EuleKC
- Mapper since:
- October 24, 2010
- Last map edit:
- October 28, 2024
What I map
I like to map parks, conservation areas, biking trails, and similar places, mostly in Missouri.
I can do GPS surveys of some areas near Kansas City. For the rest of Missouri, I do armchair mapping from aerial imagery.
Mapping tips
The USGS 3D Elevation Program
layer in iD is absolutely outstanding for mapping trails under trees. It’s also good for showing the exact path of streams.
This imagery is not available in all areas of the US yet. Go to https://www.usgs.gov/3d-elevation-program and scroll down a little to see what the current coverage is like. In iD, if there is no imagery at all for the area you are mapping, the layer will just be black.
There seems to be both low-resolution and high-resolution versions of this imagery. The high-resolution version is what you need for mapping trails and other small features. If you zoom in and the imagery looks blocky, probably just the low-resolution version is available. Try again in a few months.
The high-resolution images are so good that they will pick up deer trails and small intermittent streams. They are best used along with a GPS survey of the area, so you can tell the hiking/biking/horse path from other features. If someone has already surveyed and mapped a trail, this imagery can be helpful in improving the alignment of the trail on the map.
As of summer 2024, the server that serves this imagery can sometimes be kind of slow. Have patience and all the tiles will eventually display. :)
The OSM wiki page about this imagery is here.
For regular aerial/satellite imagery, try all of the providers available in whichever editor you are using. Often, one of them will have pictures from the winter, which makes it easier to see trails and other things that hide under trees in the summer. Also try various zoom levels for each provider - sometimes if you zoom in enough, the summer image turns into a winter one.
Technology
I use an old phone that runs Android 4.1 to make GPS traces while walking. At home, I use the iD editor on a desktop PC to display the GPS traces and update OpenStreetMap.
Apps I use and recommend:
GPSLogger by mendhak. Get it on Github or on F-Droid.
This app has never let me down, over tens of thousands of GPS points logged. I use version 99. As of June 2024, the latest version is 130, which says it works on Android 4.1 and newer.
GPSTest by Dr. Sean Barbeau. Get it on Google Play or F-Droid (recent versions), or on Github (all versions).
I use this to “warm up” the GPS receiver in the phone, especially if it has been a few months since I used it. (The phone no longer has cell service, so it can no longer get an updated GPS almanac or ephemeris via mobile data.)
I use version 3.2.10. As of June 2024, the very latest version is 3.10.3, which requires Android 7 or newer. Version 3.2.13 will probably still work with Android 4.1.
Apps I use:
OsmAnd, free version. Get it from OsmAnd.
It’s useful for offline maps, since the phone I use no longer has cell service. However, it seems to restart itself occasionally as I walk around, so I don’t know if I would trust its GPS tracing capability. Running GPSLogger (for the trace) and OsmAnd (for map display) at the same time works just fine.
I use version 4.0.9, as that’s the last version that will still work with Android 4.1. However, downloading map data from within the app does not work, due to this bug - the fix for it has not been backported to older versions of OsmAnd, as of February 2024. To get map data, go to https://download.osmand.net/list.php in a web browser, download the files for the areas you are interested in, unzip them, and (if needed) transfer them to your phone.