OpenStreetMap import

With the recent license change, we'll be able to use OpenStreetMap data in the official FlightGear scenery. Some of the most interesting things to import from OpenStreetMap are shared objects (generic models like windturbines, power lines, water towers).

This article lists open questions, ideas and planes related to the import process.

Object types

This table lists models from the FlightGear scenery database, together with a corresponding OSM tag.

	Tag	Model	Number of objects
Antennas	tower:type=communication man_made=antenna	Models/Communications/radio-*.xml	36,126 946
	man_made=communications_tower	Models/Communications/fernmeldeturm_gruenwettersbach.xml	1 584
Chimneys	man_made=chimney	Models/Industrial/generic_chimney_01.xml	6,486
Cooling towers	man_made=cooling_tower	Models/Power/coolingtower.xml	251
Lighthouse	man_made=lighthouse	Models/Misc/generic-lighthouse.xml	5,148
Obelisks	man_made=obelisk	Models/Misc/generic_monument_01.ac	57
Power pylons	power=tower	Models/Power/generic_pylon_*.ac	2,760,804
Radomes	tower:construction=dome	Models/Communications/radome-*.xml	37
Tanks	man_made=fuel_storage_tank man_made=storage_tank man_made=tank	Models/Industrial/GenericStorageTank*m.xml	46,993
	man_made=gasometer	Models/Industrial/Gasometer.xml	4,423
Survey points	man_made=survey_point	Models/Misc/trigpoint.xml	271,676
Traffic signs	highway=stop	Models/StreetFurniture/Stop-Sign.ac	68,443
Water towers	man_made=water_tower	Models/Industrial/water-tower.ac	17,132
Windturbines	generator:source=wind power_source=wind	Models/Power/windturbine.xml	79,636
	manufacturer=Vestas manufacturer:type=V 80	Models/Power/vestas-v80-sea.xml	39
	man_made=windmill	-	3,928
Total			3,302,125

http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/ lists all tags.

Questions/problems

• Should we remove shared objects that are currently in the database, if they are not present in OSM?

  Gijs 16:18, 14 September 2012 (EDT): OSM still lacks a lot of data, so we cannot state that something doesn't exist if it isn't included in the OSM data. We can be fairly sure though that something exists (or existed) if it is present in OSM.

  Ambush (talk) 11:37, 15 December 2013 (UTC) It's right way to get GIS data from one worldwide specialized source with excellent support from a large community. If OSM have not some data existing in real world, it's better to add this data to OSM and get it back instead of support two GIS databases with duplicates.

• In order to prevent us from adding duplicates, a certain radius around the (OSM) object location should be checked for the presence of objects. What would be a good radius?
• In what group should the objects end up? There is an "OSM" group, but there are also specific "WINDPOWER" and "POWER" groups.

Import process

1. Retrieve a node from the OSM data.
   • OSM data is already available in the database, so we can take the data directly from there, rather than re-importing from OSM.
2. Assign a corresponding FlightGear model (from the #Object types table).
   • Skip the node if their is no fitting object.
3. Check for duplicates within ... meters from the object location.
4. ...
5. For power pylons: Run pylon-headings.pl (from scenerytools) to properly align the pylons in the direction of their cables.
6. ...
7. Calculate elevation.
8. ...
9. Push to object database.