Discussions have recently arisen regarding the currency and resolution of satellite imagery in OSM—issues that are hindering mapping efforts. Why, then, does OSM not acquire imagery from Maxar Technologies—the provider for Google Maps—which offers up-to-date, high-resolution imagery?
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OpenStreetMap foundation has not enough money to pay for that
(and that is without getting into question whether there are better ways to spend money if it would be available)
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OSM has funds—though I’m not sure if there is enough—and it is possible to purchase some of the imagery for areas that need mapping; of course, I’m not the one deciding—I’m just making a suggestion.
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Besides, if you buy a large quantity, they can significantly lower the price; you need to ask them for the details.
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I am pretty sure that you underestimate how much it would cost to obtain satellite imagery and then process it into form usable by typical mappers.
Especially if it would be purchased on terms allowing redistribution to osm mapping community.
Though I admit that I have not asked them for a specific quote.
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Could you find out?
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probably I could, but I am not planning to do so, on account of expecting it to be too expensive, not having privileged position or obligation to do this and not being curious enough to spend time on checking how expensive it would be
(note: if someone would be checking, please do not represent yourself as “OpenStreetMap” or “OpenStreetMap Foundation”, unless actually being authorized to do this)
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Only to some of the areas
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You could, too!
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what ? ? ?
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You could find out too!
Vantor sometimes makes small areas of its imagery available for humanitarian disaster mapping as I described earlier. I think it has been used for Gaza, but I have no idea where or when.
I recall they used to make their data more generally available to OSM, but removed the option as they felt that people were scraping the imagery for other purposes.
You could try searching for HOT Gaza projects in OSMcha, but be aware that Gaza is also an area in Mozambique that has been mapped after flooding.
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I didn’t understand.
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you can contact Maxar and ask them about how much it would cost
I would need to do the same actions to check, the same applies probably to everyone else reading this
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I am an Ultra-Orthodox Jew and have website-blocking software on my computer, and it is blocking their site.
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if you actually have one, then remove website-blocking software or use a different computer
(it seems vanishingly unlikely to me that there would be religious ban on contacting Maxar while forum posting on community.openstreetmap.org is fine, though I may be wrong about that, I guess you can consult your priest-equivalent)
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This is an automatic block by a bot that flags anything raising religious or ethical issues—such as images of wounded people or blood. There is likely a problematic image involved, which is why they are blocking it, or it could simply be a bot error, which happens frequently.
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Maxar is currently called Vantor (I wouldn’t bother remembering the name, sure to change again in a year or two).
Anyway just a rough oder of magnitude seems to be $10 per km^2 (archive imagery), even speculating on large discounts for larger areas, just no way the OSMF has anything near the finances for that.
Naturally in Europe there is lot of openly licensed aerial imagery, the problem is that you still need manpower and compute to turn it in to a usable product.
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It is true that buying up the entire globe would cost $1.5 billion, but as I already mentioned, there is no need to cover every single area—only those that actually require mapping (such as regions where ground-based mapping isn’t feasible, necessitating aerial mapping, and so on).
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the OSMFs annual budget is < 1 million £, subtract pass through revenue and you are at around half of that, deduct fixed costs and payroll and you are essentially at zero.
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Is the budget funded by donations?
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