How Do You Start Mapping Unmapped Streets? | Hacker News Reader

How Do You Start Mapping Unmapped Streets?

kclu.org

50 pointsmapneard18 comments

I hope the project releases the data so it can be merged into openstreetmap, rather than keeping it bottled up. (To be fair, OSM already has fairly detailed data on Dar es Salaam, whether from this project or someplace else....)

The project ( Dar Es Salaam mapping ) is using OpenStreetMap technology and Data. And related to the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team ( https://hotosm.org/ )

- http://ramanihuria.org/resources/

- http://ramanihuria.org/about/about-openstreetmap-osm/

- http://ramanihuria.org/news/

"Dar Ramani Huria is a community-based mapping project in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Dar Ramani Huria (which is Swahili for “Dar Open Map”) is training teams of local university students and community members from throughout Dar Es Salaam to use OpenStreetMap to create sophisticated and highly-accurate maps of Dar es Salaam. These neighborhoods (known as wards) were selected because the are the most flood-prone areas of the city." http://ramanihuria.org/about/

And the Mapillary blog post:

- http://blog.mapillary.com/update/2015/12/17/worldbank.html

And the Humanitarian OSM blogpost:

"A day mapping in Dar Es Salaam: drainage in Chang'ombe"

https://hotosm.org/updates/2016-02-16_a_day_mapping_in_dar_e...

Oops, that's what I get for not investigating.

Hurray data! :)

Well then it's odd that the article doesn't mention OSM anywhere.

Pity indeed. OTOH, "Mapillary and HotOSM and Openstreetmap and how that all fits together? Just mention the startup and be done with it."

So:

- Volunteers in Dar es Salaam are using OSM mapping software and Mapillary street photo tech

- World Bank is paying Mapillary (?)

- Street photos will end up CC licensed like all other Mapillary photos

Right?

They must be using the wrong map. It may be off google's radar, but not HERE's. https://maps.here.com/?map=-6.7832,39.26767,12,normal

Openstreetmap is streets ahead, land use, buildings a lot more useful detail http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/-6.7963/39.2658

From a remote sensing standpoint, this sounds a bit ridiculous. Methods on how to map roads and streets to GIS vectors from (public domain) hyperspectral satellite images have been around for at least 20 years.

Technology-focused job creation in Tanzania, though? Bring it on.

We use a 3rd party company for our mapping which in turn uses OSM. This is far better than what we used to use which was Microsoft MapPoint.

Our clients will begin assisting OSM by helping map roads that Google doesn't have as well as boundaries which Google doesn't have perfectly marked.

I'm a strong follower of OSM and will continue to help map my town as well as neighboring towns.

Did some work with a guy from a non-profit in Mexico a number of years back. He had a gps in his truck and as I recall one of the mapping companies would take the data he shaded with them in order to make the maps more accurate, because he was driving a lot on roads they didn't have good data sets for.

This post is about a recent similar effort to use gps logs to find missing data in OSM:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/mvexel/diary/38145

The traces aren't pulled directly into the data, rather they are used to analyze and flag areas where the presence of a road is likely.

> "Google Street View [...] But type in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and you won't see anything. That's because the city is basically off the Google grid"

No, you won't see anything in Google Street View but isn't this article about normal maps?

The article highlights Mapillary, which is crowd sourcing georeferenced photos.

I hesitate to equate it with Street View, a cell phone is not capturing quite as much imagery as their specialized rigs, but a big difference is that Mapillary is accepting photos from anyone that wants to upload them instead of making business decisions about collecting data in a region.

http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/bDCB4DjFwTFMyos0wEXNtg/photo

Looking at all those nice cars. Sure they are not the latest model but also don't appear to be too much older than 10 years. But this doesn't change the fact that they are after housing the most expensive thing I need in my life. Pretty much everything else is extremly cheap. Even the most expensive Macbook Pro costs nothing in comparison (I'd rather use a chromebook with a good screen anyway).

This is the straw that broke the camels neck to me.

To me poverty is dead.

Even a minimum wage job at about $8,50/h is enough to live a relatively financially carefree live where I live. You won't get that nice car (you'll have to compromise) and you certainly will never in your entire life get that nice home.

Yet what I'm seeing on that map is the exact opposite. They should be significantly worse off than me but they aren't (good for them!).

Everyone who is still claims to be in poverty can only blame themselves (I do symphasise with the disabled on the other hand). Don't sell off your kids to child laborers which also means they can't go to school, they will only compete with you in a race to the bottom, causing your own downfall.

The camel died a long time ago.

While I agree poverty is being combatted at an insane rate you are probably looking at a wealthy neighbourhood. Do you really think everyone in Tanzania is poor?

As an example, I easily found less affluent parts of the city:

http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/ksaYF5rId3XfMwVy6jA56g/photo , http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/hfUcafz1arRwlz1E84E5Xg/photo , http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/dsTTqnjFmTAQsaIudIz1Ww/photo .

thecamelisdead: does a picture of Wall Street really show how most of Americans live?

Because you happened to look at a photo of a wealthy part of town, you've declared poverty to be dead and anyone who is still poor has only themselves to blame? Wat?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com