Hi Guys,
I want to start mapping a lot of the trails in the jungle by crowdsourcing GPS traces and then adding them to OSM.
It’s part of a bigger project to help protect the jungle and save tigers.
Pretty much I guess that I will be adding paths and streams in pretty isolated areas and then directing people to OSM to download the GPS traces for use in their devices.
Is there anything I should know or think about as I do this - to start with I am going to be exploring up at Janda Baik
How do I enrich the map with additional information
- animal trails
- single track
- logging roads
- waterfalls
- swamp
- panoramas
- logged areas
- orang asli villages
etc etc. I think a lot of this is covered but are there any specific Malaysian factors I should consider?
Cheers
Denis
The data coverage is still bad. I’ve been to Cameron highlands a few years ago, and mainly mapped roads and some POIs.
For conservation purposes, the landuse tag http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:landuse and “natural” tag http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:natural are likely most important; on aerial images, natural forests can often be differentiated from oil palm plantations (landuse=orchard!) but not so easy from rubber trees. Swamps and logged areas can be tagged with them, too.
tracks/logging roads receive highway=track with perhaps some additional tags (surface, tracktype).
Animal trails / hiking trails are highway=path with additional tags.
panorama: tourism=viewpoint
waterfall: waterway=waterfall
orang asli villages: likely place=hamlet
If you know the names of the places / trails / viewpoints etc, add a name tag.
As with crowd sourced GPS traces, you should also find out the activity: did the collector go on foot, by bike, 4wd, …? And do not simply convert the trace into a line. Often, it must be smoothed and useless nodes must be removed. If you have several traces for a way, generate some kind of “most likely” way. In the jungle, GPS reception may be poor and the real location may be several meters off.
On top of Bernhard’s advice, I also would like to know the devices that will be used to collect the GPS (or generically known as Global Navigation Satellite System/GNSS) tracks. In the deep forest, GNSS receivers, especially those that are built into mobile phones may not be that reliable (but in open spaces, sometimes it just works).