ok here's few more details about the mapping from my perspective just so people can get an idea of how useful they may be with the mapping - feel free to correct me if i'm wrong kitty;<br><br>-The area to be mapped is divided up into sections<br>
<br>-everybody chooses a section and heads of to it<br><br>-each person or team of people has a gps set to log their tracks<br><br>-they mark off the road names, postboxes, telephone booths shops etc etc either onto a print out of mulitmap pages or by hand drawing a map as they go along (which is a lot harder then it might seem)<br>
<br>-when they have done their section (or are bored, cold etc) they then download the gps tracks form the gps and load them into the editor josm (josm is available in the ubuntu repos, not sure about other distros but it is java based)<br>
<br>- using josm they then trace over the tracks adding roads/ details and adding names etc<br><br>- the gps tracks are also uploaded to the open street map - from there they can be edited with the online editor - but essentially the tracks act as legal proof that you have actually gone to the area and walked round it and not just copied from multimap or similar<br>
<br>- there are lots of different variations on the above but from my very limited time with the project this seems to be roughly how it works<br><br>so in terms of how useful you can be on the day - <br><br>you can add details to the printed out map<br>
<br>you can team up with someone see that you both add details and have a good natter as you go round<br><br>you can learn how to use josm (which is easily the hardest part) so that you can go away and add some details of your home area (assuming someone else has already added the tracks you can edit the details and correct any mistakes)<br>
<br>you can help with editing the tracks that are collected on the day<br><br>It would be nice on the day if we can fill in the area around Queens road and popular grove that is currently missing from OSM - it's a pretty small area and so i don't envisage it will take to long (bearing in mind it gets dark at 4) <br>
<br>A really it's just about learning a bit about a new open source project and giving a bit of a headstart to those that want to get invloved<br><br>dan<br><br><br><br><br>