Regarding the data that is stored in OSM, specifically smoothness=*, I wonder if there would be interest in an app like StreetComplete using device accelerometer data to record this. That might be simpler and more accessible than lidar. I think the user would have to be educated a bit (“Please leave your device on the dash of your vehicle or attached to your bike frame or handlebars”). It also seems like you’d want to have the surveyor manually approve each tag change suggested from the data. Just an idea.

This seems potentially similar to the Roadroid system you linked, but I’m not sure whether that’s using a separate dataset, or updating OSM data.

Is the ultimate end goal here to have any continuously connected wooded area be a multipolygon? So most of the western US will be included if so? I agree that philosophically it makes sense that a “wooded area” have something describing/connecting the whole thing. I also agree that lines breaking up large polygons are arbitrary and don’t reflect anything physically on the ground.

However, in practice, I don’t see what it accomplishes. I agree with yvecai that it only creates headaches in the long run.

Finds like this that require drastic map changes to reflect reality are always kind of exciting for me to find, for some reason, haha. I’d really enjoy adding that reservoir and surrounding roads and stuff! :) The big changes always seem more fun than micro details to me!

Nice! I agree that adding things like trees and farmland can make the map look a lot better. (And more useful, both at high and low zooms.) For about a year I’ve been adding lots of natural=wood and natural=scrub areas to the forested places in my area. Check it out!

Nice work! I’ve also been (much more casually) mapping any bike racks I’ve seen on my school’s campus. Still very frequently, I notice new ones even after doing so for almost a year. They are easy to miss or gloss over!

Thanks so much Martin! I replied to your comments on the talk page. And I’d love to come to the meetups, it’s been on my list for quite some time but I never seem to be in the area at the right time. You’re right that for me it’s just too far of a drive to justify going on a regular basis.

I’m hoping to start importing addresses soon - I’ve created a wiki page and a new diary entry for that import. Please leave comments, concerns or suggestions (for the address import specifically) on one of those two! Thanks!

This is an awesome tool! Great work! If only the default OSM changeset view showed individual features like this rather than just a bounding box and a huge list of meaningless IDs.

After having the same initial gripes about imagery offsets I decided to bike every street in my city - for fun, for OSM accuracy, and to get in better shape. It’s been a lot of fun! Check it out! I think really any mode of travel - bike, car or transit can be useful to get some GPS traces put down. Some other users’ comments here point out some great tips as well.

Sytys, I had no idea that shortcut existed. That makes the workflow of moving addresses to buildings seem much more quick and easy.

Regarding street names and ajsorensen’s example, I think the full address would still be 13337 N 200 E, but the N would be contained in name:prefix, and expand out as appropriate to render an address to the user correctly, while avoiding it when labeling the line of a road. However, I could be wrong about this. I’ll do some more experimentation with it in SLC where the roads are shown correctly according to the “ground rule” (good point cschmittiey)

Sytys, I like the idea of importing addresses as points (since this works even if there are no building outlines at all) but, assuming the goal is to eventually have them moved to buildings, I think it would be extremely tedious to go through copy-pasting tags over and over in the areas where there is obvious 1:1 building to address match.

I bet there is a way to download a chunk of data, then click through each building/addr point, manually reviewing them while not having to move the text by hand. If that makes sense. Just click “OK/Next” over and over, and “Skip/manually review” occasionally.

After making a change, it can take a while before edits are shown.

• On openstreetmap.org, your browser may have older map tiles cached, so it isn’t downloading the new ones. Press ctrl+F5 to reload the page and clear browser cache. Also, the tiles are rendered by a server that may take a while. In my town, new tiles can take anywhere from a couple minutes to a few days to be rendered.
• When viewing the map elsewhere, the sources may only update their database once per day, or even less. The OSM database is huge, so it’s not practical to update instantly. For these, you may just have to wait.
• Here is some more information: link

日本語で答える方法を知っていたらいいのに！

I’m not a geocoding expert, but possibly there is an issue with the towns’ tags? Can you give an example of a town that isn’t showing up? In general, correcting the map data is done using an editor, some popular ones are

• iD (Online on openstreetmap.org, by clicking “edit” in the upper left)
• JOSM - Multiplatform powerful editor
• More on OSM wiki

Also, here’s a beginner guide to editing.

Nice work! And thanks for the explanation of your process.

Wow, even H2 subheadings are rendered huge here…

Personally when in doubt, I imagine myself standing in the spot in question, looking around me, and asking the question “Am I in a residential area?” That leads me to the following conclusions:

Yes, include in landuse=residential

• Standing in the middle of a residential road
• Standing in the middle of a public lawn with houses nearby and surrounding
• Maybe some smaller public parks
• natural=wood area with houses mixed in

Not a residential area

• A major road that has houses on one side and commercial buildings on the other
• Larger public parks

That being said, I think the strategy that alangr mentions where you map out rough large areas initially and replace/refine them later is a pretty good one. “Breadth-first” rather than depth-first improvements so to speak.

This looks really good!