mappinsauce's Diary
Recent diary entries
Project: Mapping Bell Island in Newfoundland and Laborador, Canada
Posted by mappinsauce on 26 March 2025 in English. Last updated on 24 April 2026.Project Outline
This entry is a statement of my intention to map out Bell Island, Newfoundland. I will start south and move my way north as the south is less densely detailed and work will likely be quicker. My intended workflow is stated below, where I will not move on to the next item on the list until the first item has been mapped as thoroughly as possible on the entire island. While I am experienced at working with geospatial data, this is my first project on OSM so any suggestions/comments on my work are appreciated.
I will provide updates through future diary entries as my work progresses. This is a casual project so I am not setting any timelines.
Workflow
- Buildings & associated roads
- Terrain
- (Might drop due to lack of local knowledge) Secondary urban & rural characteristics (cemeteries, parking lots, etc.)
Update 1: Initial Thoughts and Slight Workflow Alteration
(2025/03/26) After spending a bit of time mapping and getting a feel for the scope, type of work this project will require, it’s clear that this project will unsurprisingly take quite a bit of time.
To make this process as engaging as possible, I think it would be wise to alter my workflow slightly. Initially, I planned to start with only mapping buildings for the entire island. However this would mean hours and hours of monotony, so I think a good workaround here is to keep my current workflow structure, but just apply it to a smaller scale. For example, I’ll pick smaller sections of the island to do both the building and the terrain mapping. This will give the work more variety and also make it more clear which areas I’ve already worked on.
Update 2: Midway
(2025/04/15) At this point I’ve officially mapped out half of Bell Island, Newfoundland. Although I’m geographically halfway, the southern portion which I’ve mapped out is much less geospatially dense than the northern portion, so I’d estimate I’m about a third of the way through this project.