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Before people get all excited: OpenStreetMap barely contains any 3D data. You can get a layout, and guess the height of the houses, if not tagged/stored in OSM,

Before people get all excited: OpenStreetMap barely contains any 3D data. You can get a layout, and guess the height of the houses, if not tagged/stored in OSM, and they usually are not.

kozikow 10y ago
Plugin like this for DroneDeploy would allow you to map your own neighborhood
smcl 10y ago
So OSM doesn't have much 3D data now but I wonder if maybe that'll change if this sorta thing takes off. If the interface for contributing 3D data (terrain and buildings, say) is well done, and plugins and libraries start to get support then we could see some of the larger cities filling out pretty quickly.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  There isn't really support for terrain in OSM. But there probably shouldn't be, there's not really any good way to collect a little bit of elevation data.
  - smcl 10y ago
    Ah my bad, I'm not familiar with the details of OSM. I figured there'd be some vague support for elevation data so that at least you'd have a nice-ish starting point for modelling a city. Thanks for the clarification though
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      One approach people have used is to import something derived from SRTM into their rendering system and use that along with OSM data. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Relief_maps http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Relief_maps http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contours http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contours http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/33.9147/-112.4034&layers=C http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/33.9147/-112.4034&layer...
  - microcolonel 10y ago
    For what it's worth, most GPS chips report elevation (however accurate or inaccurate that may be). It could be as "simple" as using the elevation data in the existing traces, assuming they didn't strip that or fail to save it. Then again, for common elevation data, there are loads of other good sources which can be used in conjunction with OSM, not sure about licensing though.
    - rkda 10y ago
      The problem with elevations from GPS chips are that they are ellipsoidal heights, that is the height from the surface of the ellipsoid used to model the earth. This can be very far from the elevation referred from mean sea level. I think SRTM is still the best way to get elevation data as mentioned by other commenters.
      - microcolonel 10y ago
        That explains a lot! After looking at some traces I started to suspect the same. I guess I should've RTFM.
- tehlike 10y ago
  also imagine when self-driving car companies start contributing their camera data. you could have pretty good coverage of textures and other things.
  - abricot 10y ago
    Why would they contribute?
    - tehlike 10y ago
      same reason why they do opensource. granted, this is probably more on the "intellectual property" and "secret sauce" side of things.
- rmc 10y ago
  OSM doesn't need terrain data, since it would be very messy to store. And you can just combine OSM data with SRTM/ASTER/etc data if you want "ground heights"

Before people get all excited: OpenStreetMap barely contains any 3D data. You can get a layout, and guess the height of the houses, if not tagged/stored in OSM, and they usually are not.

kozikow 10y ago

Plugin like this for DroneDeploy would allow you to map your own neighborhood

smcl 10y ago

So OSM doesn't have much 3D data now but I wonder if maybe that'll change if this sorta thing takes off. If the interface for contributing 3D data (terrain and buildings, say) is well done, and plugins and libraries start to get support then we could see some of the larger cities filling out pretty quickly.

maxerickson 10y ago
There isn't really support for terrain in OSM. But there probably shouldn't be, there's not really any good way to collect a little bit of elevation data.
- smcl 10y ago
  Ah my bad, I'm not familiar with the details of OSM. I figured there'd be some vague support for elevation data so that at least you'd have a nice-ish starting point for modelling a city. Thanks for the clarification though
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    One approach people have used is to import something derived from SRTM into their rendering system and use that along with OSM data. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Relief_maps http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Relief_maps http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contours http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contours http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/33.9147/-112.4034&layers=C http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/33.9147/-112.4034&layer...
- microcolonel 10y ago
  For what it's worth, most GPS chips report elevation (however accurate or inaccurate that may be). It could be as "simple" as using the elevation data in the existing traces, assuming they didn't strip that or fail to save it. Then again, for common elevation data, there are loads of other good sources which can be used in conjunction with OSM, not sure about licensing though.
  - rkda 10y ago
    The problem with elevations from GPS chips are that they are ellipsoidal heights, that is the height from the surface of the ellipsoid used to model the earth. This can be very far from the elevation referred from mean sea level. I think SRTM is still the best way to get elevation data as mentioned by other commenters.
    - microcolonel 10y ago
      That explains a lot! After looking at some traces I started to suspect the same. I guess I should've RTFM.
tehlike 10y ago
also imagine when self-driving car companies start contributing their camera data. you could have pretty good coverage of textures and other things.
- abricot 10y ago
  Why would they contribute?
  - tehlike 10y ago
    same reason why they do opensource. granted, this is probably more on the "intellectual property" and "secret sauce" side of things.
rmc 10y ago
OSM doesn't need terrain data, since it would be very messy to store. And you can just combine OSM data with SRTM/ASTER/etc data if you want "ground heights"