I am able to go to a 4-day vacation in Batangas City, where I am continually surveying the area and making more additions of places. Now, I am working on political mapping: mapping barangays and sitios/puroks, and their boundaries.

First work is missing or misplaced businesses and buildings or incorrect or missing business information. Bing has enough imagery to trace buildings, but for a newer building, it will be different. You would have to trace its outlines based on the building you saw on the survey. Business information (name, address, telephone/cell phone numbers, websites, etc.) can be obtained by a survey (if it is possible, a photo can help). A lot of businesses are still missing, especially on Poblacion, Alangilan, Pallocan West, and Libjo, but I am able to take advantage of going to SM City Batangas, Montemaria, and a resort in Libjo (I mapped it later). Also, photos taken from my new tablet (a Samsung Galaxy Tab A), combined with lat-long information (taken from satellites), are one of my sources of data I use. I made a move to Pan de Manila and South Star Drug in Kumintang Ibaba by photos with geo-location. I added a pedestrian crossing to the map, but, I added a nearby doctor’s office along with it, as it appeared on the photo. I added a new building near the south end of Jose P. Laurel Highway (named Manila-Batangas Road by the Department of Public Works and Highways on most of its length, or locally, National Road/Highway or Hilltop Road)

The second thing to work on is political mapping: mapping missing barangays and sitios/puroks, and barangay and sitio/purok boundaries, as well as the city boundary itself (yet, it was partly approximations, and further edits are to be done). So far, I am able to add barangay boundaries, with the first barangay boundary to add is the boundary of Alangilan. It was followed by boundaries of Barangay 17, 19, and 20 Poblacion, Santa Clara, Cuta, Pallocan West, Gulod Labac, and Libjo. For the sitios/purok, I started to map the boundaries of Duluhan in Cuta and Monte Maria in Pagkilatan. So far, I mapped 9 barangay boundaries and 2 sitio/purok boundaries. I hope more boundaries will be mapped in the future.

The third thing is mapping schools and barangay halls. On a trip to Montemaria and back to Duluhan, I took the advantage to map schools and barangay halls on the seaside barangays of Pinamucan and Mabacong. On barangay Alangilan, I added Casa del Bambino Montessori. School and barangay hall mapping, however, is slowly progressing in Batangas City, but may progress even further anytime in the future.

Indoor mapping of SM City Batangas is still slow, but I am able to add a few businesses, like Ace Hardware, or rename businesses, based on a physical survey I done.

Mapping of Batangas City is progressing, but slowly, and still, the area I prioritize in mapping Batangas City is the urban area, which forms part of the Batangas-San Pascual-Bauan urban area (“Metro Batangas”).

The map of San Pedro, Laguna in OpenStreetMap is still incomplete in many aspects. Places, businesses, and schools have been missing or still unnamed. Although I am currently a resident of San Pedro, I have no chance of exploring other parts of my city for mapping here other than my knowledge or a physical survey of areas I have been.

But, mapping the area is progressing slowly with my contributions. On Barangay Landayan, I am able to add a few places, like a 7-Eleven branch, an Alfamart branch, and a small school, to name a few. But soon, with me have been back to Landayan to visit the Santo Sepulcro Shrine, the home of “Lolo Uweng”, I am able to add more, like some local businesses. With a chance to take a route passing through barangays Pacita I, Chrysanthemum, San Vicente, Calendola, Sampaguita, and GSIS Village (I though of these being a part of Barangay San Antonio, but actually a separate barangay), I got the advantage to map a few places, like a BPI branch, a Ministop branch, two Alfamart stores, some schools (Laguna Northwestern College in Pacita I, and Diwalan Christian Academy and Jesus the Risen Savior School).

Also, I am able to fix the boundaries of San Pedro with the city of Dasmariñas, and a part of San Pedro’s boundary with Biñan, but a part still needs to be fixed.

Along with city boundary fixing, I am working on barangay boundaries, starting with San Antonio and San Vicente. The former is inaccurate, but with discovering GSIS Village, I made fixes to the current boundary. San Vicente’s boundary is mainly accurate, based on the boundary after the separation of Pacita I and Pacita II.

Still, I do not have a chance to go on the southwestern part of San Pedro (which includes the barangays of Langgam, Riverside, United Bayanihan, and United Better Living) and the northeastern part (includes the barangays of Cuyab and San Roque). Currently, schadow1 is working on adding places on the southwest part of San Pedro as part of mapping for #ProjectNOAH by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC)

I see maps of malls in the Philippines, in OpenStreetMap showing only places, but not the paths to take to reach them. And to solve this, I am mapping the paths to take, but with malls having more than one floor, pathways on the mall may differ by floor, and mapping every floor may be considered.

I am involved in some indoor mapping on some malls in the Philippines. But, indoor mapping is not only limited to one floor; I am mapping every floor to counter some challenges in indoor maps, like unrealistic routing.

I am currently working on indoor mapping of shopping malls in Muntinlupa, with one nearly complete, two incomplete, and one not yet started. Places are also added, closed, or moved every time, so, they need regular updating.

Challenges include mapping mall parking lots with more than one floor, places on other floors and the mapping of the paths inside. Mapping parking lots with more than one floor can be somewhat difficult, and it may have effect on routing. Places inside malls may be on other floors, so, I add the “layer” tag on a place. Paths inside malls may differ by floor level, so, I add every path on each floor, plus the stairs or escalators, to prevent routing making an unrealistic route.

I can only map a few, mostly I have been several times, and this may be helpful to those interested in indoor mapping of malls in the Philippines, and even in other countries.

Please see this example, that I have been working with

The former way of mapping private subdivision roads is to mark all roads within the subdivision’s (or other gated area, such as on industrial parks or some cases, residential areas of some barangays) grounds with “Private” (tag:access=private) access. However, it is incorrect, because the Private tag will prevent routing. So, changes in the [Philippines Mapping Conventions] (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Philippines/Mapping_conventions) are made. The changes is to mark the subdivision (or other gated area) [road] entrances with the gate=* tag, plus the access tag, rather than to tag the roads’ access with the access attribute. Access attributes will be on the roads will be placed on the gates, so, that attribute does not impede routing. Access tags for gates may be destination (local traffic only and no through traffic), permissive (allows entry by payment of a fee, which should not be confused with tolls, which are rather tagged as toll=yes.), or private (in this case, the gates restricts access to vehicle, usually with stickers issued). But mostly, it is best to mark subdivision (or other gated area) roads’ gates as access=destination, so it will allow routing to a place within its grounds, because there are visitors outside of the grounds will go to a place within the area (such as a house, business, a school, like in some cases, or other place.).

Yesterday, I went to Nuvali in Santa Rosa, Laguna, and I witnessed some changes on the area. On Santa Rosa-Tagaytay Road (officially named Santa Rosa-Ulat-Tagaytay Road by the Department of Public Works and Highways), some places have opened, like a Walter Mart branch near CW Home Depot, an AllHome branch near Nuvali, and a new Jollibee branch near the former. On Nuvali, Seda, Solenad 3 and a S&R Membership Shopping opened.

But mapping the newly opened Solenad 3 is a bit difficult, with a need to map the places on the mall first on paper before adding them to OSM. I can trace some buildings and a few places (FamilyMart, Chicken BonChon, DIY Hardware, TGI Fridays, to name a few), but notes from the map may be needed. I think a few users may come there to trace GPS traces for paths and building outlines, and survey several places (shops, restaurants, services, etc.) through a handmade map or even Walking Papers, as a base for the final data to be added on OSM.

I made many changes on Batangas City, especially adding missing barangays, places, and mostly, jeepney routes. My mapping activity in Batangas City started because of out-of-date map data. Before those big changes, Batangas City has a lot of out-of-date and incorrect. map data.

I made realignments on roads around Batangas City to match the current Bing imagery. I also made naming and renaming of some streets, adding one-ways (the poblacion’s streets are mostly one-way). Before adding those one-ways, routing in Batangas City via OSRM is difficult. You may run into a one-way and receive a ticket from traffic enforcers.

The next is jeepney routes. The city has many jeepney routes, with color coding and route reference numbers (in contrast with most jeepney routes in my area, which mostly having no route reference numbers and having a yellow color code), and considerably needed for mapping public transport around Batangas City. Currently, I mostly completed them, but, stops and some missing routes are still needed.

After that is places. Many places are missing, especially in Poblacion, Cuta, Pallocan West, Kumintang Ilaya, Alangilan, and Balagtas. I added many, thanks to my knowledge, surveys, photos, and videos. Some places, such as schools are missing or have incomplete data, like incorrect name. I am able to add some, like Julian A. Pastor Memorial Elementary School (JAPMES) in Cuta, Pallocan West Elementary School, Saint Therese of the Child Jesus Multiple Intelligence School and Carmel School of Batangas in Pallocan West, St. Peter D’Rock School and Libjo Elementary School in Libjo, Sunhill Montessori Casa and Lyceum of the Philippines University High School Department in Gulod Labac, Kumintang Elementary School in Kumintang Ilaya, Alangilan elementary School and Maranatha Christian Academy in Alangilan, and Concepcion Elementary School in Concepcion.

The next part is the barangays. Batangas City has many un-mapped barangays, mainly the urban area barangays, which are numbered, like in Manila and Pasay, and the suburban and rural barangays. I added many barangays on the city’s interior and outskirts such as Balagtas, Alangilan, Kumintang Ibaba, Kumintang Ilaya, Gulod Labac, Cuta, Pallocan West, Calicanto, Bolbok, etc. I added a few rural baranays, such as Sorosoro Karsada, Concepcion, Tinga Labac, Tabangao-Ambulong, Pinamucan, Mabacong, and Pagkilatan.

I will make more changes in the near future, such as adding the missing places, numbered barangays, street names, sitios, addresses, and indoor mapping (like on SM City Batangas, which is still incomplete in some parts. such as the 2nd floor, but I am able to add many POI’s there using my knowledge and ground surveys)