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0 pointspetre4y ago0 comments

It makes little difference if the person is on another remote continent. We used IR imagery to trace forests in Africa, but incorrectly routing someone on an abandoned road in -50°C temperatures because "this route is 30 minutes faster" is just irresponsible. Roads through the African jungle can change every few years. That's why one should prefer local mapping resources to AI while navigating.

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commoner4y ago

Yes, local mapping is always preferred over what OSM calls armchair/remote mapping.*

Satellite imagery, Mapwith.ai, and other tools like KartaView/Mapillary street imagery are still helpful for mapping areas that you have personally visited. They are optional data sources that you can use and adjust to your needs and observations.

I can understand using more caution when mapping hazardous areas and areas that you're unfamiliar with, but there are plenty of other use cases for these tools to accelerate mapping while maintaining accuracy. An available tool doesn't have to be and shouldn't be used in every situation.

* https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Armchair_mapping

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