Hi All,
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake devastated the coastal region of Ecuador on Saturday, April 16th. This major event was followed by several aftershocks and has caused significant loss of life and damage to infrastructure (http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/18/americas/ecuador-earthquake/index.html).
Join us to create digital maps of the most affected areas, providing rescue operations with valuable information to save lives and distribute supplies to those in need.
Where: Aiken Center, UVM Campus – Computer Lab, Room 101
When: Wednesday April 20th, 6pm – 9pm
Here is the event page for the event: http://tinyurl.com/jjo7lu5
The most vulnerable people are those in rural areas, which are the hardest to reach due to roadways that have been destroyed. Having an up-to-date map of the area is crucial to helping as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
Anyone can join, even if you have no experience. There will be computers provided but you can bring a laptop if you’d like. Feel free to tell some friends and stop by for as long as you have time for. There will be pizza!
This is the most time sensitive project we have worked on all semester. Even if you have only a half hour to stop by it will go a long way. If you would like to work on the project remotely, there are instructions on how to get going at the bottom of the page. We will be using the hashtag #MapEcuador to track our edits. Send me an email if you have any questions.
When thousands of people around the world contribute to mapping areas together we can rapidly produce actionable datasets when they are needed most.
Best,
Noah
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OpenStreetMap Instructions
· Start by making an account using FireFox or Google Chrome: http://www.openstreetmap.org/ and make sure to check the allow public domain button
· Zoom in somewhere and press the edit button in the upper left corner
· Start the Walkthrough, (the walkthrough can also be accessed by clicking the help button on the right hand side of the screen)
· Once you have done that head to the task manager and choose a task by searching for ‘Ecuador’
· Read the instructions carefully and then go to the contribute tab to sign out a tile, select the ID Editor from the drop down arrow, keep the instructions tab open to refer back to
· Remember to save every 10 edits or so and use the changeset tag that is generated automatically and anything else that is requested in the Instructions tab e.g. source = Bing (this is found in the upper left corner after you press save)
· Click, hold and drag the screen to pan around while editing
· Click, hold and drag nodes on a feature to reshape it
· When creating lines drag a node back into the previous node to delete a section
· Control + Z and Control + Y work well for going back or forward respectively 1 edit (e.g. if you accidentally erase something hold Control + Z to bring it back)
· Change brightness to 100% in “Background Settings” on the right of the ID editor, activating the minimap button may also be helpful for keeping track of where you are editing
· When finishing up a tile (press ‘Stop Mapping’ if there is more to do in the tile or ‘Mark as Done’ if it is finished) it is a good habit to write a short comment about the features that you edited within that tile or if the imagery is missing a section, cloud cover etc.
· If you forget to classify a feature and try to save it, there will be an error. Click on the error message to return to the untagged feature to classify it
· Square buildings with the ‘S’ key after classifying them (create area, classify it as building, then press ‘s’)
· Make sure buildings do not overlap each other, zoom in very close if you think they may be touching
· The ‘W’ key will turn data colors on and off so you can see under edits that have already been done
· If you are just starting out, try not to delete data that others have created
· Hotkeys for lines and areas are 2 and 3
· If the imagery is offset, there is a ‘fix alignment function’ in background settings on the right of the screen
· keep the Task manager INSTRUCTIONS tab open to refer back to whenever needed, this tab details how to classify features
· If the tile is too big you can split it using the task manager
· When creating road networks it’s important that the roads are actually connecting to each other as it shows in the line segment of the walkthrough, try not to connect these road networks to other polygons (e.g. landuse = residential or administrative boundaries)
· Add the hashtag #MapEcuador to the changeset comments that are automatically populated (after clicking save edits it is in the upper left hand corner of the screen)