OpenStreetMap Blogs Last Update:

how to move the street name to the side of the street.

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with this file coloured+name_offset.mapcss projeto.softwarelivre.tec.br/s/4z2jzQSjkL5oPTW you can move the street name to the side of the street, making the street name visible for better mapping of street names.

In this video I teach you how to use this file that you have to download to your computer.

File Link coloured+name_offset.mapcss

projeto.softwarelivre.tec.br/s/4z2jzQSjkL5oPTW

link no Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jOnFjtuI10&t=57s

14 hours ago

مياه شرب

17 hours ago

mapping roads in rural areas in openstreetmap.

learn how to map roads in rural areas with this video tutorial.

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link to the video lesson on youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kuxIGH8DuE&t=35s

UMBRAOSM Union of Brazilian Openstreetmap Mappers

a day ago

Últimas contribuciones

¡Ya la vereda La Esmeralda se encuentra totalmente mapeada!

Parte de la vereda ya estaba mapeada por las contribuciones realizadas en el mapedo de las veredas Cascajo Arriba y Cascajo Abajo. Sin embargo, entre el inicio del año, el trabajo, y algunas labores como Secretario de la Asociación de Cartografía Colaborativa de Colombia - AC3, no pude contribuir por un tiempo.

Consideraciones

En una entrada de diario anterior propuse usar DAMN para gestionar las tareas de mapeo de las veredas. Aunque lo intenté, aún no me siento de todo familiarizado con la herramienta, entonces su implementación se continúa aplazando. El Taskin Manager de HOT seguirá siendo la herramienta por defecto.

Sostenibilidad

Sigue siendo cierta la necesidad de implementar mecanismos de mapeo más eficientes. Por el momento, se me ocurre solicitar los polígonos de las construcciones a la Subsecretaría de Catastro Multipropósito, que al haber realizado la actualización catastral del municipio en 2024, cuentan con cartografía actualizada que puede ser de mucha utilidad para el mapa.

Sin embargo, al tratarse de una importación masiva, esta se debe hacer de manera cuidadosa, y siguiendo el respectivo procedimiento, documentando el proceso en la Wiki, e informando a la comunidad.

Más sobre este proceso en el futuro.

Ya en una entrada anterior mostré una iniciativa para que más personas contribuyan al mapa, en el marco de la actividad del Open Data Day 2025 en la UdeA. Aún tengo pendiente realizar actividades similares en las Instituciones Educativas de Marinilla.

Para las Istituciones Educativas hay que hacer algo similar para solicitar información oficial sobre las Sedes, entonces aún no lo llevaré a cabo. También hay que tener presente que Doris Ruiz (dcruizr) hizo una importación masiva con las fuentes del DANE, por lo que es importante trabajar sobre lo que ya se ha avanzado.

Siguiente paso

Seguimos con la vereda Las Mercedes.

¡A mapear!

a day ago

For the March 2025 edition of our interview series with OpenStreetMap communities around the world, it is our pleasure to chat with Julien Minet about OpenArdenneMap, a map style he has developed for hiking (specifically in the Ardennes region of his native Belgium).

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1. Who are you and what do you do? What got you into OpenStreetMap?

I work in the field of geomatics and have been contributing to OpenStreetMap for many years. I started contributing to OpenStreetMap in 2012. Then I contributed more and more. In 2017, I joined the cooperative company Champs-Libres, where I work, because it was the only company working with OpenStreetMap data in Belgium. So you could say that I found my job thanks to OpenStreetMap.

I’ve always been interested in cartography. After my studies, I started to get interested in software for making maps on the web, at the time MapServer and OpenLayers… My aim was to make maps, especially on the web, to show things that weren’t very visible. For example, I made a map of community gardens in Brussels in 2010. Then I slowly saw the rise of OpenStreetMap. But at first I didn’t believe in it: the map was mainly empty and had poor accuracy, so I didn’t think OpenStreetMap would ever be mature enough to make good maps. I was wrong.

Today I’m an active contributor to OpenStreetMap and I’m also a member of the OpenStreetMap - Belgium local chapter association. I often meet other contributors in Belgium, and we form a super-community: people who are open and passionate! I regularly co-organise OpenStreetMap meetings in my region and I lobby for OpenStreetMap just about everywhere!

2. What is the OpenArdenneMap project and why was it created? Who uses it? How?

When I started contributing to OpenStreetMap, I quickly became interested in generating topographic maps. I first saw the OpenTopoMap project, then a project to reproduce the maps of the national geographical institute in France. At first, my challenge was to be able to produce maps that looked like those of the Belgian National Geographical Institute. It was above all a technical challenge for me, as I was just starting to learn how to code. I spent a long time looking for the best software for this. First I tried MapServer, which I knew. Then I switched to Mapnik, which is the cartographic software used to generate the basic style available on openstreetmap.org and on lots of other cartographic projects, including OpenTopoMap. Very recently, in 2022, I translated the OpenArdenneMap style into QGIS.

Today, OpenArdenneMap is a cartographic style that can be used with Mapnik or QGIS, the 2 being maintained in parallel without being 100% equivalent. OpenArdenneMap is a style designed for printing, not for web maps. The main difference between a map style for printing and web maps is that the labels are about twice as large as on a web map, but there are other subtleties, such as the choice of colours, contrast, etc. I use this style with my colleagues to generate maps that can be downloaded from the hiking.osm.be website. These maps are free to download and a financial contribution is requested from those who use them. There is a rather good commercial potential with this hiking.osm.be project, for instance to propose some paper maps to sell in touristic places, but so far we did not take the time to develop it.

BTW, I’ve discovered that the style has already been used by tourist operators in Belgium to print maps on tourist boards. Finally, I use it from time to time to create large-format maps for friends or family, or just for myself like this large 2 x 1m map of the Semois river. And there’s also an OpenArdenneMap tile server, although the style is primarily intended for printing, not the web.

3. What are the unique challenges and pleasures of mapping hiking maps, especially those designed to be printed? What aspects of the projects should the rest of the world be aware of?

There are huge challenges in making printable maps from OpenStreetMap data, and I think a lot of them haven’t been addressed yet. When you look at old topographic maps, they are generally of great graphic quality and have great aesthetic power. For me, topographic maps generated from geographic data don’t have the same power, for all sorts of reasons.

Clearly, a breakthrough came when cartographers created maps from geographic data instead of drawing them on paper. About ten years ago, I learnt that cartographers at the Belgian IGN did not necessarily digitize features on aerial images according to their exact location but according to a ‘cartographic common sense’: this means that they took certain liberties with the position of some features, in order to think straight away about creating the map.

In OpenStreetMap, there’s this famous principle: ‘Don’t map for the renderer’. Of course I understand that, but if you want a map, you want to map for the renderer. My leitmotif for the future of OpenArdenneMap is precisely this: to find techniques for moving from a geographic database to a printed map. This involves a whole host of techniques that are currently very little used in the OpenStreetMap community: cartographic generalisation, displacement, etc. - in short, all the cartographic techniques that have been theorised and put into practice throughout the development of cartography.

In this sense, I agree with Christof Horman’s analysis: even if the ‘carto’ style is a fabulous work of cartography and probably the most advanced cartographic style built from OpenStreetMap data, it is still a long way from the best cartographic practices. And the same applies to all the styles derived from OpenStreetMap using Mapnik or QGIS: they fail to produce high-quality topographic maps. Of course, you could argue that a manual pass is always needed to refine a map made with an automatic style, and this is probably still true, even in the age of artificial intelligence. But apart from that, there is clearly a lack of basic cartographic work that is still not applied in styles, or even implemented in algorithms. This is a long-term project that I’d like to carry out: a review of the use of advanced mapping techniques in the OpenStreetMap ecosystem.

To come back to OpenArdenneMap, as its name suggests, it’s designed for one region in particular: the Ardennes. A friend once asked me to produce a map of Brittany using OpenArdenneMap and then complained that the sea didn’t appear. Of course, there’s no sea in the Ardennes. Far from any chauvinism or nationalism, the idea is to create a rendering specific to a region, with its own characteristics and particular objects, and of course this can evolve over time. For example, there is a specific rendering in OpenArdenneMap for Christmas tree plantations, because they cover a large area in the Ardennes, perhaps 10% of the agricultural area. But this is a recent development, and it’s possible that in a few decades there won’t be any left.

One disadvantage of web maps is that we are witnessing a standardisation of styles, with styles that can be designed for a Californian environment and then applied in Europe: this makes no sense. Each region has its own geographical richness, the result of the evolution of the natural landscapes inhabited by the human communities who have lived there. And so each region is entitled to its own styles, which highlight its characteristics.

4. What have you learned? What is the best way for people to do something similar in their city or region or country?

I try to collect maps from my region and elsewhere, and compare them. This gives me ideas for developing new things in my cartographic style. OpenArdenneMap is a rather “vintage” style, but I also like to add more recent elements to the landscape, like wind turbines. I don’t do it enough, but I also try to follow what’s being done in other mapping projects like OpenTopoMap or the ‘carto’ style of osm.org. For example, I’ve taken up the idea of automatically orienting the names of water bodies according to their shape. Or orienting sports fields and church symbols according to their actual orientation on the ground.

A cartographic style affects many things: for example, you can spend a lot of time choosing suitable fonts. For OpenArdenneMap, I chose a font made in Belgium via a magazine, Medor.coop, and then I finally met its designer, who is also a cartography enthusiast. It’s the Alfphabet font, which reproduces a font used in the 1950s. In OpenArdenneMap, I try to display a lot of labels, so the font is important.

I also like drawing symbols and pattern symbols. I’m not very good at drawing in general, and I can’t see myself creating logos, but for map symbols, I find it quite easy.

Then there’s printing. That’s quite an art too! I’ve learnt the difference between offset and digital printing. Older maps were often printed in offset with true colours: this enhances their quality. This is one of the reasons why OpenArdenneMap only has 3 colours + black: it allows offset printing with true colours.

For those who want to start a cartographic style, I recommend starting with an existing style (in Mapnik or QGIS) and then gradually changing the colours, textures, what is displayed and what is not, etc. If you want to define a style that is available for several scales, starting from a blank page takes an enormous amount of time.

5. What steps could the global OpenStreetMap community take to help support projects like this?

I love seeing new cartographic projects being created. And we certainly still need to maintain the old ones, in any case there is potential for improvement even in old styles. As I said earlier, there’s a lack of techniques and algorithms that can be used for cartographic generalisation, specifically with OpenStreetMap data. One of the challenges of OpenStreetMap data is its lack of completeness and uniformity: sometimes you have to avoid to represent something on a map if it isn’t mapped everywhere. For example, I won’t show isolated trees if their distribution in my map area is too irregular. But for this kind of problem, it’s more up to the cartographer to find or develop algorithms for data preparation and cartographic generalisation.

I think there’s a lack of documentation on existing cartographic projects. At the same time, we probably don’t have enough experience of creating maps with OpenStreetMap.

6. Last year OpenStreetMap celebrated 20 years. As someone who has been very active in OpenStreetMap for a long time, where do you think the project will be in another 20 years?

I’m sure that the project will still be there, with its community. It may be difficult to recruit new contributors, but I’m not so sure. Already today, most people use OpenStreetMap without knowing it, because OSM data is integrated into a lot of different applications. This will certainly increase in the future. Perhaps whole areas of OSM use will be supplanted by other databases, for example for the road network, addresses or POIs. But the project will always be there for mapping enthusiasts. Maybe it will be reserved more for hobbyists.

In Belgium, we are increasingly approached by public authorities who are interested in contributing to OpenStreetMap, for example by local authorities who tell us about changes in the road network. We’re also trying to get public authorities to reuse the data, and there are more and more use cases. I’m sure that this will continue to develop in Belgium.

Thank you, Julien, for taking the time to share your insights. Wonderful. As an avid hiker, I love this style. But most of all I love the perspective that we need a rich diversity of mapping styles to capture the rich diversity of the world. And open data and open source tools make it possible.

Anyone who wants to stay up to date on the project can watch it on GitHub. You can reach Julien on mastodon.

Happy mapping,

Ed

Please let us know if your community would like to be part of our interview series here on our blog. If you are or know of someone we should interview, please get in touch, we’re always looking to promote people doing interesting things with open geo data.

2 days ago

何に対して付けるタグか（意味合い）

主にバス、タクシーのいずれかまたは両方を運行する会社（の事務所、営業所）

その他、旅客を輸送する陸上の交通機関（の事務所、営業所）に使うことも考えられる （※物を運ぶものはoffice=transportなどが一般的のため、その方が適していると思われる）

このタグ（値）が適していると思った理由

まず最初に、taginfoで同じような意味の値を誰かが考えていないか確認した。そのうえで、意味的に最も適しているのが「transportation」であると考えた。

• company=busではダメか

意味合いの項目で書いた「バス、タクシーの両方を運行する」場合、 company=bus;taxiのように複数の値を列挙することになる

現状、companyタグのほとんどは1つの値が付けられており、列挙すると混乱を招くため、大まかに交通機関であることを示し、別に具体的な内容を書く（階層構造にする）ほうが良いと考えた

• company=transportではダメか

transportは日本語で「輸送」であるから、本来はそれでよいと思われる

しかし、現状は「荷物の輸送」（運送・物流）を意味する目的で使われており（osm.wiki/wiki/Tag:office%3Dtransport ）、旅客のみを輸送する会社に対して使うのは混乱を招くため、違う単語を使うほうが良いと考えた

• company=public_transportではダメか

日本語ではだいたい「公共交通機関」や「乗合交通機関」などになるが、後者で考えると「乗合」に当てはまらないタクシーを含めると不自然なため、使わないことにした

office=transportationはどうか

これは、それでもよいと思う。companyタグを挟むべきかどうか迷ったので、ひとまず挟む方を選んだ

様子を見て、wikiにも書くことを考えているが、「なぜこれを選んだのか」という説明として日記に投稿した

3 days ago

Coordinates should be formatted 1.236345 4.23643 Written by ChatGPT Due to kramdown I have to use docs.google.com/document/d/1P4YrHsAhZKu9BRt1HRnsBbQJl8MdDMoJ76Ht9w1aqG0/edit?tab=t.0

4 days ago

What is anti-SEO aktion?

Maybe you’ve seen one of my changeset comments reading “anti-SEO aktion”. Maybe I even reverted your changes in a changeset with that comment. You might be wondering, what does it mean?

Well, I hope “anti-SEO” is clear enough. OpenStreetMap is not a platform for boosting your online presence. Your OpenStreetMap listing, in all likelihood, does very little to improve your rankings. If the marketing agency you hired is improving their listing here, you ought to find one that used more evidence-based SEO practices.

And what of “aktion”? It’s a play on Antifaschistische Aktion, which was an anti-Nazi resistance effort in Weimar Germany. It’s not a political statement, per se. It’s just a bit of fun with changeset comments.

How do I get involved?

Any experienced mapper probably knows what belongs in OpenStreetMap and what doesn’t. For those who don’t, here are the general steps involved in fixing spam within the U.S. While following all of them isn’t necessary, it’s the best way to turn SEO efforts into a real business listing that improves the map.

1. Check if the feature was placed onto an existing feature, such as a node being added to a highway or a highway being renamed. If so, revert and you’re done.
2. Check if the tags used follow OSM schema. If not, revert and you’re done.
3. Check if the location is correct. If not, revert and you’re done.
4. Check if description reads like ad copy or doesn’t provide any useful, objective information not already present in the tags. If so, delete the description. 99 percent of the time, there’s probably no need for any sort of description.
5. Check addr:* tags.
   1. Is addr:street spelled out in full, matching the nearby road? If not, fix it. If it contains a suite number, remove it and put just the number in addr:unit.
   2. Does addr:housenumber contain any sort of unit number? Move it to addr:unit.
   3. Does addr:city match the surroundings?
   4. Is addr:state the two-letter postal abbreviation for the state? If spelled out, improperly lowercase, or abbreviated some other way, fix it.
   5. Is country in use? The tag is sometimes confused with addr:country. I generally avoid this tag because I don’t believe it to be very useful. Either remove it or fix it.
6. Is name correct? If it’s a title you wouldn’t use casually, it’s probably incorrect.
7. Is operator correct? It shouldn’t match the name. It probably shouldn’t contain titles or credentials, either.
8. Is phone correct? In the US, phone numbers are often displayed without the country code and with the area code in parentheses. Make sure the number is in +1-area_code-exchange-local_number format.
9. Is wikidata correct? Some spammers have taken to adding this tag to features to make them harder for iD users to delete. If this tag is present, verify that the identifier is correct. For example, you might spot the wikidata item for dentist present on a dentist office, which is incorrect.
10. Ditto for wikipedia.
11. Is website correct? It should not contain any tracking codes and should lead to a location-specific page. In the case of a chain, you don’t want the website to lead to a corporate homepage. Sometimes, the best you can do is a list of locations in a state. The best way to fix the website is to navigate to it, go into the address bar and hit “select all”, then copy that. This ensures the protocol and www prefix are included. This also avoids any redirects. While on the website, it also helps to check that the business details match up with the OSM feature.
12. Are there any extraneous tags on the feature? A common one is Category. Remove them, potentially adding that information through an appropriate tag.
13. Does the feature have any descriptive tags, and are they correct? For example, office=yes gets used generically, and isn’t very useful. Try to find out more about the business to come up with a more appropriate tag, or invent your own. Similarly, recognized keys may be used improperly. This is where iD comes in handy with its presets for things like healthcare and car repair specialties. Check the presets to see if any values can be replaced with more widely used ones. Generic values that add nothing (like healthcare:specialty=dentist when a feature is already tagged with healthcare=dentist) should be removed.
14. Are payment method tags used correctly? This is another case where iD’s presets are useful. For example, some features may be tagged as accepting “financing” as a payment method, which isn’t recognized. Alternatively, some payment methods could be improperly abbreviated, e.g., amex for american_express.
15. Is the image tag an actual image of the feature? SEO spammers often use it for a logo, which is not the intended usage. If it’s on an image hosting site or CDN, that’s a red flag. If it’s a photo on Wikimedia Commons, it’s more likely to be an image of the feature.
16. Is opening_hours properly formatted? There are a lot of nuances to this tag that I can’t properly capture here. The main issues I see on spam listings are three-letter day abbreviations, use of AM and PM, spaces around hyphens, specifying days as being closed rather than leaving them out, and commas instead of semi-colons.

Finding SEO spam

Section under construction! In the meantime, I welcome all tips you may have.

I have two main techinques for finding spam. The primary one is monitoring new features tagged with description. The second one is subscribing to the RSS feed of U.S. changeset comments.

There is potential to use a large language model here to analyze all changeset comments and look for generic changeset comments like “Updated” (seemingly used by particular spammers), changesets by usernames that sound like business names, or obvious ad copy. I’ve yet to try this out for myself, but it’s on the docket as I try to understand how much spam actually gets added to the platform.

Conclusion

There are many different tagging mistakes made by spammers, and doubtlessly this is far from an exhaustive list. If you’ve noticed any other commonalities between spam listings and/or suggestions for detecting and fixing them, leave a comment.

If you’d like to keep up-to-date with my efforts to remove spam, here’s a filter.

Here’s to wiping spam off the map, wherever it may take hold!

4 days ago

Ler em Português

MapComplete, Panoramax, overpass turbo and uMap: what can you do with these programs when mapping trees? But first, a suitable question: how important is it to map trees?

In addition to the urban issue, in which it is often assessed whether natural elements and urban equipment are preserved, whether they are adequate or well distributed in a given area, the greatest motivation for mapping trees is to monitor vegetation cover, since these individuals are ecologically relevant. Combined with an educational activity, it also helps to raise awareness of their importance among students.

Trees provide various ecosystem services (or environmental services), such as providing shelter and food for different species, cooling the ambient air, removing atmospheric CO2, producing biomass, preventing soil erosion, reducing noise pollution et al.

Mapping with MapComplete

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MapComplete is an easy-to-use Web application to edit OpenStreetMap that allows you to map features related to different themes, one of which is exactly the tree mapping. The program automatically sends the data to OpenStreetMap, as long as you are logged in with your OSM user account. Link to MapComplete tree theme

The interface also offers some useful features, such as the possibility of registering a photograph locally (at street level) and uploading it to the Panoramax server, gaining a unique key that can be referenced in other software (such as uMap, below in this text). It is also possible to view the mapped item directly on the website osm.org.

In addition, various attributes can be specified. The program also allows you to create customized theme schemas. In the MapComplete default scheme, we highlight:

A) the leaf type:

• tag leaf_type=broadleaved » refers to angiosperms (species that produce flowers and have broad leaves), e.g. Beach Almond - Terminalia catappa, Q271179.

• tag leaf_type=needleleaved » refers to gymnosperms (species that do not produce flowers and have needle-shaped leaves), e.g. Pinus - Pinus silvestres, Q133128.

B) the species’ code on the Wikidata (easy search by name):

• tag species:wikidata=* , e.g. coconut palm - Cocos nucifera, Q13187.

C) the circunference - in meters, to be measured at 1.3 m from the ground (standard value for this measurement):

• tag circunference=*

D) the height - in meters:

• tag height=*

E) the location of the individual - whether near a highway, whether in an urban area or not, etc:

• tag denotation=*

Viewing on Panoramax

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Link to panoramax.xyz

Once the individuals (each tree) have been mapped, the photographs are stored forever for all users (unless someone deletes them or the project is ended). It is important for recording the health of trees or their age, all characteristics that can be easily observed in it. In addition, it makes it possible to observe the distribution of trees near the highways.

Viewing on overpass turbo

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Link to overpass turbo

Once the points have been mapped, the attributes included, and the photographs recorded, it is still possible to create schemes for visualization in the turbo overpass, the simplest of which is shown in the code below, which colors trees with different types of leaves (wide or thin, as mentioned above) with specific, custom codes.

node
  [natural=tree]
  ({{bbox}});
out;

{{style: /* added by auto-styler */
*[leaf_type=broadleaved]
{ color: #3E600B; fill-color:#3E600B; }
*[leaf_type=needleleaved]
{ color: #97E71F; fill-color:#97E71F; }
}}

It is also possible to export these results and/or query these features with the same color scheme in other areas, as the query is automatic, according to the enclosing rectangle that appears on the screen (or bounding box).

Viewing on uMap

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Link to uMap (some features were modified to illustrate this article).

The uMap is a French project which provides a Web mapping platform which allows Web maps to be created very quickly and, currently, with dynamic layers which are generated as the coordinates change in the browser address. In this way, mapped trees can be viewed in any region of the world and with color schemes, labels and click behavior, customized according to the project.

For the example presented here, overpass queries were used according to leaf type (leaf_type), in order to distinguish trees with broad leaves from those with needle-shaped leaves. This is done very simply directly from the uMap panel, in edit mode, in the import menu.

♦

To show the photo on the feature label, you need to choose the “OpenStreetMap” mode in “Interaction options” » “Pop-up content style” in the uMap layer config panel. Or program the contents of the label according to the project instructions - github.com/umap-project/umap.

Green Open Data Day 2025

♦

March 31, 2025 Information:

ivides.org/green-open-data-day

That’s all for today! Hope to see you mapping trees! Send me the pic.

This content was proudly developed entirely with free software ;)

Translated to English with DeepL.com (free version). Reviewed by human.

♦

5 days ago

After spending a bit of time mapping and getting a feel for the scope, type of work this project will require, it’s clear that this project will unsurprisingly take quite a bit of time.

To make this process as engaging as possible, I think it would be wise to alter my workflow slightly. Initially, I planned to start with only mapping buildings for the entire island. However this would mean hours and hours of monotony, so I think a good workaround here is to keep my current workflow structure, but just apply it to a smaller scale. For example, I’ll pick smaller sections of the island to do both the building and the terrain mapping. This will give the work more variety and also make it more clear which areas I’ve already worked on.

5 days ago

♦

Whether you’re passionate about maps, data, or shaping the future of  OpenStreetMap (OSM), the community is always looking for your inspiring ideas! Why not sharing them during State of the Map 2025

The call for participation of SotM 2025, taking place in Manila, Philippines, on October 3 – 5, is now open! The programme committee is ready and waiting, eager to unwrap your submissions for talks, workshops, and panels. These sessions aren’t just part of the conference; they’re its beating heart, driving conversations and sparking ideas that resonate worldwide. Presenting your work, projects and ideas at SotM is also a great way to get in touch with the wider OSM community.

Tracks

Sessions can be submitted for the following tracks:

• OSM Basics – Information dedicated to newcomers
• Community and Foundation – Bringing people together, working group experiences, strategies & vision
• Mapping – All about making the mapping easier and better
• Cartography – Your ideas on how to create good-looking presentations of the OSM dataset
• Software Development – Software for processing and editing data
• Data Analysis & Data Model – Reflections about the OSM data, its model and analysis of quality and completeness
• User Experiences – Stories of using OSM and its data as a user
• Education – How you use OSM in an educational context

If your submission doesn’t seem to fit into one of these tracks, don’t worry – as long as it is clearly related to OpenStreetMap, you’re perfectly fine if you simply choose the track that feels to fit best.

Academic Track at SotM 2025

In addition to this general call for participation, there will again be a proper academic track with a separate CfP, which will be announced later. So, if you’re knee-deep in the captivating world of OpenStreetMap, stay tuned for the official call: The working group is eagerly awaiting the most riveting insights and groundbreaking results from your studies. Get your research hats on, gather your data, and prepare to submit the best of your studies.

Timeline and Deadlines

• 18 May 2025 23:59:59 UTC: Deadline talk, workshop and panel submissions
• End of June 2025: End of review phase, speakers will be informed, schedule published
• July 2025: Talk video production (test video and final video)
• 3-5 October 2025: State of the Map

For more information on the above track categories, submission requirements and rating criteria, please visit the complete call for participation and the submission guidelines on the SotM website and then submit your session on Pretalx using our submission form!

Stay tuned for more news about the State of the Map 2025! See you later this year in Manila, Philippines, and online!

The State of the Map Working Group

Do you want to translate this and other blogposts in your language…? Please email communication@osmfoundation.org with subject: Helping with translations in [your language]

The State of the Map conference is the annual, international conference of OpenStreetMap, organised by the OpenStreetMap Foundation. The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project, is financially supported by membership fees and donations, and organises the annual, international State of the Map conference. Our volunteer Working Groups and small core staff work to support the OpenStreetMap project. Join the OpenStreetMap Foundation for just £15 a year or for free if you are an active OpenStreetMap contributor.

OpenStreetMap was founded in 2004 and is an international project to create a free map  of the world. To do so, we, thousands of volunteers, collect data about roads, railways, rivers, forests, buildings and a lot more worldwide. Our map data can be downloaded for free by everyone and used for any purpose – including commercial usage. It is possible to produce your own  maps which highlight certain features, to calculate routes etc. OpenStreetMap is increasingly used when one needs maps which can be very quickly, or easily, updated.

6 days ago

Bağlantılar / Links

• hdyc: hdyc.neis-one.org/?heyturkiye58
• TR list: osmstats.neis-one.org/?item=countries&country=Turkey
• Comments: resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-discussion-comments?uid=12667120
• OSM Wiki: osm.wiki/wiki/User:HeyTR

6 days ago

latest contributions

♦

I have been mapping street names in Brazilian cities that need street name mapping.

The mapping is diverse between the North and Northeast regions, but I can map in any of the five regions of Brazil.

List of the latest mapped cities.

Imperatriz, MA osm.org/relation/332989

♦ Jacobina, BA osm.org/relation/362547

Buique, PE osm.org/relation/303604#map=15/-8.62072/-37.15113

Vitoria de Santo Antão, PE osm.org/relation/303684#map=15/-8.12290/-35.29405

Barra da Estiva, BA osm.org/relation/362527

Caém, BA osm.org/relation/362291#map=13/-11.09697/-40.43226

♦

♦

If any mapping team is interested in inviting me to join the street name mapping team, I am available to contribute.

I can contribute in any region of Brazil.

E-mail:

Raphael de Assis raphael@umbraosm.com.br

Raphael de Assis

15 hours ago

Время чтения: 10 минут.

Введение

Как и почти все, я включал геолокацию, не задумываясь, как это работает, но проблемы, возникшие на моем смартфоне вынудили меня углубиться в тему и написать статью, чтобы, в первую очередь, упорядочить собственные знания и во вторую, сэкономить ваше время при решении схожих задачь.

Статья написана любителем и не претендует ни на что. Если нашли ошибки, укажите на них в комментариях.

Т.к. смартфон является единсвенным инструментом картографии для подавляющего числа мапперов вне дома, неработающая геолокация может стать катастрофой. Чтобы этого не произошло, нужно выполнить ряд простых действий, но сначала термины)

Немного терминологии: 1. GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite System

Глобальная навигационная спутниковая система. Именно ее большинсво людей называют ошибочно GPS. В мире есть несколько систем GNSS: ГЛОНАСС - Россия, Navstar GPS - США, Beidou - Китай, Galileo - Европа, IRNSS - Индия и другие. Полное покрытие имеет только ГЛОНАСС, GPS и Beidou. Все (или почти все) современные модули геолокации смартфонов используют несколько систем навигации одновременно. Как правило, это: GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou.

2. Альманах

• вид данных, которые передаются спутником на землю. Содержит информацию об орбитах всех спутников. Эта информация хранится на смартфоне и позволяет спрогнозировать примерное местоположение спутника в течении времени. (Например: Дня) Эта информация достаточно долго хранится, но на ее основе будет не точное определение геопозиции.

Альманах для GPS транслируются каждые 12,5 минут, ГЛОНАСС каждые 2,5 минуты. Албманах может потерять свою актуальногсть, если на смратфоне сбилось время или местоположение изменилось на 100-200-300 км.

3. Эфемерида

• точное местоположение каждого спутника. Гораздо точнее альманаха, обновляется каждые 30 секунд, но акутальность данных всего 30 минут. На приктике: Отключили геолокацию на час, при включении, модуль геолокации сначала обратиться к альманаху, а затем уже к эфемериде, что увеличит время поиска точной позиции.

4. Холодный старт

• запуск геолокации после длительного отключение. В этом случае, данные эфемериды и альманаха станут неактуальными и смартфону придется с нуля искать спутники. Без использования вспомогательный технологий, этот процесс может занять до 10-20 минут.

5. Теплый старт

Запуск геолокации, которая ранее использовалась (но не раньше 30 минут с последнего старта). В этом случае, данные альманаха будут актуальный, а эфемериды устареют.

6. Горячий старт

Запуск геолокации, которая работала менее 30 минут назад. Поиск местоположения будет почти мгновенной, так как данные альманаха и эфемериды актуальны.

7. Assisted GPS

A-GPS - технология, которая позволяет почти мгновенно определять геолокацию даже в зданиях. Оно обновляет данные о местоположении спутников не с самих спутников, а загружая данные из сети. Это позволяет почти мгновенно запустить геолокацию даже при холодном старте. Мне не встречался ни один современный смартфон, который бы не поддерживал A-GPS.

Думаю, этого достаточно для поверхностного понимания работы геолокации на смартфоне. Теперь о том, как улучшить скорость и точность ее определения.

Как улучшить геолокацию на смартфоне.

Я буду описывать действия на примере дегуглизированной прошивки E OS на android 14 , но предполагаю, что на других прошивках действия будут схожи.

1. Включаем A-GPS

Настройки - Местоположение - Использовать A-GPS.

Как говорилось выше, это позволит обновить по сети данные о местоположении спутников (Альманах), что в разы ускорит холодный старт.

2. Поиск сетей Wi-Fi и Bluetooth

Настройки - Местоположение - Сервисы геолокации - Поиск сетей Wi-Fi и поиск устройств Bluetooth - включить.

Они позволяют определять свое местоположение относительно других устройств. В описании указано, что функция работает даже при выключенном Wi-Fi и Bluetooth, на практике гораздо лучше, когда модули включены. В идеале, датчик геолокации, wi-fi и bluetooth работают вместе, чем увеличивают точность местоположения, но в крупных городах, где многоэтажки, всякие антены и прочее, сигнал спутника гораздо слабее, в помещении и вовсе почти не поределяется. В метсах, где сигнал GNSS глушат, wi-fi и bluetooth вовсе не заменимы.

3. Отключаем ограничение поиска Wi-Fi

Настройки - О телефоне - Номер сборки - Тап несколько раз, пока не разблокируется режим разработчика - Назад - Система - Для разработчиков - Ограничивать поиск сетей Wi-Fi - Отключить

Дело в том, что гугл в какой то момент ограничил поиск сетей до 4 раз в 2 минуты. Вроде, чтобы не расходовать заряд батареи, который при постоянном поиске сетей будет снижаться. Это надо иметь ввиду при походах за город, хотя на открытых местностях спутники достаточно быстро находятся и точно определяют местоположение, так что вне города определение wi-fi и bluetooth из пункта 2 можно отключить, а в городе всегда есть где подзарядиться, так что не вижу в этом особо проблемы.

4. Калибровка компаса

Напрямую с точностью местоположиения не связан, хотя прирост, в теории, возможен. Что явно станет лучше, это направление стрелки при навигации, котороая может смотреть не в сторону движения, при плохой калибровке. Так же, это поможет с проблемой напаправления фото, если вы занимаетесь сьемкой панорам.

Для проверки калибровки компаса, рекомендую скачать приложение с F-Droid (свободный аналог гугл плей): f-droid.org/ru/packages/com.bobek.compass/ Справа серху этого компаса будет датчик его калибровки (Треугольник, похожий гна знак сети). Рисуйте смартфоном восьмерку по горизонтальной плоскости, пока точность не станет максимальной. мне 5-7 восьмерок вполне хватает.

Обычно это действие не требуется, но если ваши задачи требуют повышенной точности, таких как панорамы, треки для отрисовки ОСМ, или мелкие обьекты, типа подъездов, лучше включить геолокацию и нарисовать в воздухе несколько восьмерок.

5. Проверьте точность даты и времени на смартфоне.

Спутник передает сигнал своего времени и местоположения. Телеофн сравнивает со своим и на основе этого строит геолокацию. Чем больше отличается время на смартфоне от фактического, тем больше будет погрешность определяемого навигатором местоположения относительно вашего фактического. Как то так. Андроид берет время с ntp серверов, мобильного оператора, сети и т.д., но почти в 100% случаев проблем с временем нет. В теории, они могут появится, если вы долго находились без сети и андроид пользовался своими внутренними часами, но этот вариант не вижу смысла рассматривать.

6. Проверить чехол.

Убедитесь, что на чехле вашего смартфона нет магнитов. (В идеале, чтобы чехол был не металлический). Они могут исказить ваше местоположение. Чаще всего, магниты встречаются на чехлах книжках.

Прочая информация

1. Для хорошей геолокации требуется минимум 4 спутника. У каждого есть свой радиус действия. Пересечение окружностей 3 спутников даст местоположение с погрешностью 10-20 метров. Четвертый спутник снизит погрешность до 2-3 метров

2. Телефон так же определяет геолокацию по сотовым вышкам и насколько мне известно, дополнительных действий от вас тут не требуется, все происходит автоматически, была бы связь

3. Многие знакомы с термином триангуляйция, однако когда речь идет о геопозиции, этот термин несвосем верен. Правильный: Трилатерация - Триангуляция - Основана на измерении углов, где для местоположения одной точки нужно знать как минимум две других. - Трилатерация - Основана на измерении расстояний, где для уточнение точки требуется как минимум три точки (в нашем случае: спутника) с известным местоположением.

4. На маркетплейсах продаются наклейки, которые улучшают качества сигнала. Я не нашел вменяемого обоснования работоспособности данного метода, поэтому решил не тратить на них денгьги.

5. GPSTest - свободное ПО для теста ГНСС смартфона. Функционала хотелось бы больше, но в целоп, неплохое приложение. f-droid.org/ru/packages/com.android.gpstest.osmdroid/

6. Иногда достаточно просто перезагрузить смартфон, что перезагрузит и модель геолокации, что может сказаться на его работе.

7. Если совсем ничего не помогает, возможно, дело в самом модуле и надо нести смартфон на диагностику. Есть программы для теста работоспособности модуля геолокации, но я не пользовался, не подскажу.

8. Говорят, на некоторых смартфонах геолокация работает лушче, чем на других, рейтинг где то видел, но подбирать смартфон по качеству геолокации, на мой взгляд, неправильно.

З.Ы. Началось все с того, что у меня никак не работала геолокация в помещении, несмотря на включенный блютус и вифи. Стал углубляться, проблему решил, а с ней и проблему индор маппинга (Маппинг всяких ТЦ.)

Удачи в картографии и хорошей вам геолокации.😉

Источники:

1. Личный опыт и наблюдения
2. b2field.ru/blog/geolokacija-v-smartfone/
3. anout.ru/geolokatsiya-chto-eto-i-kak-ispolzovat
4. www.gnscomponent.com/news/what-is-an-rtk-what-is-the-difference-between-26087112.html
5. Андрей Масалович - Проблемы геолокации GPS dzen.ru/video/watch/6405a37c36fc3309ce6d3f95?utm_referrer=am.news
6. baskcompany.ru/info/news/almanac_ephemeris.html

17 hours ago

How to map objects in Openstreetmap with Rapid Editor.

UmbraOSM (Brazilian OpenStreetMap Mappers Union) brings you another video tutorial, teaching you how to use the Rapid editor to map buildings and roads in OpenStreetMap. Check it out and improve your mapping skills!

♦ Rapid Editor rapideditor.org/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOIQnPCuAug&t=902s video link on youtube

UmbraOSM (Brazilian OpenStreetMap Mappers Union)

a day ago

20/03/2025-26/03/2025

♦

Orna – a GPS-based mobile role-playing game [1] | Image © Orna | Map data © OpenStreetMap Contributors

Community

• Bastian Greshake Tzovaras recounted his experience of contributing to MapComplete software by adding a wayside shrines layer. These small roadside altars, dedicated to saints or folk deities, serve as places of prayer and remembrance. They range from simple enclosures to elaborate sites filled with offerings.
• Using an old address book from 1910, Benjamin_K has mapped the hotels of Berlin in OpenHistoricalMap then analysed their spatial distribution.
• While working on a custom web map style that displays walking and cycling route names, Andy Townsend discovered that some hiking route names function more as descriptions rather than actual names.
• Andy Townsend shared a guide on using the JOSM validator to identify errors in OSM relations.
• DoudouOSM observed that some OpenStreetMap contributors meticulously map individual farmland parcels, revealing agricultural patterns that reflect historical practices, local geography, and technological influences. These patterns, visible from satellite imagery, range from precise geometric layouts to intricate mosaic-like formations.
• With Vietnam planning to cut its number of provinces in half as a cost-saving measure, Eugine Alvin Villar couldn’t help but note that this could become the next major mapping project for the Vietnamese OpenStreetMap community.
• The Latin American and Caribbean Open Mapping Hub held ♦►♦ a workshop on OpenStreetMap and tools such as Mapillary, Organic Maps, and uMap for faculty members at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico. At the end of the three-day workshop, social impact projects based on collaborative mapping were designed.

Imports

• Mathias_ADAV outlined ♦►♦ the process of importing free-floating bike and e-scooter parking areas into OpenStreetMap, using open data released by the Métropole Européenne de Lille in July 2024.

Local chapter news

• OpenStreetMap US has published its March 2025 newsletter. There is news of the State of the Map US and much more!

Events

• The call for participation at the State of the Map 2025, set to take place in Manila, Philippines, from 3 to 5 October, is now open. The programme committee is inviting submissions for talks, workshops, and panels, offering participants a platform to share their work and engage with the global OpenStreetMap community.
• Falcius tooted ♦ a report on the OpenStreetMap booth ♦ during the first day of Chemnitz Linux Days. The booth remained open on the second day, accompanied by a scheduled presentation ♦►♦ titled ‘OpenStreetMap is (Not) Just a Map’, which showcased a selection of thematic maps created using OpenStreetMap data, alongside entertaining anecdotes about the project.
• OpenStreetMap Indonesia organised ♦ a mapping talk series titled ‘Improving Data Quality of Road Mapping’. The session featured M. Iqnaul Haq, Maps Ops Manager at GoTo Group, who discussed the crucial role ♦ of OpenStreetMap data in optimising route quality to enhance the operational efficiency of Gojek, an Indonesian technology company providing ride-hailing, food delivery, and logistics services.
• The official lobster of the State of the Map US 2025 informed us that the poster session application deadline has been extended to Friday 18 April at 12:00pm EDT! Show your neat maps, personal projects, OSM research, and more.

Education

• Raquel Dezidério Souto has written a short guide showing how to map trees in OpenStreetMap with MapComplete and visualise them in three different ways (with Panoramax, overpass turbo, or uMap). This guide will serve as support material for the field mapping activities that will take place as part of Green Open Data Day 2025 or for general instructions.
• In response to a question from tlohde seeking recommendations for a web mapping tutorial/course (we reported earlier), Stefan Keller recommended two learning resources: ‘Publishing Maps on the Web‘ ♦►♦ and ‘OpenStreetMap Resources for Web Developers‘.

OSM research

• HeiGIT reported that Knoblauch et al. have published a paper that underscores the critical importance of integrating vector ecology and human behaviour into advanced disease modelling frameworks. A part of the GeoEPI project, the analysis integrates knowledge of Aedes mosquito biting behaviour with human movement patterns to significantly improve inferences about urban dengue dynamics.
• Accurate road surface information is crucial for emergency response and route planning. But OpenStreetMap has comprehensive surface attributes for only 30–40% of the roads worldwide.
  Using state-of-the-art GeoAI methods, HeiGIT has created an openly available worldwide dataset on road surface types. A new paper presented the methods behind the dataset.

Humanitarian OSM

• Séverin Ménard tooted that OpenStreetMap France has launched a humanitarian mapping initiative to assess building damage in Mayotte, a French overseas department, following Cyclone Chido, a tropical cyclone that struck Southeast Africa in December 2024. Utilising post-disaster satellite imagery from Copernicus, the project has already covered Mamoudzou, Tsingoni, Bandraboua, and M’Tsamboro. The latest focus is Acoua, located in the northwest of Grande-Terre, Mayotte.

Maps

• LordGarySugar has created a uMap that shows pins for house names in the United Kingdom coloured by their total occurrence count from Taginfo GB.
• Frederik Ramm announced that Geofabrik is now hosting its own version of the original ‘ÖPNVKarte’, rebranded as the ‘Public Transport Map’ for international users. The company has also approached the OpenStreetMap operations team to recommend reinstating the map on OpenStreetMap.org, which had long featured ÖPNVKarte before its recent removal due to operational concerns.

OSM in action

• [1] Orna, a location-based mobile role-playing game, utilises OpenStreetMap data to integrate real-world locations into gameplay. The game enhances players’ surroundings with virtual elements such as monsters and dungeons, with in-game positioning directly tied to their real-world location.
• The Ministry of Public Works and Housing of the Republic of Indonesia has launched ♦ a National Road and Bridge Condition Map (Peta Kondisi Jalan), utilising OpenStreetMap data to assist travellers during the annual Mudik season. This mass exodus sees millions of urban migrants returning to their hometowns ahead of Lebaran (Eid al-Fitr). The initiative aims to provide infrastructure updates, ensuring smoother and safer journeys for holiday travellers.

Software

• OpenHistoricalMap has released a renderer update that significantly improves performance by reducing vector tile sizes by 88% on average and as much as 96% in areas with dense historical boundary coverage.
• ohsome-planet is a new software library, available on GitHub, that facilitates the transformation of raw OpenStreetMap history data into the GeoParquet format, making it more accessible and efficient for spatial data analysis. With ohsome-planet, HeiGIT is making a big step toward the development of ohsome 2.0.

Programming

• David de la Iglesia Castro, from Mozilla AI, revealed that their team had developed AI-driven object detection and image segmentation models to map features in OpenStreetMap. As a test, he used a free Google Colab GPU to detect hundreds of swimming pools around his hometown, completing the process in about an hour.

  • In response to mounting (1, 2, 3) criticism, the development team has disabled the hosted demonstration and removed the upload functionality from their code, replacing it with a simple URL redirect to the editor. Acknowledging concerns over low-quality AI-generated contributions to OpenStreetMap, the team has also pledged to erase all previously submitted AI-assisted edits. In a statement, they assured the community that they are taking these steps to address the backlash and uphold mapping integrity.
• To mark World Water Day, observed on Saturday 22 March, Carto Cité developed ♦►♦ some Overpass queries that take advantage of the OSM data model describing watercourses.
• Fabio Manganiello is currently working on ‘GPSTracker’, a self-hosted solution designed as an alternative to Google Maps Timeline.

Releases

• NeatNit just submitted a pull request addressing a longstanding issue on the OpenStreetMap website, where bidirectional text was not displayed correctly. While further improvements, such as fixing diary entries, are still needed, the update significantly improves the readability of changeset comments, which have been particularly challenging for right-to-left language users. Previously, users had to insert unnecessary line breaks to prevent text from becoming unreadable.
• Version 8.4.1 of GRASS contains more than 80 changes compared to version 8.4.0. This new minor release includes important fixes and improvements to the GRASS tools, libraries and the graphical user interface, making it more stable and robust for your daily work. Most importantly, since the 8.4.0 release, the Python API, command line, and graphical user interface are using project instead of location for the main component of the data hierarchy while maintaining backward compatibility.
• OSRM v6.0-rc1, an open-source routing engine built in C++ for use with OpenStreetMap data, has been released. The latest version includes performance improvements, enhanced algorithm efficiency, and several new features.

Did you know that …

• … that OSM Fukushima regularly discusses ♦ every Japanese edition of weeklyOSM on YouTube? Would you also like to contribute to the success of OpenStreetMap? Then consider creating a YouTube channel in your language as well.
• … SmallTownUSA, an automated bot on the en.osm.town Mastodon server, toots daily updates featuring US towns, with populations under 1000, that are currently under-mapped in OSM?

OSM in the media

• Beate Meierfrankenfeld discussed ♦►♦, in a podcast, how maps shape our world with Daniel Eschkötter, cultural and media scientist at the University of Bielefeld, Ute Schneider, historian at the University of Duisburg-Essen, and Jochen Topf, a software developer and author active in OpenStreetMap.

Other “geo” things

• HeiGIT noted that Anne Schauss and Melanie Eckle-Elze participated in the German Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (Fachtagung Katastrophenvorsorge), held on 26 and 27 March. The event brought together experts to discuss the latest developments, challenges, and opportunities in disaster risk reduction, particularly in the context of climate change.
• François Savatier, of Pour La Science, reported ♦ that archaeologists have discovered 14,000-year-old carvings in the Ségognole shelter, located in the École River valley, about 60 km south of Paris. The engravings appear to depict a miniature map of the local river network, providing unexpected evidence of the cartographic knowledge possessed by Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers.
• Business Wire reported that tech company Bending Spoons has completed its acquisition of Komoot, the Germany-based route-planning platform popular among adventurers and outdoor enthusiasts. However, the acquisition has raised concerns, with Ray Maker among those questioning Bending Spoons’ track record with previous acquisitions such as Evernote, WeTransfer, and Meetup. As uncertainty looms, users and observers worry about the potential changes to Komoot’s quality and overall user experience under its new ownership.
• The Geological Service of Europe Union mantains the EGDI, a powerful and easy-to-use Web map application for visualising and querying spatial information through interactive maps, including various resources for further data analysis. This application has OpenStreetMap as its base layer and users can add layers from all the geoscientific topics EGDI covers or load a layer via a WMS address.
• Following President Donald Trump’s decree renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, German Google Maps users have launched an edit war over the names of local bodies of water, Spiegel reported ♦►♦. By creating new points of interest, users can mark unofficial landmarks, which others can then view, rate, and comment on. In some cases, these new names have also sparked minor local patriotic disputes.
• Murlidhar Mohol, India’s Minister of State for Civil Aviation, announced that multiple airlines have reported instances of GNSS interference affecting aircraft operating in and around the Amritsar and Jammu regions, which lie along India’s border with Pakistan.

• Stefan Krempl, from Heise, reported that the German Aerospace Centre, in collaboration with European research institutions, authorities, and industry partners, has developed Ranging Mode, a terrestrial navigation system designed as an alternative to satellite-based solutions.

  • R-Mode utilises existing national maritime infrastructure, operating on medium wave and very high frequency radio signals, to provide a cost-effective backup navigation service that enables ships to determine their position without relying on satellite-based systems.
  • Over the past seven years, an R-Mode test field with eight transmitters has been established, covering about 800 km from Helgoland to Stockholm. In 2025, it will expand ♦ to include Finland and Estonia.

Upcoming Events

Where What Online When Country Green Open Data Day (ou Dia Verde dos Dados Abertos) ♦ 2025-03-31 – 2025-04-01 Seropédica Green Open Data Day 2025 (ou Dia Verde dos Dados Abertos 2025) ♦ 2025-03-31 – 2025-04-01 ♦ Saint-Étienne Rencontre Saint-Étienne et sud Loire ♦ 2025-03-31 ♦ Santa Maria Maior Missing Maps Lisbon Mapathon with MSF ♦ 2025-04-01 ♦ Salzburg OSM Treffen Salzburg ♦ 2025-04-01 ♦ Missing Maps London: (Online) Mapathon [eng] ♦ 2025-04-01 San Jose South Bay Map Night ♦ ✓ 2025-04-02 ♦ Stuttgart Stuttgarter OpenStreetMap-Treffen ♦ 2025-04-02 ♦ OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting ♦ 2025-04-04 City of Canning Social Mapping Saturday: Rossmoyne ♦ 2025-04-05 ♦ OSMF Affiliation Focus Group Discussion: Thematic and non-geographical groups ♦ 2025-04-05 New Orleans A Synesthete’s Atlas: Cartographic Improvisations between Eric Theise and Carl Stone ♦ 2025-04-06 ♦ Delhi 15th OSM Delhi Mapping Party (Online) ♦ 2025-04-06 ♦ Salt Lake City OSM Utah Monthly Map Night ♦ 2025-04-09 ♦ Hamburg Hamburger Mappertreffen ♦ 2025-04-08 ♦ München Münchner OSM-Treffen ♦ 2025-04-08 ♦ Bern Berner OpenStreetMap-Znacht ♦ 2025-04-08 ♦ Zürich Missing Maps Zürich Mapathon ♦ 2025-04-09 ♦ Camerino OpenStreetMap: Mapping & Hiking ♦ 2025-04-10 ♦ Bochum Bochumer OSM-Treffen ♦ 2025-04-10 ♦ København OSMmapperCPH ♦ 2025-04-13 ♦ Delhi 15th OSM Delhi Mapping Party ♦ 2025-04-13 ♦ 中正區 OpenStreetMap x Wikidata Taipei #75 ♦ 2025-04-14 ♦

Note:
If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.

This weeklyOSM was produced by Elizabete, Raquel Dezidério Souto, Strubbl, TheSwavu, barefootstache, derFred, miurahr.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.

a day ago

Jste zkušení geodeti, nebo běžně používáte mapy. S GIS softwarem pracujete denně.

Situace

Ale teď potřebujete tvořit zákres do mapy se skupinou lidí, kteří nemají pokročilé mapovací zkušenosti a s počítačem také nejsou zrovna kamarádi. Nástroj mapování se tedy musí přizpůsobit jejich schopnostem. Zaznamenávat data do veřejné mapy není vhodné, potřebujete jen aktuální a přesnou podkladovou mapu.

Kdo s mapováním pomůže?

Mohou to být například:

Děti z dětského kroužku, které jsou sice šikovné na všechno možné, ale na QGIS nebo jiné profi aplikace mají ještě několik let času. Nedává smysl je obtěžovat s počítačem, když síla jejich schopností je v pozorovacím talentu. Tak je využijte a k počítači se vraťte později.

Lidé v krizové situaci, kterým právě katastrofa rozbila obydlí a nemají u sebe nic než oblečení a klíče od domu, který už neexistuje. V jejich momentálním rozpoložení budete těžko hledat soustředění, ale zároveň by bylo dobré upřesnit na mapě, co ve skutečnosti už je jen změť trosek. Dílo zkázy napáchala velká voda, oheň, nebo zemětřesení? Co když je potřeba je přesně lokalizovat a zároveň mapě dodat bližší metadata?

Senioři bez mapových zkušeností, kteří na kopcích za dědinou mají políčko, pastviny, vinohrad a ovocný sad… Rodnou ves znají velmi dobře, ale kdepak na ně s nějakou mobilní aplikací! Požádate je o pomoc, máte sice satelitní mapy, ale pantáta na ně slabým zrakem nevidí. Satelitní mapy neznají některé detaily, které znají ti dobří lidé ze vsi. A o ty právě jde.

Malozemědělci, nebo terénní ochránci přírody kteří jsou celý rok spíše venku, než doma. Počítače mají, ale v lese, v krajině, v nevlídném počasí je přeci nebudou používat. Data která zakreslí ručně, se do veřejné mapy nedostanou, ale přesto jsou velice důležitá na pozdější mapovou analýzu.

Týmy dobrovolníků z neziskové organizace realizující projekt participativního mapování je další případ. V situaci, kdy je potřeba úkolovat více různě zkušených dobrovolníků a jejich činnost probíhá na velkém území s nejasně definovanými plochami. Každý dobrovolník může používat vlastní mapu pro své okolí. Data nakonec musí být sjednocena do jedné georeferencované vrstvy, aby byla použitelná v GIS.

Netvrdím, že budu chytřejší než armáda, ale mohou to být i situace, které byste raději nechtěli zažít. Polní podmínky, kdy na místě a v čase žádné elektronické zařízení není bezpečné a data shromážděná z tady a teď v terénu, se dostanou do počítače až později. Přesto je potřeba mapovat a hlavně v té přesné formě předat. Digitalizace musí být co nejrychlejší. A doporučil bych nepoužívat Starlink.

Oppidum Třísov ♦

Jaké aplikace použít?

Je několik zajímavých mapových pomůcek, které využívají OSM podkladové mapy.

♦

3 days ago

This blog post is part of a series of blog posts about the new OSM file format “OMA”. This is the fourth post. At the end of the article you’ll find links to the other blog entries.

 

The real subject of this blog series is the newly developed file format. So far I have mainly talked about the tools for creating and using the format, because the format itself is a dry subject. But now it’s time to dive more deeply into the format itself. I will not go into all the details, because I think that apart from some freaks like me, people are not interested in all the details. If you are, take a look at the specs.

 

Fast Access

OpenStreetMap data consists of a set of elements. Some of these elements are nodes, some are ways, and some are relations. You can think of OSM as a big storehouse where all the elements are scattered around:

♦

Obviously it’s hard to find what you’re looking for, if there is no order.

The Order of OSM Files

Fortunately, it’s not that bad. In traditional OSM files there is some order: Elements are sorted by type and, as a second criterion, by ID.

♦

This order doesn’t help much, when looking for certain elements. Especially: You can’t take an element out of the middle and look at it, you have to go through the elements from top to bottom.1

The Order of Databases

Because it’s hard to work this way, many ways of sorting OSM elements have been developed over time. For example, in a database they can be stored as tables with one element per row and one table for each type. You can think of this as storing nodes in one room, ways in another, and relations in a third room in our storehouse.

Typically, databases also contain some indexes. In our analogy, they are like posters at the entrance to each room, telling you, which shelf to look on for a particular element. Indexes are very important for quick searching.

♦

The Order of OMA Files

Oma files sort elements on three levels: First by type and geographic location, second by key, and third by value. They contain something like a database index at each level, so typical searches can be handled very quickly.

In our analogy, you might think of the rooms in the building as the first level, the shelf units in each room as the second level and the shelves in each shelf unit as the third level; again, with posters at each level.

♦

 

Small Filesize

The second design goal was to keep the file size small. Two mechanisms are used for this: Efficient storage of the elementary datatypes and compression. There are basically three elementary datatypes to handle: geographic coordinates, integers and strings.

Geographical coordinates

Coordinates in OSM data are given as a pair of numbers expressing longitude and latitude in the WGS84 coordinate system. A naive approche of storing them would be as a pair of floating point numbers. For full accuracy you would need to use double precision numbers, resulting in 16 bytes per coordinate.

That’s a lot. For example, germany.oma contains 576,208,086 pairs of coordinates. At 16 bytes per pair, this alone would result in a file size of over 8 GB.

It would be possible to use single precision numbers, accepting some small rounding errors. This would halve the number of bytes used. But there are better ways: If you multiply each number involved by 10,000,000, the two coordinates become integers that can be stored in 8 bytes without loss of precision.

This can still be improved using a technique called delta encoding: Two consecutive nodes in the file are often close to each other. So the difference between the coordinates of these two nodes is a much smaller number that can be stored in fewer bytes.

In Oma files, if the difference between two coordinates is between -32767 and 32767, this difference is stored, using only 2 bytes. This case is used in 94% of all coordinates. If it’s larger, 6 bytes must be used. This results in a total of 4,4 bytes for a pair of coordinates on average, almost halving the amount needed again.2

For comparison, the pbf and o5m formats use a similar, but slightly more complicated delta encoding. The result is the same: an average of 4,4 bytes for a pair of coordinates.

Integers

If you look carefully at OSM data, there are many places where there are small non-negative integers (the number of tags of an element, the number of nodes of a way, the version number, and so on). A normal integer takes up 4 bytes of space, and that’s a waste when the numbers are so small, because almost always 3 of those 4 bytes are just zeros. That’s like writing 0008 instead of 8.

So, Oma files store integers smaller than 255 in just one byte. Integers between 255 and 65534 use 3 bytes, and all larger integers use 7 bytes. On average, this results in 1,006 bytes per integer, which is almost perfect (using germany.oma as a reference).

Strings

There are a lot of repetitive strings in OSM data. Imagine how many times the string highway alone occurs. It would be nice to store these strings more efficiently. Other formats use lookup tables to do so. For example, the lookup table might contain highway at position 3, so instead of storing the string highway, the number 3 could be used.

I have experimented with such lookup tables too, but they turned out to be a bad idea. Why is that? Well, the whole thing is piped through a compression algorithm called deflate. This algorithm is very good at recognising repetitions, and so the repeated highway strings can be compressed better than repeated occurrences of 3.

It turned out, that table lookup mechanisms together with deflate increased the file size instead of reducing it.

So I didn’t do much with strings. There is only one small difference from the standard way of storing strings (in Java): I do not use a two-byte value to store the length of the string, but an integer, as explained above, which most of the time uses only one byte.

Compression

All slices can be compressed using an algorithm called deflate. This is a very old and well-established algorithm. It was developed back in the eighties and is used in zip files, pbf files and many other places.

Well, I didn’t think any more about compression – it worked, so what?

In a comment to my introductory post, user cello pointed out, that there are better algorithms available today. They are about 5 to 10 times faster, often with similar or even better compression.

I don’t know how well these algorithms will work together with the element storage decisions I wrote about above. They probably need to be added to the tools to find out. I haven’t found the time to do that and I probably won’t find the time to do so in the near future.

But I thought I could calculate rough estimates of the speed gains of these algorithms. All I had to do was measure the time taken by the deflate algorithm and divide it by 5 or 10. Unfortunately, the measurement produced some very strange results, leaving me with very little information to estimate.3

It could be, that the speed gain is almost nothing, or even a loss. It could also be that access times are halved. I can’t predict.

I thought for a long time about what to do with these new compression algorithms. Yesterday I finally forced myself into a decision: I will not include them in version 1 of the file format. It would take too many resources on my part and I can’t tell yet if anyone (besides me) will use OMA files anyway. But I definitely plan to include these algorithms in version 2 of the file format, when the time is ripe.

See also

• A New File Format for OSM Data
• Using the Oma Library
• Getting Files in OMA File Format

1. The analogy of a stack is somewhat missleading here. Actually you can look at every place in the pile, but you do not know, where one element ends and where the next starts. I described this in more detail in my introductory post. ↩

2. Oma files do not restrict the order of elements in a slice. If they where sorted in an approbriate manner, the average amount of bytes needed could probably be reduced to almost 4,0. I never tried this though. ↩

3. I used two versions of germany.oma: One compressed, the other not. The second one is about three times larger as the first one. Reading the whole file byte by byte takes 1 minute for the first one and 3 minutes for the second one; that’s what I expected. Next, I used these two files to read them with an OmaReader. I used an empty filter which means, that all elements are read. I expected this to be slower in both cases. While this was true for the compressed version (took now about 2 minutes), it was not true for the uncompressed version (took only 1 1/2 minutes). I have no clue why reading the whole file while jumping around in the file and doing some additional compution with the bytes is much faster than just reading the file sequentially… ↩

4 days ago

Explorando el Humedal El Totoral

♦ El Humedal El Totoral es un ecosistema estratégico que enfrenta diversas presiones ambientales, como la expansión agrícola y ganadera, la urbanización descontrolada y el uso inadecuado de agroquímicos. Para comprender mejor estos problemas y generar datos abiertos sobre el territorio, organizamos una jornada de mapeo comunitario con ChatMap, una herramienta innovadora para la ciencia ciudadana.

Mapeo Comunitario con ChatMap

¿Qué es ChatMap y por qué lo usamos? ChatMap es una herramienta de mapeo que funciona empleando WhatsApp, lo que la hace muy accesible y fácil de usar. A diferencia de otras aplicaciones moviles pensadas desde el GIS, que pueden ser complejas para quienes no están familiarizados con tecnologías geoespaciales, ChatMap permite mapear de manera sencilla y en tiempo real.

Algunas ventajas que encontramos de emplear ChatMap en la educación ambiental:

• No requiere instalar nuevas aplicaciones.
• Interfaz familiar para el usuario (WhatsApp)
• Permite visualizar datos en tiempo real a través de la página Chatmap
• Ideal para educación ambiental y monitoreo comunitario.

¿Cómo funciona?

Creamos un grupo de Whatsapp con los participantes. Explicamos que solamente deben enviamos la ubicación (Ubicación actual, no Ubicación en tiempo real) y un breve reporte, este puede ser una imagen o un texto. Al final del ejercicio exportamos el chat con archivos adjuntos, lo cargamos a la plataforma y cada punto queda registrado automáticamente en el mapa. Chatmap Finalmente descargamos la información y la importamos al nuevo desarrollo de HOT basado en uMap uMap

♦ ♦

Resultados del Mapeo

Durante la actividad participaron 25 personas, registrando 40 puntos con información sobre biodiversidad y conflictos socioambientales.

Flora y fauna identificadas

• Especies vegetales: Plantas herbáceas, arbustivas y árboles nativos.
• Fauna silvestre: Patos, halcones y anfibios.

Conflictos ambientales detectados

• Canalización del humedal para desecamiento.
• Depósito de residuos de agroquímicos cerca del agua.
• Expansión de la ganadería dentro del humedal.
• Presión sobre la totora, una especie nativa clave y expansión del pasto kikuyo, como especie invasora.
• Acumulación de escombros y residuos en la zona

Esta información puede servir como punto de referencia para visibilizar los problemas ambientales del ecosistema y promover estrategias de conservación basadas en datos abiertos y ciencia participativa. ♦

Ciencia Ciudadana y Educación Ambiental

El uso de ChatMap en educación ambiental permitió: * Involucrar a la comunidad en la generación de datos geoespaciales * Facilitar el aprendizaje sobre biodiversidad y conflictos ambientales * Crear un mapa colaborativo y que puede ser fácilmente actualizado en el tiempo

Esta herramienta desarrollada por (Emilio Mariscal)[www.linkedin.com/in/emiliomariscal/) del equipo de Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team me resulta un desarrollo muy útil para realizar trabajo con comunidades. Seguiré explorando la herramienta y compartiendo los resultados que obtenga con ella.

Consulta el mapa interactivo aquí: Mapeo de biodiversidad y conflictos sociambientales Humedal El Totoral ♦

¡Gracias por leer!

4 days ago

Objects in private gardens which do not require a build permission, such as small shelters and especially movable objects like (round) swimming pools, should NOT be entered into ANY public maps! They add nothing to the quality and usefulness of a map, I consider it a map data spam.

I may sometimes remove such objects from the Frýdlant region, especially if not mapped correctly (private swimming pools must be marked as private to not interfere with searching for nearby swimming pools).

5 days ago

Read in English

MapComplete, Panoramax, overpass turbo e uMap: o que você pode fazer com esses programas, ao mapear as árvores? Mas, antes, uma perguntinha: qual a importância de mapear as árvores mesmo?

Para além da questão urbanística, em que, são avaliados frequentemente se os elementos naturais e equipamentos urbanos estão conservados, se são adequados ou se estão bem distribuídos em uma determinada área; a maior motivação para o mapeamento de árvores é o monitoramento da cobertura vegetal, uma vez que estes indivíduos são relevantes, do ponto de vista ecológico. Aliado a alguma atividade educativa, ainda ajuda a promover a consciência sobre tal importância nos educandos.

As árvores proporcionam diversos serviços ecossistêmicos (ou serviços ambientais), tais como: servir de abrigo e alimento para diferentes espécies, refrigeração do ar ambiente, remoção do CO2 atmosférico, produção de biomassa, evitar a erosão do solo, redução da poluição sonora etc…

Mapeando com o MapComplete

♦ Alguns dados foram modificados apenas para ilustrar este artigo.

MapComplete é um programa belga, que permite mapear feições relacionadas a diferentes temas e, um deles, é o mapeamento de árvores. O programa envia automaticamente os dados para o OSM, desde que você esteja logado com sua conta de usuário(a). Link para o tema de árvores do MapComplete

Na interface, ainda são oferecidos alguns recursos úteis, como a possibilidade de registrar uma fotografia localmente (em nível de rua) e subi-la para o servidor do Panoramax, ganhando uma chave única, que pode ser referenciada em outros softwares (como o uMap, a ser mencionado adiante neste texto). Também é possível visualizar o item mapeado diretamente no site osm.org, por meio de um link.

Além disso, podem ser especificados vários atributos. O programa também permite a criação de esquemas personalizados de temas. No esquema default, destacamos:

A) o tipo de folha:

• etiqueta leaf_type=broadleaved - refere-se às angiospermas (espécies que produzem flores e de folhas largas). Ex: Amendoeira da praia - Terminalia catappa, Q271179.

• etiqueta leaf_type=needleleaved - refere-se ás gimnospermas (espécies que não produzem flores e com folhas em forma de agulha). e.g. Pinus - Pinus silvestres, Q133128.

B) o código da espécie na Wikidata (busca fácil pelo nome):

• etiqueta species:wikidata=* . Ex: Coqueiro - Cocos nucifera, Q13187.

C) a circunferência - em metros, a ser medida a 1,3 m do solo (valor padrão aceito internacionalmente):

• etiqueta circunference=*

D) a altura - em metros:

• etiqueta height=*

E) a localização do indivíduo - se próximo a alguma via, se em área urbana ou não etc.:

• etiqueta denotation=*

Visualizando no Panoramax

♦

Link do panoramax.xyz

Uma vez mapeados os indivíduos (cada árvore), as fotografias ficam armazenadas eternamente (a menos que alguém a delete ou que o programa seja encerrado) para todos os usuários, sendo importante para registro da saúde das árvores ou a idade das mesmas, todas características que podem ser facilmente observadas nele. Além disso, permite observar o nível de arborização das vias e o quanto os galhos de árvores estão ou não entremeados com fiação elétrica, que, no Brasil, é suspensa (e não no subsolo) e que provocou diversos transtornos e prejuízos nos eventos ocorridos em São Paulo (capital), com queda de muitos postes de luz, durante uma tempestade no verão de 2025.

Visualizando no overpass turbo

♦

Link do overpass turbo

Mapeados os pontos, incluídos os atributos, registradas as fotografias, ainda é possível criar esquemas para visualização no overpass turbo, sendo o mais simples, o que segue no código abaixo, que colore com códigos específicos, personalizados, as árvores com tipos diferentes de folhas (largas ou finas, como mencionado acima).

node
  [natural=tree]
  ({{bbox}});
out;

{{style: /* added by auto-styler */
*[leaf_type=broadleaved]
{ color: #3E600B; fill-color:#3E600B; }
*[leaf_type=needleleaved]
{ color: #97E71F; fill-color:#97E71F; }
}}

Também é possível exportar estes resultados e/ou consultar estas feições com o mesmo esquema de cores em outras áreas, pois a consulta é automática, de acordo com o retângulo envolvente que aparece na tela (ou bounding box).

Visualizando no uMap

♦

O uMap é um projeto francês, que provê uma plataforma de Web mapping, que permite a criação de mapas Web muito rapidamente e, atualmente, com camadas dinâmicas, que são geradas à medida em que as coordenadas mudam no endereço do navegador. Assim, podem ser visualizadas as árvores mapeadas em qualquer região do mundo e com esquemas de cores, etiquetas e comportamento ao clicar, personalizados segundo o projeto.

Para o exemplo apresentado aqui, foram utilizadas consultas overpass segundo o tipo de folha (leaf_type), de modo a distinguir as árvores de folhas largas, daquelas de folhas em forma de agulha. Isto é realizado de maneira muito simples diretamente do painel do uMap, em modo edição, no menu importar.

♦

Link para o uMap (obs: algumas feições foram modificadas para ilustrar este artigo).

Para que a fotografia apareça na etiqueta da feição, é necessário escolher o modo “OpenStreetMap” nas “Opções de interação” » “Estilo de conteúdo do pop-up”. Ou programar o conteúdo da etiqueta, conforme as indicações do projeto - github.com/umap-project/umap.

Participe do evento Green Open Data Day 2025

♦

31 MAR 2025 - manhã/noite Informações e inscrições:

ivides.org/green-open-data-day

E isso é tudo por hoje! Espero encontrá-lo(a) mapeando árvores por aí!

Este conteúdo foi orgulhosamente desenvolvido totalmente com software livre!

♦

5 days ago

Project Outline

This entry is a statement of my intention to map out Bell Island, Newfoundland. I will start south and move my way north as the south is less densely detailed and work will likely be quicker. My intended workflow is stated below, where I will not move on to the next item on the list until the first item has been mapped as thoroughly as possible on the entire island. While I am experienced at working with geospatial data, this is my first project on OSM so any suggestions/comments on my work are appreciated.

I will provide updates through future diary entries as my work progresses. This is a casual project so I am not setting any timelines.

Workflow

1. Buildings & associated roads
2. Terrain
3. (Might drop due to lack of local knowledge) Secondary urban & rural characteristics (cemeteries, parking lots, etc.)

6 days ago

“Fina and the Maps” is a children’s book that aims to get children excited about collaborative cartography. The authors and translators hope that some of them will take part in the community project OpenStreetMap, which maps the world and makes the data available to everyone – similar to Wikipedia. The book is intended to promote open education and the development of collective knowledge and can be downloaded for free as an eBook (PDF). The recommended age range is 8 to 12 years.

♦

The colorfully illustrated children’s book (“Fina e os mapas”) about cartography and collaborative maps was originally written by Pablo Sanxiao in Galician and Spanish. It has already been translated into English, French, Italian, Catalan and (Brazilian) Portuguese and is now also available in (Swiss) High German. It can be translated into other languages in the spirit of open education and is therefore also available in raw text (Markdown).

Here is a summary: Fina is a girl who loves technology and often visits her grandmother by bike to enjoy her exciting stories and delicious cookies. When the power goes out one day, her grandmother shows Fina old atlases and tells her how maps used to be drawn by hand, sparking Fina’s interest in cartography. Inspired, Fina discovers the OpenStreetMap project, starts entering places digitally with her grandmother and becomes a digital cartographer herself.

Share this! Website and download: finaeosmapas.ghandalf.org/

6 days ago

Ich war am 19.3. zum 1.Mal beim OSM Stammtisch im Kaffeesatz. Da wurde mir die App StreetComplete empfohlen. Die habe ich mir installiert und am Donnerstag intensiv ausprobiert. Es hat Spaß gemacht und mich gefesselt. Drei Stunden bin ich zwischen Tietz und Moritzhof hin und her gelaufen und habe ca. 60 Einträge erfasst. Demnächst werde ich mal JOSM ausprobieren.

6 days ago