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I used OSM as turn-by turn loaded into my Garmin [1] for my three year drive around Africa, and then to cross North America six times in 2019. I have been utte

by grecy 6y ago

I used OSM as turn-by turn loaded into my Garmin [1] for my three year drive around Africa, and then to cross North America six times in 2019. I have been utterly staggered how accurate and complete it is in every conceivable scenario - dirt street villages in Sudan and Mali, capital cities in same, capital cities in South Africa and all over the US and Canada. I also used it to drive down through Southern Europe, to cross parts of the Sahara and Namib deserts and even in the mighty Congo it had more detail and info than any other mapping source I've ever seen. My hat is off to the OSM team. [1] loading OSM into a Garmin is a nice easy way to get free routable maps on your dashboard for the entire world - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZRQrG6bC3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZRQrG6bC3k

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
I am glad to hear that you found it accurate and complete. I know a lot of mapping of sub-Saharan Africa has been done by foreign armchair mappers working from aerial imagery for e.g. a HOT effort. I myself did a great deal of aerial mapping West African villages in preparation for a trip through the region that I ultimately had to cancel, and I was nervous that without being able to actually verify my edits firsthand, I was introducing some errors.
- not2b 6y ago
  I used an OSM-based map on my Garmin on trips to India; did five trips to Bangalore and often played tourists on weekends; I had a particular interest in the ancient temples of Karnataka. I used a driver who knew the sites well, but not always perfectly, and the map was a huge help; coverage of roads in rural areas was quite good, not perfect but several times got us around closed roads the driver was familiar with and onto good alternate routes. Not sure how much of the mapping was done from aerial imagery and how much was actual GPS tracking, but it was better than I expected. And this was about 5 years ago.
Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
There's a lot of humanitarian groups contributing to OSM. Usually they get to work after natural disasters, so that emergency workers can get around easier.

by grecy 6y ago

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

I am glad to hear that you found it accurate and complete. I know a lot of mapping of sub-Saharan Africa has been done by foreign armchair mappers working from aerial imagery for e.g. a HOT effort. I myself did a great deal of aerial mapping West African villages in preparation for a trip through the region that I ultimately had to cancel, and I was nervous that without being able to actually verify my edits firsthand, I was introducing some errors.

not2b 6y ago
I used an OSM-based map on my Garmin on trips to India; did five trips to Bangalore and often played tourists on weekends; I had a particular interest in the ancient temples of Karnataka. I used a driver who knew the sites well, but not always perfectly, and the map was a huge help; coverage of roads in rural areas was quite good, not perfect but several times got us around closed roads the driver was familiar with and onto good alternate routes. Not sure how much of the mapping was done from aerial imagery and how much was actual GPS tracking, but it was better than I expected. And this was about 5 years ago.

Acrobatic_Road 6y ago

There's a lot of humanitarian groups contributing to OSM. Usually they get to work after natural disasters, so that emergency workers can get around easier.