Hi, I already subscribed to the mailing list...<br>The inclusion of the landsat imagery would be a big step forward, I couldn't understand from your mail if you are already working on it or if is ToDo later on. I couldn't find it in the ToDo list for 4.2 so I think you are planing it for later.<br>
I live in a little town near Monfalcone (near Trieste) in Italy and I would love to help contribute.<br><br>I'm sorry if I'm bugging you with that many questions about your work with this project. Maybe if I'd stop you could keep working on it :-)<br>
<br clear="all"> Maurizio<br><br>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>Chiave Pubblica GPG (PGP) reperibile presso<br><a href="http://wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net">http://wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net</a> Identificativo = 0x38BB80EE<br>
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<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 11:08 AM, Torsten Rahn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rahn@kde.org">rahn@kde.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Hi Maurizio,<br>
<br>
Great to see that you've found your way here (make sure that you subscribe to<br>
this mailing list or at least have a look at the archive if you want to follow<br>
the discussions here).<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
On Saturday 25 October 2008 10:16:50 Maurizio Pozzobon wrote:<br>
> Hi, I'm Maurizio, from google groups<br>
> I just wanted to point out that I'm not pessimist about open and maps, just<br>
> about open and satellite photos.<br>
<br>
</div>Yes, satellite imagery is indeed a less easy to solve problem than street<br>
maps. So let's have a look at street maps and satellite imagery separately:<br>
<br>
Looking at the progress that OSM has been making in the last few years I'm<br>
pretty sure that in about 2 years it will be better than google maps for most<br>
of the part.<br>
Even now there are lots of cities that are already better mapped than google<br>
maps already: On one hand several bigger cities in europe are already mapped<br>
with much more love to detail (especially with the important focus on spare-<br>
time activities). On the other hand there are lots of cities which seem to<br>
suffer from the lack of commercial interest for google maps:<br>
Take e.g. Timisoara (Temesvar in Romania): Although it's a beautiful city with<br>
about 300 000 people in Google Maps it's nothing but a bus stop! In<br>
OpenStreetMap it looks like it's extensively mapped in detail!<br>
Looking at the high momentum that OpenStreetMap has got these days (also<br>
compared to Wikipedia's early development) I'm pretty sure that this issue<br>
will be solved very soon.<br>
<br>
For the satellite imagery you're right: it's a lot harder (but from what I see<br>
that imagery is also subject to higher restrictions in terms of Google's<br>
permissions concerning their data).<br>
<br>
I think there are several things we need to approach:<br>
<br>
- Make complete usage of freely available data for Marble:<br>
Currently we are just using Blue Marble for the satellite imagery.<br>
The resolution of that data is just a cumbersome 500m per pixel.<br>
And yes, that is a completely unacceptable low resolution.<br>
<br>
If we'd make use of the LandSat data (the one that NASA polished up for<br>
WorldWind) that would bring us down to 15m per pixel for all continental<br>
areas: That is about the same resolution that Google Earth has got on<br>
"unoptimized areas: I'm currently in Tampere, Finnland which in terms of<br>
population is a 208 000 inhabitants city.<br>
If you look at Google's Satellite photos you'll see that it has got that<br>
15m/pixel resolution although it's the third largest city in Finland!<br>
<br>
So that would already be a major mile stone for Marble (We are talking about<br>
approximately 120GB of imagery here).<br>
<br>
In the next step we'd need to deal with the aerial photos: Unfortunately there<br>
are very few free aerial photos out there: we'd need to identify where to get<br>
the free ones (especially for big cities).<br>
Beyond that the whole issue becomes more tedious: people need to approach<br>
their government or offices of cities which have access to that kind of<br>
"governmental data" and need to ask whether aerial data with a proper license<br>
is available (and/or to persuade them that they should make such data<br>
available).<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
> I really would like to know if you (as a group) are working on trying to<br>
> get better imagery, like contacting the copyright holders and asking them<br>
> to donate them or something like that.<br>
<br>
</div>That would be a task that especially non-programmers could help with to<br>
improve Marble and the state of freely available maps.<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
> About OSM I'm trying to get a GPS to update the images of my zone since the<br>
> imagery of yahoo doesn't have a quality high enaugh to let me add new<br>
> roads.<br>
<br>
</div>Just out of curiosity: where are you located? :-)<br>
<br>
We got a few active OSM mappers on this list - like e.g. Inge Wallin who has<br>
mapped most if not all of Linköping (and probably during the last few months<br>
much of Sweden ;-)<br>
<br>
Maybe Inge (or somebody else on this list) can give you a few suggestions and<br>
tipps on that topic :-)<br>
<br>
I'm myself currently preparing the NASA public domain moon imagery for<br>
inclusion with Marble. Thank god most of the planetary data that exists is<br>
freely available. So beating all other existing solutions out there on this<br>
topic is just a matter of compiling the data together and editing it in a way<br>
that it becomes more appealing to the interested public.<br>
I'm also currently about to prepare a HOWTO for how to prepare satellite<br>
imagery so that it can be displayed in Marble.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
<font color="#888888">Torsten<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"><br>
> Maurizio<br>
><br>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
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> ----------------------------------------------<br>
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