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Timely. Just started a project to document Bosnia and Hercegovina's remaining minefields on OSM. The build system consumes PDFs from the European Union Force as
by nathancahill 7y ago
Timely. Just started a project to document Bosnia and Hercegovina's remaining minefields on OSM. The build system consumes PDFs from the European Union Force as they are updated, georeferences them and pushes the features to OSM. Many tile sets on live maps are updated within the week!
- teekert 7y agoDo you have a website or are the mines (or minefields) already in osm(and)?
- nathancahill 7y agoThere are a few on OSM, maybe 5%. Don't have website since it's just a one man effort, basically a cron job that runs nightly on a server. Might spin up a little website with docs/information.
- teekert 7y agoNice, maybe a link to a location where the mines are? I think this is great initiative that makes the world safer. Edit: I'm now on some NSA list, aren't I? Hi guys! Just finished Snowden's book, it was great!
- nathancahill 7y agoHere's the raw PDFs before georeferencing: http://www.euforbih.org/eufor/index.php/bih-minefield-maps http://www.euforbih.org/eufor/index.php/bih-minefield-maps Here's an example mine area: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/627538334#map=17/44.32936/16.33294 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/627538334#map=17/44.32936/...
- teekert 7y agoVery cool, thanx.
- Freak_NL 7y agoYou might want to consider proposing a sub-tag for military=danger_area specifically for mines. Eventually maps can choose to add rendering like a mine icon in addition to the danger area markings. I would suggest adopting hazard=minefield (in addition to the other tags you use) for use on paths/roads/routable objects going over or skirting the minefields as well. The hazard-tag is a proposal, but has been used in the field a good number of times (coincidentally, a few times in Serbia).
- nathancahill 7y agoYes, new areas added by this system will have hazard=minefield.
- 74ls00 7y agoI’d certainly be interested in information about how it works - I’m sure many others would be interested in reading too
- chrisseaton 7y ago> Just started a project to document Bosnia and Hercegovina's remaining minefields on OSM. That's brave - one bug and you could have people walking into a minefield that you've told them was somewhere else.
- rpastuszak 7y agoArguably better than nothing—kudos to nathancahill for doing something genuinely meaningful.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jackpirate 7y agoAlso arguably worse than nothing as it could make people living in the area more complacent. In this case, I think it really depends on the use-cases and whether proper warnings are displayed.
- nathancahill 7y agoI mean, you wouldn't just drive in to a lake if it wasn't on your map.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOW_kPzY_JY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOW_kPzY_JY
- nathancahill 7y agoDefinitely doesn't denote the absence.
- nezirus 7y agoYeah, but the first rule for hiking through the countryside in war torn regions like Bosnia is to avoid known areas of conflict (the war ended in 1995., so memories are fading) and known (or suspected) minefields. This helps a lot, but it's not a replacement for brain.
- input_sh 7y agoThey're already quite clearly marked, it's just that there's no digital map of them.
- Xelbair 7y agoDo you georeference them by grid coordinates and corners of the map or are doing something not so simple?
- nathancahill 7y agoYes, using the topo map grid lines.
- elliekelly 7y agoDo you mind sharing how you became interested in/got started on such a project?
- nathancahill 7y agoI do map-related consulting full-time and use OSM heavily, both for work and for mountaineering. Currently living remotely in the Balkans and saw the need.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 7y agoWould it be possible to have the European Union Force update OSM directly?
- nathancahill 7y agoI have a meeting with them tomorrow to ask them, but I'm not hopeful. The current setup is fairly low-tech on their end.
- stereo 7y agoGood luck for your meeting! They might have at least georeferenced source files, no? You might have an easier time convincing them to work with you if you point out that this is the best and easiest way of getting the location of the mine fields into many people's phones and pockets.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- nathancahill 7y agoThanks. Georeferenced files, raw data, and using OSM directly are the 3 asks.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoLet us know if there's anything we can do to help.
- stereo 7y agoHow did your meeting go?
- rmc 7y ago> pushes the features to OSM Do you have any more documentation on what you're doing, how you're doing it? That sounds interesting. Any OSM Wiki page about the project?
- nathancahill 7y agoI'm writing up some docs with info. I'll send you a link.