New imagery for Thailand

Hi,

Bing released (is is in the process of releasing) a new batch of satellite imagery for south-east asia.

Bigger cities like Hua Hin or Lampang are still not covered. Other areas received updated imagery.
From what I can tell alignment looks quite ok. Anyway: Please be careful when using and always check alignment by loading GPS tracks.
If you have GPS tracks of some area don’t forget to upload them to OSM so others can benefit from them as well.

To get an overview of the coverage you can check
http://compare.osm-tools.org/

there you can enable a layer to show the covered area. Using this service you can zoom in. If you see roads from the google base layer then these are missing in OSM. If the area has coverage you can get the geometry from bing (JOSM remote control button will load the visible area). A lot of the tertiary 4digit roads are still missing.

Stephan

Stephan,
Any chance of modifying this tool to show major place names, or at the least, Lat & Long.
I’m using Potlatch so the Remote button doesnt help when going from the tool to the editor, and its a heck of a job finding out where u were looking !

  • perhaps make an overlay of Place names ?
    Cheers, Russ

Hi Russ,

rendering place names on top is a bit tricky as it is either not enough names or too many. and they would need to be bilingual as well using up even more space.

What i did instead was adding two additional links in case no remote control was detected. With these you can launch Potlatch2 or iD at the current zoom level/position.
Hope this makes your work-flow a bit easier.

Currently it is opening them in the same browser window. Let me know if it would be more convenient to use a new window instead.

Stephan

PS: I have a great idea in the work making it even easier to find places needing improvements. Stay tuned…

Hi Stephan,
Will check it out in a mo.
I have already put the proverbial “cat amongst the pigeons”, but promoting OSM on the Rideasia forum, which was created by Phil at Riders corner … you can view all the posts even without being a member … the link is
http://www.rideasia.net/motorcycle-forum/gps-help-discussion/3814-how-get-install-openstreetmap-osm-your-computer-gps.html
The chap known as Lone Rider (Auke Koopmans, in real life) has been a very valuable contributor over the years, and plots thousands of km personally in his 4x4, which go towards making the commercial maps.
I note he has expressed an interest in maybe giving it to the OSM community, which wud be very gratefully received. I’ll speak to him at some convenient time and gauge his interest.
On another note, I’m going to do a screen shot of your Bing/Laos coverage, and add to this thread, encouraging people of the OSM facility. I know a lot want to plan trips to explore Laos, but lack the info on the sort of terrain they may encounter.
To me, OSM & Lambertus (who I use for the Garmin translation) bridges the gap between where I wud like to explore, and having some form of GPS guide to show me the rough way, when I actually get there.
Cheers,
Russ

Appreciate the Potlatch/ iD button … that solves the problem perfectly. And same Browser window is fine.
As a side note … whats the general feeling about iD as an editor … I’m reluctant to move if its just a “bit” better, and Potlatch 2 does all I think I need ?
Russ

Russ, better wait a few more days with the coverage screen shots. It does not yet cover the latest Bing additions. With these the coverage logic needs to be inverted. Instead of mentioning which places have coverage it needs to say which places lack coverage.
I have to cut the multi-polygons in a few smaller pieces to better cover the different countries. The older approach is no longer suitable.

This is a preparation for a new service I have in the works which will do some analysis based on coverage.

The individual coverage boundary ways will stay like they are. So if you come across places which have updated coverage not yet reflected by the boundary ways it is fine to extend the ways. Don’t forget to clear the cache in case you not see updates. Microsoft is still adding updates and has not yet announced the release on their website.

Stephan

I have tried the iD Editor a few times but find it slow, much slower than either Potlatch or JOSM. On the whole, the UI implementation is better then Potlatch but IMO the whole thing needs more work before it will be a suitable replacement for JOSM.

I noticed some recent Bing satellite image updates. Unfortunately, some areas which were previously visible are now obscured by clouds, and many areas still have images from during the 2011 floods. Does anyone know if it is allowed or at all possible to access older versions of the satellite images? I’d previously asked on the help site but no one seemed to have an answer.

Unfortunately the documentation of the request URL for the imagery is not that well documented.

There is some sort of version identifier in the URL. But requesting some older version seams to have no effect. So I’m not aware of any way to go back in time.

The Bangkok area still has some older Yahoo imagery. You might want to try this.

Besides that the only other option is to mail Microsoft and complain about using imagery from the big flood or with cloud coverage.
If enough people complain it might be changed. keep friendly and remember Bing is mainly not for OSM but for other purposes, so probably give them better reasons why you want an update than saying for OSM.

In the Yasothon province, and perhaps other areas, I notice a substantial shift between level 18 and level 19 of the bing satellite images. Given the lack of gps data, which level is more correct? example location: 104.23345 , 16.42438. Tx

Hi,

without any reference point it’s impossible to tell. From what I’ve seen the newer imagery was usually better aligned than older ones. So checking the imagery date might help. richt-click in JOSM.

Still it would be best to reduce armchair mapping from these images to a minimum unless some sort of reference point is found to correct the alignment. So major highways should be worth the risk of being misaligned. But tracing building outlines and all residential roads probably isn’t.

Stephan

I noticed Bing is rolling out updates to the imagery. Some area got more coverage.

Other areas have less coverage than before. For example in Doi Saket all the medium zoom level imagery is gone. You can zoom in to zoom 18 to get some old imagery. I have no idea whether this will be removed as well or whether the missing mid-zooms will come back.

If you have a specific area on your todo-list it might be best to start digitizing the geometry now as long as it is still available.