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Task Polygon Automation Guide

This guide shows the steps for an automated workflow that generates task polygons for use in Tasking Manager.

For a list of all guides on the TCAT Wiki, refer to the Guides List.

Task Polygon Automation Process

This guide outlines the step-by-step process for automating task polygon generation for OpenSidewalks communities.

Prerequisites

  • poetry shell environment activated
  • osmium command-line tool installed
  • osw task command available

Process Overview

Step 1: Initialize Staging Directory

Action: Create the staging_directory in /projects/osw/opensidewalks_cli/

Command:

mkdir staging_directory

Step 2: Create State Structure

Action: Create a folder for each state within the staging directory.

Directory structure:

staging_directory/
└── <state>/

Step 3: Create County Structure

Action: Create a subfolder for each county within each state folder.

Directory structure:

staging_directory/
└── <state>/
    └── <county>/

Step 4: Create Community Structure

Action: Create a subfolder for each community within each county folder.

Directory structure:

staging_directory/
└── <state>/
    └── <county>/
        └── <community>/

Step 5: Create Working Subfolders

Action: Create working subfolders (data_sources, intermediate_data, output) for each community.

Directory structure:

staging_directory/
└── <state>/
    └── <county>/
        └── <community>/
            ├── data_sources/
            ├── intermediate_data/
            └── output/

Step 6: Obtain OSM PBF Files

Action: Obtain an OSM PBF file for each state and store it in the /<state>/ folder.

File location:

/<state>/<state>-latest.osm.pbf

Step 7: Obtain Community Target Data

Action: Obtain the GeoJSON data for the bbox of each community target mapping area and store it in the corresponding intermediate_data subfolder.

File location:

/<state>/<county>/<community>/intermediate_data/<community>.geojson

Step 8: Extract Community Data with Osmium

Action: For each <community>, run osmium extract to trim the state osm.pbf file to the target mapping area.

Command:

osmium extract -p <path-to-geojson> <path-to-pbf> -o <path-to-new-pbf>

Example:

osmium extract -p ../<state>/<county>/<community>/intermediate_data/<community>.geojson ../<state>/<state>-latest.osm.pbf -o ../<state>/<county>/<community>/data_sources/<community>.osm.pbf

Important: This command must be run from the ../opensidewalks_cli/staging_directory/ directory!

Step 9: Generate Task Polygons with OSW Task

Action: For each <community>, run osw task to generate the task polygon files (crossing_tasks.geojson and sidewalk_tasks.geojson) corresponding to the target mapping area.

Command:

osw task <path-to-pbf> <path-to-geojson> <output-path>

Example:

osw task ../<state>/<county>/<community>/data_sources/<community>.osm.pbf ../<state>/<county>/<community>/intermediate_data/<community>.geojson .../<state>/<county>/<community>/output

Step 10: Rename Output Files

Action: For each <community>, rename the crossing_tasks.geojson and sidewalks_tasks.geojson files in the ../<community>/output directory to more easily identify them as they are uploaded into the Tasking Manager.

Rename pattern:

mv ../<community>/output/crossing_tasks.geojson ../<community>/output/<community>_crossing_tasks.geojson
mv ../<community>/output/sidewalk_tasks.geojson ../<community>/output/<community>_sidewalk_tasks.geojson

Final Directory Structure

After completing all steps, your directory structure should look like:

staging_directory/
├── <state>/
│   ├── <state>-latest.osm.pbf
│   └── <county>/
│       └── <community>/
│           ├── data_sources/
│           │   └── <community>.osm.pbf
│           ├── intermediate_data/
│           │   └── <community>.geojson
│           └── output/
│               ├── <community>_crossing_tasks.geojson
│               └── <community>_sidewalk_tasks.geojson
│
└── [Additional states follow same pattern]

Next Steps

The generated task polygon files (<community>_crossing_tasks.geojson and <community>_sidewalk_tasks.geojson) are now ready to be uploaded to the Tasking Manager for community mapping activities.