Earthquake response - we need local knowledge for mapping

> I hope to contribute to the relief effort through OpenStreetMap.
> Is there anything useful to do without local knowledge or
> experience in cartography?

I would say that if you have no OpenStreetMap experience at all, the learning curve might be a bit too steep for immediate action. But if you want to take a look and see what you can do, here" target="_blank" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.openstreetmap.org/edit?lat=1 … !.jpg]here is an instance of the on-line editor that displays as a background the satellite imagery kindly donated by GeoEye.

To edit, you'll need to read the general help of Potlach (the online editor) at and take a look at the Haïti Earthquake emergency mapping page to have some context.

Here is a rendering of the latest version of the data :
http://haiti.openstreetmap.nl/

> Some wiki said anyone could help by overlaying the freshly
> contributed satellite imagery, and tagging objects of interest
> for on-site rescue workers (landlsides, roadblocks, damaged
> buildings...) Is this still so?

Yes it is. The obvious and easy work have already been done but, as with any map, there is always room for improvement and for inclusion of more features. There are also always things that have been forgotten.

Just be aware that Potlach (the tool I mentioned above) is a simple web tool for simple edits. Advanced users use JOSM, a much more powerful editor writtent in Java that executes locally.

> Can I overlay satellite imagery over this on-line editor, or
> is there some other tool I (as a newbie, but otherwise fully
> computer literate and not afraid of some trigonometry or
> projections either) should start using?

I started four months ago and I had the same sort of profile as you : computer literate but with no mapping experience. I dived with JOSM right away - it is much more powerful and really not complicated. I stumbled a bit over how to get the satellite images background to display, but the rest I discovered alone and by reading the mailing lists. Once you have the editor running, in the beginning you will be slow, but experience accumulates fast.

I'm not sure if you can add significant value at the moment. Maybe spotting refugee camps that are not noted on the map yet : the rescuers need to know where the camps are. But as I said above, that is mostly under control now.

But anyway - take a look and read the list; you can ask questions there too and there are helpful people there who will answer them gladly. And there is always a mapping need somewhere. At the moment for example, there are inundations in Albania and there is OpenStreetMap work being done for it : http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/h4ck3rm1k3/diary/9264

And of course, closer to home, there is always work to be done - some of which may be directly useful to yourself !

Anyway, I hope I answered your questions. You are welcome to subscribe to [email protected] and come and ask more questions there !