Google Map Maker - crowd sourced map making

Google just announced a crowd sourced map making tool. Anyone can help
add features (roads, businesses etc) to Google Maps. Instead of the
normal slow cycle that most companies have for edits that people send
in, this has the potential to be nearly realtime. There appears to be
some review mechanism where edits are supervised, but even that appears
to be done on a crowd sourced basis. This has the potential to be a
game changer.

http://www.google.com/mapmaker

-wolfgang
--
g+: https://plus.google.com/114566345864337108516/about

On 14/12/2011 22:31, Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote:

And Google own all of the data that you input, and there is no way to to
get the data out again.

Or you could contribute to OpenStreetMap, which is crowd sourced mapping
that has been around for way longer than Google Map Maker. With
OpenStreetMap you can download all of the data, and you have the freedom
to reuse and redistribute it.
OpenStreetMap is already more detailed and more up to date than Google
Maps in much of the world.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Google_Map_Maker


--
Craig Wallace
http://craig.neogeo.org.uk
http://www.neogeo.org.uk

On 2011-12-14 17:31 , Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote:

Wiki-maps in effect.

Good. As long as there is adult supervision.


--
"I see!" said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw.

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Wiki-maps in effect.

A word with many connotations, but it's not wikipedia like unless
there's a free reciprocal license.
It could be proprietary-licensed-wiki-like though, but that's not what
many people would expect from "wiki-maps".

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On 2011-12-14 17:31 , Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote:

I just added a small subset of trails to some local woods. With Google
Earth open on one screen (with GPS tracks) and Google Map Maker on the
other.

Awkward at best. I'd estimate a 10 hour job to do all of the trails in
there. And then I have to wait for someone to audit them (?).

If it would at least import the recorded GPS trails then allow them to
be refined afterwards it would be a lot easier.

And it's difficult (impossible actually) to correct the first or last
point of a line segment (at least I can't figure it out). I
accidentally double clicked and the line closed. I can add intermediate
points, but can't correct the position of the terminating point.

I might be doing the same to make an orienteering map - so I'll probably
save my efforts for that.

--
"I see!" said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw.