Why is OpenStreetMap Map Data Often Incorrectly Offset / Not Aligned Correctly?

Because it’s easier to make mass edits with them. Still, more users use iD.

I was simply thinking about a table where people would specify the offset and imagery to use in their area, to avoid each person using a different offset.

I figured that out. But iD was used by 78% of all mappers in 2024, so this database only benefits JOSM and Vespucci users

yes, but iD was only used for 33% of edits, JOSM alone was used for 59% of edits:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Editor_usage_stats

iD could add support for the offset db if they wanted…

Interesting that no-one in this thread mentions the STRAVA Global Heatmap. By my experience (in the flat parts of northern Italy) they have excellent data. Data that show that for years Bing imagery was badly aligned and had major parallax problems. Since last year Bing alignment matches well with STRAVA Global Heatmap (around where I am mapping).

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I can confirm, have made the same observations. Previously, Bing had different imagery in Rome for the highest zoom level and the rest (up to “regional” scale where it was different imagery yet again, but which isn’t the scale we use for mapping in “well mapped” areas), and there was an offset between these image sets (not sure if and how the offset database dealt with this, but currently it is meaningless because the same imagery with the same alignment and distortions is used for high and highest zoom levels).

the limited accuracy is not a technical issue, it’s a political limitation, e.g. the US military has better accuracy since ever. If the parallel use of multiple civilian services will lead to live accuracy in the submeter range at missile speed I could imagine there will be some additional fuzziness introduced, for security reasons.

I’m sorry, but this is literally the most unhelpful comment ever. I didn’t think that there could be something even worse than a ‘let me google that for you’ link.

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What didn’t you get in Why is OpenStreetMap Map Data Often Incorrectly Offset / Not Aligned Correctly? - #8 by dieterdreist?

Post deleted in conformance with the moderation policy on chatbots. Substance of message is a link to an LLM.

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Overlooked this in the chaos of the forum. My apologies to Martin.
At the moment (!), Strava and Bing are very close in my area. I am mapping mostly for bicycle users, and I am an frequent user. And for us cyclists geometry is more important than for car users: our roads are in most cases narrower than roads for cars.

Here’s another fun question that I dare not ask a chatbot: When will tracing maps by hand over satellite imagery become old-fashioned in Openstreetmap? Also in earthquakes large chunks of land jump e.g., seven meters northwest, so there would need to be a lot of moving of items on the map to catch up. ((Full) Water tanks of course have the most difficulty jumping so far so fast so usually collapse.) Anyway, the items that would need to be realigned due to earthquakes are still much less compared to that due to all the differently offset imagery.