01/01/2019-07/01/2019

Mapping

“A fool with a tool…” (… is still a fool) is probably not the right subject line if you want to address an issue on an international mailing list, even if you encounter an OSM element where name spacing is taken to an extreme level: service:vehicle:Transmission_Repair=yes, service:vehicle:air_conditioning=yes, service:vehicle:batteries=yes, service:vehicle:body_repair=yes, service:vehicle:brakes=yes, service:vehicle:car_parts=yes, service:vehicle:car_repair=yes, service:vehicle:diagnostics=yes, service:vehicle:electrical=yes, service:vehicle:glass=yes, service:vehicle:inspection=yes, service:vehicle:motor=yes, service:vehicle:motorbike=yes, service:vehicle:muffler=yes, service:vehicle:oil_change=yes, service:vehicle:repairs=yes, service:vehicle:tires=yes, service:vehicle:truck_repair=yes, service:vehicle:tyres=yes, service:vehicle:wheels=yes

Disputed boundaries are a sensitive issue, and so are proposals as to how to map them. John Paris announced version 1.6 of his proposal for mapping disputed boundaries in OSM and requests feedback.

Konrad Lischka suggested extending the tag amenity=kindergarten with operator= , operator:type=charitable and organisation= to properly tag kindergartens that are operated as independent charitable entities.

with , and to properly tag kindergartens that are operated as independent charitable entities. Following the recent approval of the new key interval= for tagging the time between departures at any given stop (see Headway on Wikipedia), Leif Rasmussen continues with the next step and suggests the key departures= for adding the departure time for a given interval.

for tagging the time between departures at any given stop (see Headway on Wikipedia), Leif Rasmussen continues with the next step and suggests the key for adding the departure time for a given interval. Minh Nguyen reports about his mapping of Oldenburg (Indiana), a city where street signs are in German.

In some countries the number 13 is considered as unlucky. In these countries the 13th floor is often omitted in multi-level buildings. The mapper ‘This Is A Display Name Desu’ asks how to deal with it when mapping building levels.

Community

A community representative from the Thai community will meet with the mapping lead from Grab to discuss recent quality issues caused by Grab’s activity. Mishari Muqbil is helping to prepare for the meeting and asks for input from the wider community on what topics should be addressed during the meeting.

“What use is OpenStreetMap?” John Whelan was asked by an employee of a municipal government. How would you have responded and where would you refer them to find further information? The answers to his question might help you too.

The interpretation of population limits in the OSM wiki for choosing the correct value for a place= tag led to a dispute between mappers in Turkmenistan. The issue is that the importance of a settlement in some countries is not reflected in the same way by the population number as it is in Western Europe for example. Joseph Eisenberg wrote a good summary of how to distinguish between the place-values without using hard population limits. Kevin Kenny reports on a similar discussion in the US and points to the outcome.

tag led to a dispute between mappers in Turkmenistan. The issue is that the importance of a settlement in some countries is not reflected in the same way by the population number as it is in Western Europe for example. Joseph Eisenberg wrote a good summary of how to distinguish between the place-values without using hard population limits. Kevin Kenny reports on a similar discussion in the US and points to the outcome. David Garcia, a cartographer, wrote an article on medium.com about why he is committed to the commons of cartography. As he lays out in the article, his turning point was his humanitarian contribution to OSM after the devastating cyclone Haiyan.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

We want to repeat a tweet from the OSM Operations Team: “Thank you to @AssoGrifon 🇫🇷 and @iwayAG 🇨🇭 for offering us Tile CDN servers today. Both now up & already serving traffic.”

The German company Alpha9 Marketing Gmbh Co KG with its brand auskunft.de joined the OpenStreetMap Foundation as a Bronze Corporate Member.

Events

The 4th GeoPython Conference will take place on June 24-26, 2019 in Basel/Muttenz, Switzerland. The topics range from Python in general, geospatial webservices and geovisualisation to indoor mapping and modelling

Education

Yongyang Xu, Zhong Xie and Liang Wu from the Faculty of Information Engineering, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China, have analysed the road network in OSM and found out that the data in OSM is highly detailed and complex but also includes many duplicate lines which degrade the efficiency and increase the difficulty of extracting multilane roads. The team suggested a machine‐learning‐based approach to predicted multilane roads. Unfortunately the study is behind a paywall, hence, it could not be confirmed whether the research area has indeed many duplicate roads or if it is a misconception about OSM’s data model.

Maps

Scott Davies published a nicely styled Chronological Map of Walthamstow on Twitter that he made with OSM, QGIS and inkscape.

Paul Norman offers pre-rendered OSM carto tiles at low zoom levels for download. The files that are available for the zoom levels 0 to 6, 8, 9 or 10 could be useful, if you need a world map without high zoom levels and don’t want to set up a database server.

Juminet has created (automatic translation) an OSM map of the Ardennes region. He describes a clever method to determine orientation for markers, and shows the special attention his map gives to Christmas trees.

(automatic translation) an OSM map of the Ardennes region. He describes a clever method to determine orientation for markers, and shows the special attention his map gives to Christmas trees. An interesting study about street names in Germany won an award at the Information is Beautiful Awards.

OpenSnowMap points out that a number of cross-country ski trails in the Jura are yet to be mapped in OSM.

Software

[1] User KiaaTiX from The Netherlands created a new JOSM plugin to cut out areas (like rivers) from other areas; PolygonCutOut (automatic translation).

Releases

Version 2.12.2 of the iD editor has recently been released. The new version allows a preset to control the “add field” dropdown, improves usability and performance, fixes a lot of bugs, adds localisation to label/description pulled from Wikidata, and further improves the presets.

Did you know …

… about get-map.org, a tool to create printable maps?

… how to run your own instance of uMap? A user asked in the forum and was pointed to a step-by-step guide.

… that Austria’s building coverage in OSM has reached 85 percent? That’s an increase of 21% compared with the beginning of 2016. Even the least-mapped municipalities exceed 50 percent coverage.

… Geofabrik’s tile calculator, that returns the number and size of tiles in a given bounding box.

Other “geo” things

The theory that the geography of a country determines its development is not new. However, Lionel Page disagrees and points to a road map of the border area between the neighbouring countries Finland and Russia, that shows significant differences although they are very close to each other geographically. To the critics that said one example does not falsify a theory, Lionel responded by naming similar examples in North/South Korea, Austria and Czechia (the Czech Republic), USA and Mexico.

Frost & Sullivan, a global business consulting firm headquartered in Mountain View, California, has chosen Mapbox’s mapping and live location platform as 2019 Platform of the Year.

The company Here, formerly known as Navteq and Nokia Maps, launched an app for planning and sharing rides called SoMo (derived from “social mobility”). The app aims to combine all public, private and personal transport offerings in a single system and adds social functions to share rides between personal contacts.

Upcoming Events

Where What When Country Dresden Stammtisch Dresden 2019-01-10 Berlin 127. Berlin-Brandenburg Stammtisch 2019-01-10 Nantes Réunion mensuelle 2019-01-10 Zurich OSM Stammtisch Zurich 2019-01-11 Rennes Réunion mensuelle 2019-01-14 London Missing Maps January London mid-month mapping party/working group 2019-01-15 Toulouse Rencontre mensuelle 2019-01-16 Karlsruhe Stammtisch 2019-01-16 Salzburg Maptime – Stammtisch 2019-01-16 Mumble Creek OpenStreetMap Foundation public board meeting 2019-01-17 Freiberg Stammtisch Freiberg 2019-01-17 Leoben Stammtisch Obersteiermark 2019-01-17 Reutti Stammtisch Ulmer Alb 2019-01-22 Nottingham Nottingham 2019-01-22 Cologne Köln Stammtisch 2019-01-23 Lübeck Lübecker Mappertreffen 2019-01-24 Mannheim Mannheimer Mapathons e.V. 2019-01-24 Greater Vancouver area Metrotown mappy Hour 2019-01-25 Bremen Bremer Mappertreffen 2019-01-28 Arlon Réunion au Pays d’Arlon 2019-02-04 London Missing Maps Monthly Mapathon London 2019-02-05 Toulouse Rencontre mensuelle 2019-02-06 Stuttgart Stuttgarter Stammtisch 2019-02-06 Dresden Stammtisch Dresden 2019-02-07 Berlin 128. Berlin-Brandenburg Stammtisch 2019-02-08 Ulm ÖPNV-Mapathon Ulm 2019-02-09 Dresden FOSSGIS 2019 2019-03-13-2019-03-16 Montpellier State of the Map France 2019 2019-06-14-2019-06-16 Heidelberg HOT Summit 2019 2019-09-19-2019-09-20 Heidelberg State of the Map 2019 (international conference) 2019-09-21-2019-09-23 Grand-Bassam State of the Map Africa 2019 2019-11-22-2019-11-24

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This weeklyOSM was produced by Polyglot, Rogehm, SK53, SunCobalt, TheSwavu, YoViajo, derFred.