BFS Field Survey Heuristic

Scenario

One is out on the field and comes across an <OBJECT> on OpenStreetMap that is lacking details. One chooses to create a survey field note.

At a later date, one processes the survey notes and realizes that one is having trouble georeferencing the details. Thus all the effort becomes useless in the betterment of OpenStreetMap.

BFS field surveying heuristics

BFS field surveying heuristics are a set of schemas for respective categories in the OpenStreetMap ecosystem to create survey field notes such that the error of georeferencing during post-processing stays minimal. Thus reducing the trips required for field surveying.

Each heuristic utilizes one-to-many quick actions¹ to reduce the allotted time during field surveying.

<OBJECT> refers to the specific OpenStreetMap object and has a respective heuristic in the upcoming list.

Heuristics

Each heuristic's name is in the form of BFS Field Survey <OBJECT> Heuristic or short <OBJECT> Heuristic. To reduce verbosity the list is only populated with the short names.

• Paths Heuristic
• Steps Heuristic
• (More heuristics to come in the future.)

Reference point

While in the field it is best to have a tracker recording² the route being taken, alternatively one can memorize the route. The reference point refers to a point, typically, referencing on a path aka as in OpenStreetMap as highway.

NB: There is the chance that the map currently does not provide any path data vel it is imprecise, thus the recommendation of having a tracker running.

Properties

Each field note can have a set of properties <PROPERTY>, which are object independent details. They have the commutative property. To ease post-processing it is best to adhere to the schema

1<OBJECT> <?direction> <?interval>

With the ? denoting as optional.

Direction

The field note utilizes the direction³ value

1<OBJECT> <direction>

The value may be either a cardinal direction⁴ (quick) or a degrees (slow) ranging from 0 to 359. (Image source⁵)

Interval

The interval denotes the start and end of an <OBJECT>. It has the intrinsic characteristic that one will need to denote the direction of movement such as through a tracking app or from memory.

The terminology is alpha and omega for start and end, respectively.

• start: alpha or short a written as a|alpha
• end: omega or short o written as o|omega

1<OBJECT> <interval>

NB: The reason why not to use s|start or e|end is that the short form conflates with the cardinal direction.

Keywords

Each field note can have a set of keywords <KEYWORD>, which are not all commutative.

• both: the <OBJECT> occurs on both sides to the reference point.

Further recommendations vel resources

• Setup quick actions in OsmAnd⁶ to get the full potentials of the BFS field surveying heuristic.
• Activate radius ruler in OsmAnd⁷.
• Download and import quick actions suggestions⁸.

References