Yesterday I travelled from Quthing to Mphaki via Mt. Moorosi and then back to Quthing. The purpose of my visit there was to inspect the two community council office sites being constructed at Mt. Moorosi and Mphaki.

[caption id=”attachment_544” align=”alignleft” width=”404”] Mount Moorsi[/caption]

Having won a phone loaded with useful mapping apps in the Mapillary challenge this was my first long journey to test out some of the apps. All of these apps, in one way or another help us to #MapLesotho.

[caption id=”attachment_545” align=”alignright” width=”418”] Mphaki[/caption]

OpenStreetMap users can use OSM Tracker to take a trip and then capture numerous waypoints. These are uploaded into OSM without too much use of my roaming data allowance. These are two traces I took yesterday here and here. These traces are available to everyone in OSM who uses JOSM.

[caption id=”attachment_541” align=”alignleft” width=”300”] My .gpx trace captured with my OSM Tracker App[/caption]

Sometimes when you use hotosm and bing satellite to #MapLesotho and you try to trace features through areas that could not be seen with satellite imagery because of clouds, trees, shadows, buildings etc.. having a GPS trace is very useful. Also there can be a surprising variation with some imagery with Bing in that tiles don’t line up or have a visible “join” or “crease”.

[caption id=”attachment_539” align=”alignright” width=”311”] Problematic Bing imagery with clouds[/caption]

You at least can see whether you need to off-set slightly. When there are several paths, tracks converging in an area and the soil is dry it makes it difficult to pick out the middle of the track, so using the GPS helps and the correct route of the path or road is now easy to see.

I am excited about #MapLesotho all over again because now it seem that we have multiple technologies, including now mobile technology converging to help us quicken up the work and be more accurate.