Mapping Cameras - OSM

How to Map a Camera

This document explains how to map Surveillance Cameras using Open Street Map's web interface.

First, you'll need to make some notes about the locations of the cameras you want to map. I've found two approaches work well: (a) print a map of the area you'd like to detail and sketch the cameras in, or (b) freehand sketches in a notebook.

For the sake of illustration, here's one of my freehand sketches. It shows three cameras near the intersection of Tremont and West Street in downtown Boston.

Next, you'll need to create an account on https://openstreetmap.org (if you don't have one already). Once you've logged in, locate the area in question and click "Edit". At this point, OpenStreetMap (OSM) should offer to give you a walkthrough of map editing. I'd recommend going through the walkthrough. OSM maps consist of points, lines, and areas. To map cameras, you're going to use points.

Here's the editing interface, showing the corner of Tremont and West streets.

• Select "Surveillance Camera" as the feature type
• Fill in as many of the other attributes as you can. For this camera, I used
  • Surveillance Kind: outdoor
  • Surveillance Type: Camera
  • Camera Type: Dome
  • Camera Mount: Building
  • Source: survey

The Source:survey tag tells OSM that I'm providing this information from a first-hand visit.

Having mapped the first camera, I'll add the other two. Here's what it looks like:

After adding the three cameras, I click "save" and provide "Added three cameras at the intersection of Tremont and West St" as a change comment.

Here's what the cameras look like, when rendered on cctv.masspirates.org

Further Information

OpenStreetMap's instructions for mapping surveillance cameras: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:man_made%3Dsurveillance