User:Sandothegrate
Hello there,
About Me
I'm Sandy Scott, I live in an Ickle village called Bighton, which is in the middle of Hampshire, UK, nearish Winchester.
I'm off to uni at the end of September ('06), to go and read engineering in Cambridge.
Currently Mapping
Between now (2006-08-25) and the end of September I hope to have mapped a significant number of the roads within a roughly 10-mile raduis around Bighton, possibly moving onto Rights of Way and smaller features If I have time.
I'm not averse to doing the occasional major road in my car, especially around Wincehster, which is fairly sparsly mapped for a city its size.
I'm using a Garmin Geko 301, and just started using the photo mapping feature in JOSM.
On OpenStreetMap
I'll just stick a few of my thoughts up here, and let others comment if they see them
I think that the concept of a free, community maintained World Map is wonderful. I wouldn't be contributing if I didn't. However, I'm not completely comfortable with some of the aspects of this project.
Firstly, I'm concered that the project lacks direction. Personally, I see that it stands most chance of succes (and gaining more commercial funding) if it becomes a useful alternative to other maps for use in Satellite navigation. I think there are plenty that realise this, and there are plenty of others that see other uses, for example replacing walker's maps. I'm not saying either side is right or wrong. I simply think that project should aim to be truly competetive in either one or a small number of areas, so it can build a strong reputation based on a comprehensive (with the features required for the purpose) and accurate map. After that other map uses can be considered
I'm also skeptical about the usefulness a highly flexible attribute scheme is - as it will be only the attributes which are well defined that will be used by a portable satnav unit or a map rendering program. It also allows attibutes with misspelt keys to sit uselessly in the database.
I think there's one thing we could do to boost the accuracy of the GPS data collected: A differential correction system. It would work a bit like OS's RINEX data service from various fixed stations, though I'm not sure about the legality of using their data, or how difficult it would be to set up something of our own.