Archive for category dc

Map the National Mall and Parks

When?- Sunday, January 10 (10 a.m. – 3 p.m.)
Where? – Cosi, at corner of 10th & E St NW (updated)
Smithsonian_Castle
Author: Noclip; Source: Wikimedia Commons

MappingDC is planning the next mapping party for January 10th (tentatively 10 am – 3pm), focusing on the National Mall area and East/West Potomac Park areas. We are still working on setting a specific meeting place.

Although we are doing GIS data imports in DC (we aim to have buildings in by Jan 10th), there remains plenty of details to collect around the National Mall area.

Some things to do during the mapping party:

  • Adding various statues and smaller monuments, verifying existing data (much comes from the GNIS dataset, with substantial inaccuracies), and we can also add description information.
  • Food, souvenir and information kiosks, paddle boats, benches, trash cans (the DC GIS data does not include them for the Mall), bike racks, water fountains, and other POIs.
  • Mark where there are steps and ramps to provide accessibility information
  • Collect data about the walkways and bike paths (e.g. type and quality of pavement), which would be useful for determining where one can go rollerblading or cycling.
  • Other ideas and whatever interests you.

Surrounding the National Mall, in the Penn Quarter/Metro Center, there are numerous restaurants, shops, and other amenities that need to be added.

To take part in the mapping party, you do not need a GPS. We will have some to lend out, and GPS is only one way of collection. We also use walking papers, which are simply low-tech printouts of the OSM map that we mark up with details when out walking around.  After collecting some data, we will spend time uploading the data to OSM, with more experienced mappers demonstrating how it’s done.

A planning page for the mapping party is on the OpenStreetMap wiki. 

We will be meeting at the Cosi cafe at the corner of 10th & E St NW, across the street from the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building and a block north of Pennsylvania Avenue. The closest metro stations to Cosi are Metro Center (the 12th & F St exit) or Gallery Pl-Chinatown (the 9th St exit or the 7th & F St exit), if coming on the Green, or Yellow lines.

RSVP: http://mapthemalldc.eventbrite.com/ (to help us to know how many to expect)

DC-GIS Data Sprint #2

Title: DC-GIS Data Sprint #2
Location: HacDC (1525 Newton Street NW, Washington, DC)
Description: The next mapping sprint has been scheduled for November 7th at 12 noon at HacDC.

We’ll be working on the DC GIS data which has been automatically converted to OSM.

Newbies and experienced mappers welcome!
Start Time: 12:00
Date: 2009-11-07
End Time: 17:00

Solar Decathalon Mapped!

Thanks to some amazing work by Andrew Turner, we have a map of the Solar Decathalon.

Solar Decathalon Map

This temporary map shows what we can do with OSM to not only have a temporary means of navating, but also of preserving historical events.