05/31/2016-06/06/2016

About us

We were interviewed about our Wochennotiz and weeklyOSM and took the chance to report at length. Despite the prophets of doom, the project continues and invites new contributors to help.

Mapping

Carlos Felipe Castillo aka Kaxtillo has released a video in which he demonstrates how to make 360° images, upload these images to Mapillary and then process them in OSM.

The FAA warns about potential outages of the GPS system in southern California. This seems to be caused by tests of the military.

Mapillary uploaded a tutorial to Youtube about how to use the Mapillary JOSM plugin to edit OpenStreetMap. (via Twitter) Please note: To install the Mapillary JOSM plugin: Edit -> Preferences -> Plugins -> Search: Mapillary -> Select -> OK and re-start JOSM.

and re-start JOSM. Jinal Foflia wrote a blog post about the importance and process of interacting with the local mapping community using OpenStreetMap Notes.

Bryan Housel reports about three new functions that will make editing in iD much more efficient.

The ‘similar image search‘ in the Terrapattern tool can now be tested in an online map of Berlin.

On the Bonn (Germany) mailing list, there is a discussion (automatic translation) about how to tag roads damaged and impassable by recent heavy rainfall.

(automatic translation) about how to tag roads damaged and impassable by recent heavy rainfall. The Flemish GR organisation (a long distance hiking group) have made their extensive collection of GPX data available in order to improve hiking trails on OpenStreetMap. The participants on the talk-be mailing list are excited but then concerned about the maintenance of long distance relations, not just hiking but also public transport data.

On the talk-at mailing list a long discussion started (automatic translation) about what is the correct capitalisation of a chain store name “TEDi” for the name=* tag and the inconsistency that can be seen via Overpass-Turbo.

Community

Jorge Luis Batista gave a talk at TEDx Havana about how he is looking forward to “put Cuba on the map” (OpenStreetMap that is) despite limited internet access.

at TEDx Havana about how he is looking forward to “put Cuba on the map” (OpenStreetMap that is) despite limited internet access. Some of the Cuban OpenStreetMappers are trying to activate the Cuban OSM community. More details on the talk-cu mailing list (automatic translation).

The question how to create a Garmin Custom Map on OSM help is the most popular currently with 23,000 hits.

… and another new feature: HDYC now also mentions your HOTOSM activities.

On openstreetmap.cz/sotm colleagues from the Czech Republic and Slovakia have published their presentations (see the links on the agenda).

Imports

Kevin Kenny reports on the import for the NYC DEP Watershed Recreation Areas. He noticed some misalignment which he is trying to fix.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

Frederik Ramm is seeking a volunteer to cross-check the OSMF finances. This may help to recognize early if the treasurer buys a Porsche from foundation money 😉

Peter Barth recapped the f2f meeting of the OSMF board.

The OSMF board announced some interesting changes regarding the foundation’s transparency.

The OSM Foundation is seeking a (paid) administrative assistant and has extended the application deadline by a week to the 10th of June.

Events

Until June 10th, one can vote on talks for the State of the Map and thus help decide about the program for this conference.

At the GEOSummit in Bern, Switzerland, there’ll be the opportunity to print large OpenStreetMap maps for free.

Planning has started for a weekend meeting (in English) at Dresden, Germany for OpenStreetMappers with two days of talks, discussions, networking, mapping and hacking.

Humanitarian OSM

DaCor has started the second phase of Lesotho Map with the release of eleven tasks in tasking manager on May 30.

HOTOSM informs about the status of the mapping and the damage resulting after the earthquake in Ecuador.

The fourth HOT newsletter has been published.

Maps

The Guardian took maps from Gretchen Peterson’s book “City Maps: A Coloring Book for Adults” and produced a pretty hard Quiz with the title: “can you identify the city from the blank street map”?

This site provides a map for all in accordance with the proposal for highway=via_ferrata (A mountain route equipped with fixed cables, stemples, ladders, and bridges). This map also includes navigation functionality.

switch2OSM

The Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (the main public transport company of Berlin) is taking delivery (automatic translation) of a new operational management system which uses OpenStreetMap for its mapping and wants to engage with OSM locally.

Open Data

German Federal Transport Minister Dobrindt is reported in heise.de (automatic translation) announcing the availability of 100 Million Euro from the “mFund” (automatic translation). These funds will be made available for combining government, public and private data to produce new applications. Examples cited include new navigation, precise weather and sharing platforms.

(automatic translation) announcing the availability of 100 Million Euro from the “mFund” (automatic translation). These funds will be made available for combining government, public and private data to produce new applications. Examples cited include new navigation, precise weather and sharing platforms. Mapbox enters the autonomous vehicle market by introducing Mapbox Drive, a software development kit for cars. It is based on raw data from OpenStreetMap. It is also mentioned on techcrunch.com.

locr, a provider of personalized maps, creates a giant world map on super wide EFI inkjet printer. locr uses OSM as geo data source.

Licences

Debadityo Sinha writes that the Geospatial Information Bill will deal a body blow to environmental democracy in India. The bill puts severe restrictions on acquiring, using and disseminating of geospatial information.

Software

User mmd investigated the creation of areas in the Overpass-API and showed various ways to improve it. Based on this discovery his optimizations brought huge speed-ups in the creation of areas.

Programming

Joachim explains how EOX calculates the curve for labels for geographic features on a map. The code is published on Github.

Zabot, a student of this year’s Google Summer of Code, shows the first results of his work. His further plans can be read on his user diary.

Releases

provided by the OSM Software Watchlist

Did you know …

A map, The Great British Public Toilet Map, shows public toilets in central Brixton

OpenStreetMap viewer for Amiga-Systems. This map can be moved around and zoomed, waypoints can be set and recorded tracks or waypoints can be loaded from GPX, TCX, KML or KMZ files.

Other “geo” things

[1] XKCD has published a cartoon for dating world maps. It seems that OpenStreetMap is current but it is still fun to trace through the many decision boxes around geo-political events…

DLR (automatic translation) has developed a multifunctional crises management system project PHAROS. It is an open and flexible service platform that builds system for satellite monitoring, sensor technology, simulations and various communication techniques. It also uses OSM. This system demonstrates disaster management in forest fires (see video).

Illegal mapping is a “serious” problem in remote areas of western China, according to five annual announcements on typical illegal mapping practices released by the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation (NASG).

For a low-lying, densely populated country like the Netherlands, monitoring subsidence is critical. Until recently, tiny displacements in the ground beneath our feet couldn’t be mapped nationally but, thanks to the Sentinel-1 mission, this is now possible.

The Verge reports that police prosecuting a suspect in a bank robbery in California, USA sought data from Google, used in the Google’s Location History service on Android phones. The reporter speculates about how many requests might have been made of Google for this service that is mainly for geo-targeted advertising.

Gretchen N. Peterson writes about criticism she got on her coloring book citiy maps and also explains on how she produced the maps.

Upcoming Events

Note: If you like to see your event here, please put it into the calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM. Please check your event in our public calendar preview and correct it, where appropiate..

This weekly was produced by Laura Barroso, Nakaner, Peda, Rogehm, Softgrow, derFred, jinalfoflia, malenki, mgehling, seumas, stephan75, wambacher, widedangel.