English (English)
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The already-started map
Over the past few days I had to travel to somewhere I rarely go, so I took a bit of time to do some mapping there at the same time. I got back to my computer to find that actually most of that had already been mapped by somebody else. It's a great feeling when you see that happen as it just helps emphasis how the project is really accelerating in its coverage.
Luckily there were other bits I'd noted down that I could add to that area, so all was not wasted, plus it gives you a chance to verify that existing work. Now if only we had a way of giving thumbs up to data that had been verified by another user...
Coordinates:Posted by dankarran at Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:02:45 +0000 in English (English)
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Cleaning up bits of Stuttgart
I've been cleaning up some bits of Stuttgart this evening using Potlatch and the Yahoo! aerial imagery. It's amazing how much of my old data based on GPS tracks was inaccurate.
Coordinates:Posted by dankarran at Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:17:12 +0000 in English (English)
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Improved upon the friends feature
I've spent some time this evening improving the friends feature here on openstreetmap.org, so you will soon be able to add and remove friends (they'll get a notification by email when you add them) and view that list of friends from your profile page. Hopefully soon we'll be able to do some more things like filtering diary entries by your friends, etc.
Posted by dankarran at Mon, 08 Oct 2007 23:28:38 +0000 in English (English)Comment on this entry | Reply to this entry | 0 comments
In Berlin for the weekend
I came up to Berlin this weekend for the Europe Photobloggers meetup. Before coming I checked on the OpenStreetMap coverage and was amazed at how complete it was. So much so that I didn't really have any way of helping out with the mapping whilst out and about taking photos. Ah well, it did give me more of a chance to take photos instead of making notes about every street we walked!
I can't wait for mobile mapping tools that'll give instant access to (OpenStreet)Maps of the areas around you so you can see what's missing when you're actually there and be able to add in extra bits where necessary :)
Coordinates:Posted by dankarran at Sun, 09 Sep 2007 14:32:50 +0000 in English (English)
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Isle of Man Mapping Party
The Isle of Man Mapping Party this weekend was a nice little success, with parts of Douglas being fleshed out by three of us, walking, biking and driving around the Island's capital. More info soon, once we've had a chance to finishing processing all the data we collected.
Coordinates:Posted by dankarran at Tue, 04 Sep 2007 09:47:32 +0000 in English (English)
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Lost in a residential estate
I was early to meet a friend this evening and so did a bit of driving around one of the housing estates in Douglas, Isle of Man, somehow managing to get myself lost in there momentarily. Those road warrens can be so confusing at times!
Posted by dankarran at Mon, 27 Aug 2007 00:26:07 +0000 in English (English)Comment on this entry | Reply to this entry | 0 comments
Stuttgart gets hi-res aerial imagery
Thanks to a recent update (I just noticed today) Stuttgart now has amazingly high resolution aerial imagery, which should allow me to improve upon my work in Esslingen yesterday as well as improve the rest of Stuttgart. Thanks Yahoo!
Posted by dankarran at Mon, 25 Jun 2007 13:29:51 +0000 in English (English)Comment on this entry | Reply to this entry | 0 comments
I thought JOSM or Potlatch ate my town
I was experimenting in Potlatch last night with trying to add an outline of Castletown, Isle of Man and all seemed to be going well. Until, that is, I downloaded that same area in JOSM so I could use some WMS mapping data for reference.
Pretty much everything that was completely enclosed within the new outline I'd just drawn in Potlatch didn't seem to exist in the data JOSM was showing me. Most of the streets (nodes, segments and ways) of Castletown had disappeared from the dataset it seemed.
Confused, I checked back to a previously saved copy of the data and got some IDs to check against the history data through the API. The ones I checked were all showing as being there. And sure enough, when I started JOSM from scratch, the data was once again there.
It was very weird, and I still don't understand why it happened... It sounds like a bug somewhere, but where, I don't know!
Posted by dankarran at Fri, 22 Jun 2007 12:44:27 +0000 in English (English)Comment on this entry | Reply to this entry | 0 comments
Adding RSS to the diary
If you want to track everyone's diaries in your favourite feed reader, you can now subscribe to the RSS feed.
Posted by dankarran at Tue, 12 Jun 2007 09:39:29 +0000 in English (English)Comment on this entry | Reply to this entry | 0 comments
account/diary improvements
I'm working on (currently planning the way ahead, then will start trying to implement) some improvements to the user account pages and diaries. I've started a wiki page at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/My_Account/Improvements if anybody would like to add suggestions, comments, etc. Cheers!
Posted by dankarran at Sun, 03 Jun 2007 20:04:44 +0000 in English (English)Comment on this entry | Reply to this entry | 0 comments
Just testing out some of the new functionality in here. It's looking like a great start!
Posted by dankarran at Tue, 08 May 2007 09:13:22 +0000 in English (English)Comment on this entry | Reply to this entry | 0 comments
