As you may have seen on our blog, we are soon launching our #CompletetheMap challenge in Berlin. We’ll placed a grid over parts of Mitte and Kreuzberg and will be tracking contributions in each tile to see who can capture the most tiles.
By the end of the three weeks we aim have dense coverage of inner Berlin which we can then make use of in a mapathon.
I thought I’d open up the discussion here for participants and anyone else who is interested. Feel free to continue the discussion in German if you prefer.
That’s not fare!
Some of us are geographically challenged and can’t go to that one Berlin. We have several Berlin’s here, why not open it up to all Berlin’s.
travel193 said
““JBTheMilker we’re definitely keen to run this elsewhere. You can nominate your region so we can aim to have a challenge there in the next few months.””
Thanks for the offer. I tend to haunt the places others have not been.
I’d rather a competition that gave credit to those who made the most white roads and routes green.
Both kinds of mapping are needed. I too prefer to make white roads green, but in lack of mobility and time due to kids, I currently update areas I have already mapped (with more cameras and spherical images this time).
I’d like to have a definition of how “coverage” is defined: To which tag-value-kombinations in OSM does this refer, just highway=* or any else? What have to apply that you consider a way as to be covered, at least one photo on each way?
We’re totally with you there JB. This competition aims to reward exactly that by encouraging people to map new areas to capture tiles. It’s not perfectly calculated but it’s a step in the right direction which we can hopefully build tools around later on so that going to new places is given greater emphasis.
That being said, that could include visiting a place that was last visited a couple of years ago, or perhaps last week if it is an area changing quickly. It could also mean driving the same road from a different angle. These are all things we want to start factoring in so feedback is really useful.
Good questions @moenk. Let me add more information to blog today so it’s clearer.
The main objective should be to cover as much new ground in a tile as possible. This means taking photos along any way in the tile, from a small footpath to a major highway.
We count the number of photos per tile and who has the most photos per tile.
When the tile is more than 80% complete (manual check), we will mark it “green”. At the same time, we will be checking who has the most unique coverage at this point in time. This individual will win the tile.
Update to the leaderboard will be shared every few days via email, Facebook and Twitter.
I know this is far from perfect so we’re open to suggestions throughout the challenge to make it as fair as possible. The emphasis remains on covering new ground and exploring Berlin.
Although germans does not speak that much english as scandinavians this should not be the problem. You can even manage to live in Berlin without speaking any german. So I don’t think there is real need to translate anything on the blog, contributors will understand if they want.
Actually I’m a bit disencouraged as there are no other competitioners. Also I’d need information which ways are missing to turn the cell green, e.g. a map that shows ways that are tbd.
The map with the cells reflects the current state hours later and even now some of the roads from yesterday only show up in low zoom levels, when I zoom in they disappear. Besides that, on my mobile device the map doesn’t work at all, only on my desktop at home I can check what is left.
This was in response to someone who asked for German. Happy to comply if there are others but agree most seem to understand.
I think there should be more competitors once the weekend kicks in. That should up the ante quite a bit. Cells are updated manually so bare with me as I will get to that once a day. They are updated according to the considerations mentioned in the blog: Red will represent 33% or less of coverage, orange between 33% and 80%, and green >80%. It’s not exact though so feedback is welcome and I can adjust zones.
Mobile responsiveness won’t get much better as this our front-end/design team’s hasn’t touched this yet. Maybe for the next one.
This "Complete the Map of Berlin is meant to be a learning exercise, am I correct?
One thing you should have learned from the city map that can be applied world wide, is that there needs to be some sort of indicator what direction (s) the route has been covered in.
In the Berlin experiment you want roads to be covered going both ways. I think this can be applied world wide.
When you are grading performance you find you need to see the direction of travel of the contributions.
We over here on this side of the world need to know the direction a road has been covered as well.
Do you agree?
Yes it’s definitely that at the moment. Working out how we can be more in sync within regions to collaborate in mapping an area.
As for knowing direction of travel, Mapillary web is best for that at the moment using the compass directions if they’re correct. The reason it is not shown on the leaderboard is just a performance limitation.
