Do we want to update our Maa-amet imagery?

Communities Eesti (Estonia)
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1

Tervist!

Ever since @dgmapping shared a nice Maa-amet WMS link to trace and verify buildings in Tool for finding missing buildings: OpenStreetMap vs Maa-amet - #17 by dgmapping, I’ve been thinking that it would be nice if we included this kind of choice as one or multiple default background layer(s) in iD, maybe also JOSM.

The question is: what do we want to include or do, if anything? :slight_smile: Those vector tiles seem to be a net improvement over the Maa-amet raster basemap, and according to @dgmapping are also updated daily, versus yearly for the raster basemap. They shine especially on high zoom levels and get rid of a lot of uncertainty when drawing building outlines.

I was thinking myself of replacing two default layers (existing imagery appears first, “new” imagery follows, WMS link included for you to try it out yourself):

  • Maa-amet Basic Map with http://kaart.maaamet.ee/wms/alus-geo?FORMAT=image/png&TRANSPARENT=TRUE&VERSION=1.3.0&SERVICE=WMS&REQUEST=GetMap&Layers=CORINE,BAASKAART,KAART24,HALDUSPIIRID,TEED,KYLAD&STYLES=&CRS={proj}&WIDTH={width}&HEIGHT={height}&BBOX={bbox}

maaamet-basemap-raster
maaamet-basemap-raster1920×1097 145 KB
maaamet-basemap-vector
maaamet-basemap-vector1920×1097 104 KB

  • Maa-amet Cadastral Map with a derivative of the above baaskaart, with the cadastre layers activated, without the aerial imagery: https://kaart.maaamet.ee/wms/alus-geo?FORMAT=image/png&TRANSPARENT=TRUE&VERSION=1.3.0&SERVICE=WMS&REQUEST=GetMap&LAYERS=CORINE,BAASKAART,KAART24,HALDUSPIIRID,TEED,KYLAD,TOPOYKSUS_6569,TOPOYKSUS_6573&STYLES=&CRS={proj}&WIDTH={width}&HEIGHT={height}&BBOX={bbox}

maaamet-cadastre-raster
maaamet-cadastre-raster1920×1097 262 KB

maaamet-cadastre-vector
maaamet-cadastre-vector1920×1097 114 KB

On the cadastral map, note that there is no ortofoto layer shown in the above image (which would be layer of10000 in the WMS request). We could still have it included by using this WMS request: https://kaart.maaamet.ee/wms/alus-geo?FORMAT=image/png&TRANSPARENT=TRUE&VERSION=1.3.0&SERVICE=WMS&REQUEST=GetMap&LAYERS=of10000,HALDUSPIIRID,TEED,KYLAD,TOPOYKSUS_6569,TOPOYKSUS_6573&STYLES=&CRS={proj}&WIDTH={width}&HEIGHT={height}&BBOX={bbox}
Which would give us this image:

maaamet-vector-cadastre
maaamet-vector-cadastre1920×1097 301 KB

I personally find it more noisy, having the aerial imagery, but would not oppose to use this instead of what I proposed above. (we also already have the unmarked aerial imagery layer available with the Maa-amet Ortho WMS and TMS layers).

Or maybe we want to just add these new layers and also keep the existing ones? Maybe add “raster” to the existing layer names, and “vector” to the new ones to be added? Or do something else entirely?

Any opinions or thoughts? :slight_smile:

For reference, the layers which iD and other editors show exist here: editor-layer-index/sources/europe/ee at gh-pages · osmlab/editor-layer-index · GitHub, so any outcome of this discussion would eventually result in some kind of pull request against that repo, I’d reckon.
For JOSM, we’d have to modify the Trac wiki pages as I understand it: Maps/Estonia – JOSM
I could volunteer to edit those places I think, but we’d have to agree on something to do before that :slight_smile:

2

Personally, I’d prefer to have both.

As for cadastral map, aerial imagery adds more contrast to borders and also allows you to map landuse/fences without switching between layers, when they only partially follow cadastral borders.

3

I also think it’d useful to keep the basic map, too. It has some extra details. But I’d consider replacing it with an alternate version that includes hillshading (in url switch layer “pohi_vr2” to “pohi_vv”). I’ve found the latter particularly useful when tracing ditches and smaller streams that are sometimes shifted in ETAK.

Maybe add “raster” to the existing layer names, and “vector” to the new ones to be added?

As far as I can see, these new ones also return raster data. They just include some extra layers at different zoom levels, and possibly scale somewhat better due to the lack of detail. So maybe name this new layer simply as “Maa-amet Map” / “Maa-ameti kaart”, as it resembles “Map”/“Kaart” layer used in Maa-amet web maps.

As for cadastral map, aerial imagery adds more contrast to borders and also allows you to map landuse/fences without switching between layers, when they only partially follow cadastral borders.

I agree this has better contrast. Though, I have always wondered if it’s actually a good idea to offer a layer with cadastral borders in OSM editors. As I understand, normally we aren’t supposed to trace cadastral borders in OSM, and landuse normally should be mapped as far as it’s verifiable on the ground.

4

The question is where to place borders. Cadastral borders allow me not to randomly invent stuff. There is no way to verify landuse on the ground if there is no fence.

Edit: if we are talking about residential/industrial zones.

5

Cadastral + ortophoto looks more practical than cadastral + basemap because of fills on basemap interacting with fills on the cadastral layer. I’d prefer the former.