Is there a way to figure out where in the country our added roads can be found?
Yes, viewing the pending and approved edits from the Dashboard makes it possible to zoom out all the way. That allows us to see the exact location. It is only during the initial edit that zooming out is restricted.
Regarding your questions, there are guidelines on the app once you click on get started. There was also a post on announcements last week to that ends.
I have drawn and gotten approved more than 500km in various countries already. Welcome to the club and get down to business. Good luck
Hi @MortenCopenhagen and welcome to the road mapper users! I will try to answer your questions the best I can based on my experience.
How do we decide which wheel tracks are too unimportant to map? This question came up very often when mapping in India.
This is always hard to decide, many times I ask myself if that track is a permanent one or just a temporary one (like tracks in farm fields created by tractors during harvesting). Usually I draw over the most visible tracks, and avoid drawing all the small ones in fields.
How much “guessing” is acceptable when roads are covered by trees?
It seems to be quite permissive. I regularly draw roads not visible under trees when it looks obvious, like you see both ends of it and you can easily imagine a road is going under that line of trees. I never got any rejected edits because of this.
How do the approvals work. Is it an AI system or is it done manually by other fellow Road Mappers?
The team answered me that the review process involve people at Google checking them. But there is probably some AI involved too as Road Mapper is probably a good way to train AI to recognize roads. I am not sure other users’ work is used, maybe they give the same area to multiple users and see the similarities to validate roads but as far as I could see we mostly get empty areas with existing roads (both created by users or already done by Google before) where we can snap new roads to it, or continue a road from an edit done on the tiles around. The most filled area I could get is a tile inside Yangon in Myanmar where lot of streets were already done by Google.
Do you have some tips on distinguishing rail tracks and irrigation channels from roads?
Rail tracks are usually quite straight when roads around can twist a bit more. Try to find roads crossing it and see if it suggests vehicles turning on it or not. Usually dirt paths at junctions have tire tracks doing the turns so if you don’t see any then it may be a railroad. Irrigation channels are more complicated to differentiate so I usually avoid drawing a road if I’m not sure. I often see purple line drawn on water features and I remove them when it’s obvious it’s not a road. A good clue is to find a bridge and like railroad they can be quite straight too or following field boundaries.
With a better zoom it can be easier to make the difference but sadly they restrict it which is not helping us… but this can be countered by increasing the page zoom. I usually go with 150% so I can see more details and draw roads more precisely.
Is there a way to figure out where in the country our added roads can be found?
As you figured out you need to finish the edit to see where in the country it was. I personally don’t like it as knowing the location can provide information (for example climate, humidity…) and this can be handy to avoid drawing roads on dried river beds like we can find in northern Nigeria or in India. I sent a feedback to the team about this.
As for a place to discuss Road Mapper I am not aware about an official place or dedicated category on LG Connect.
Thanks for your very detailed answers. Highly appreciated.
I reached approximately the same conclusions but wanted some confirmation.
I think we should collaborate on making a set of sample images where we unofficially could share and discuss borderline examples of riverbeds, train tracks, and irrigation channels, etc. And share what to look for. That could be fun. The official help pages are not really helpful on this. There might be some tips that work in some but not all areas.
If our edits are mostly used to train an AI system, them us coordinating might not be the very best idea. But let’s see what the next Ask a Google will reveal.
I agree 100% with @L-C , and I would like to only add a note: I always avoid to draw roads in dry rivers, even if we see clearly a track in there, because I don’t want to suggest anyone to follow a road that can disappear, or become extremely dangerous, after a rain.
Regarding a place to discuss about the program, in my opinion, as it is an “early access feature”, the best option is to “send a feedback” to the team,waiting forKarolina’s answers as suggested by @Bobiisha
To answer my question on the subject: Where to share and discuss Road Mapper experiences? I found an unofficial group on Facebook related to Road Mapper. Not perfect, but pretty useful.
Search and you will easily find it.
I still think a separate new forum or a section here on Connect would be better.
What happens when we skip compared to Send with no roads added. Maybe Save would signal that we agree to what was previously mapped.
We need a better tool to fix offset errors. If we could select all dots within a square drawn with the mouse, and then move them all in one movement. That would be amazing.
I think we need some guidelines on how close we should position the dots. When I see some error and the person added 10 or maybe even 20 just to trace a soft curve on the road, I just give up. It is too much work. I do not add any extra dots when the road is straight. That makes it a lot easier to further edit. Also, we will get a lot more work done if we don’t waste too much time on this compared to getting a lot more reads mapped.
Have you noticed that the system is able to present the kind of areas that you prefer to map? I really like fixing villages. And it seems that over time I get more and more of those. Maybe it is just random.
I have added them here, just to remember them for future discussions.
The interests as a business owner and a local guide should not be mixed since there can be conflicts of interest. So please delete your account here on Connect should your primary interests be your business.
Here on Connect we have a private messages system that I used to contact you. I don’t have your email address. You find the private messages by clicking on your profile picture and then the small envelope icon. Feel free to contact me via private message if you wish to do so. Just commenting on a random thread is not so helpful to other local guides interested in the Road Mapper discussion.
Photos downloaded from pexel are considered stolen on Google Maps since we can only upload photos we took ourselves. They stood out as professional quality photos compared to other photos you uploaded.
If you are interested I could give provide you with more feedback on your photos and reviews. Up to you.
I think we need some guidelines on how close we should position the dots. When I see some error and the person added 10 or maybe even 20 just to trace a soft curve on the road, I just give up. It is too much work. I do not add any extra dots when the road is straight. That makes it a lot easier to further edit. Also, we will get a lot more work done if we don’t waste too much time on this compared to getting a lot more reads mapped.