I heard this report earlier. Interesting.
From Pen & Paper to 3D, Look Who Is Challenging Google Maps.
One quote in particular stands out to me.
"If we have an Internet of Things, then it becomes very important to know where those things are,"...
When you condense and distill what we Land Surveyors do, isn't that a big part of our thing. "Where things are". Certainly that isn't the only thing. In a larger sense it is where things are relative to something else. The thing is, if we knew where everything was then we would also automatically know where they were relative to everything else.
Larry P
> When you condense and distill what we Land Surveyors do, isn't that a big part of our thing. "Where things are". Certainly that isn't the only thing. In a larger sense it is where things are relative to something else. The thing is, if we knew where everything was
Then we would know where everything wasn't!
Somehow, I get the impression that I'm going to soon see Dr. Seuss getting quoted ...
Or Yogi Berra.
> Or Yogi Berra.
Ok, I can't resist ala Yogi Berra....
(I'm making this up of course)
How can we know where something is if we don't know where it is. If we know where it isn't then we still don't know where it is.
I hope I did that justice. That guy had some amazing deficiency in word meaning. But he's dam funny for parsing words.
OpenStreetMap is very popular this side of the pond (Europe) and has been around for quite a while. I have been using it as base mapping for a number of GIS projects I am involved in. I find it is way more detailed and easily manipulated than Google Maps. For example I have been able to extract vector data from OSM and convert it to a network dataset in ArcGIS which enables vehicle routing problems to be analysed. It also works well with QGIS an excellent open source GIS software.
Sometimes the anonymous sign writer seems to have been influenced by Yogi Berra--or somebody. I haven't been back east for years, but there used to be a sign, as you come in toward DC from Dulles, just as as you approached the beltway, that said "All Trucks Must Use Next Two Exits."
Cheers,
Henry
Yes, OpenStreetMap project often offer better quality of data than other commercial projects like Google Maps and very good open source licensing conditions. The good thing is possibility to add custom map content by everyone. You can create your own server with custom map data if you want to. You don't have to worry when you have to pay google for use of their map, or when google update their resources. Maps created by you belongs to you and community - not for one company that can close the project in any moment (like Google closed possibility to create 3D Warehouse for Google Earth).
In my country there is a strong mapping community that do the great work for OSM. Year by year the data repository is bigger. Also, more nad more companies and institutions decides to use OSM in their projects. It's matter of time that that kind of mapping systems (open-sourced) will popularize free (open-sourced) community mapping.
For surveyors it can be strange - maps based mostly on GPS tracks and satellite imagery can't offer the same precision as traditional geodetic (RTK) mapping. Last months i've applied in my GPS reports software support for generate OSM files (that can be read by OpenStreetMap editors) form typical RTK/RTN measurements, readed from Tribmle (JXL), Carlson (RW5), FieldGenius (RAW), Topcon (TSJ/MJF) or Landstar (CSV/DB) files. At the same time i've introduced some procedures to read OSM maps in Android software and mix it with typical geodetic functions like GPS/RTK measurement/stakeout or COGO module. The time shows if that decision was good or not, but I think it will be good to show some alternatives.
