22/08/2017-28/08/2017

About us

We are always looking for people to help us improve our newsletter so it can get out faster, have more depth and coverage, and generally improve it for our readers, like you. Please join our team by contacting us now, it’s fun! 😉

Mapping

Pierre Béland noted on Twitter that winter roads on frozen rivers, lakes and seas ( ice_road=yes ) are shown as normal roads in all renderers. At least 7,600 of these roads are mapped on OpenStreetMap, for example in Tuktoyaktuk.

) are shown as normal roads in all renderers. At least 7,600 of these roads are mapped on OpenStreetMap, for example in Tuktoyaktuk. Andreas Bürki shared his grievances on the Talk-ch mailing list about a mapper, who deleted separately mapped sidewalks in Bern. Thus, he encounters a discussion about the mapping of sidewalks.

Brian May calls on Talk-US mailing list “all TIGER fix up junkies” to focus on the coastal areas of Texas. If you want to join please read the tips on Reddit and the OSM wiki.

The satellite image layer “Esri World Imagery” can now also be used as a data source for mapping and is available in the OSM editors. See also entry in the ArcGIS blog. In Germany it contains imagery of Rhineland-Palatinate, Thuringia and North Rhine-Westphalia, for which permission for use had not previously been granted (translation).

[1] User mapeadora writes a detailed report of the mapathon for the 13th anniversary of OSM Latin America. Further information can be found on the event’s wiki page (in Spanish).

Satoshi (user nyampire) published an idea for review workflow using OSMCha. He asks for feedback. Note that current version of the iD editor does indeed support “review requested”.

Jochen Topf looks back in his blog at his efforts to remap and fix “old style” multipolygons.

Community

Some users of the German OSM Forum expressed surprise (automatic translation) about some of the recipients of the OSM Awards. There was also a suggestion that people who do work in OSM without getting paid (volunteers) should get awards, rather people for whom OSM is a “day job”. Everyone’s favourite source of OSM snark Anonymaps says something similar in a tweet.

(automatic translation) about some of the recipients of the OSM Awards. There was also a suggestion that people who do work in OSM without getting paid (volunteers) should get awards, rather people for whom OSM is a “day job”. Everyone’s favourite source of OSM snark Anonymaps says something similar in a tweet. Steve Bennett wrote an article about how easy it is (or isn’t) to combine the various vector tile options when creating a new vector map for OpenStreetMap.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

The user “chdr” added and modified about 75,000 street names in various countries. Artefacts (in some cases actual source tags) show that some information came from Google Maps and the contributor refused to confirm the source of the data. Frederik Ramm from the Data Working Group announced the redaction of these changes on the Talk and Talk-US mailing lists. A large discussion ensues about where it would be possible to replace these names with data from acceptable sources, how that should take place and whether that is even possible with a “redaction”.

On 24. August a public meeting of the OSMF board took place. They talked about the application of the FOSSGIS e.V. to be a local chapter in Germany and other topics. The minutes have not been published in total yet.

Events

Geofabrik extends an invitation to an OpenStreetMap Hack Weekend on 21th and 22th October in Karlsruhe. You can sign up on the OSM wiki.

On the Swiss mailing list Stefan Keller suggests keeping a date in your diary for the Open Tourism Data Hackdays on 27/28th October 2017 in Arosa. It is organised by the OpenData club and the SOSM, the Swiss Association of OpenStreetMap. There will also be a mapping party.

Stefan Keller suggests keeping a date in your diary for the Open Tourism Data Hackdays on 27/28th October 2017 in Arosa. It is organised by the OpenData club and the SOSM, the Swiss Association of OpenStreetMap. There will also be a mapping party. OSM and FOSSGIS e.V. will be present at the Intergeo 2017 from September 26th to 28th at the “Berlin Exhibition Grounds” (Hall 5, Booth B5.044).

Shunnosuke Shimizu created a short video of SotM 2017 in Aizu-Wakamatsu (Japan), that ends with the invitation for all to join SotM 2018 in Milan (Italy).

Humanitarian OSM

If you are a HOT contributor or in other way related to it, Laura Salzmann asks that you complete a small survey to help in her dissertation “Investigating motivations of humanitarian OpenStreetMap contributors and NGO use of contributed data”. The ultimate goal is to compare the expectations from within the project to those of NGOs that go on and use the maps that we produce.

The Dutch Red Cross calls with the headline “Save people from your chair” to help with OSM.

Maps

Christoph Hormann, a OSM-Carto maintainer, looks back on the last year of its development and ventures into the future.

switch2OSM

OSM user “apm-wa” (who in his “day job” is the US Ambassador to Turkmenistan) is happy that two taxi companies in Ashgabat are now using OpenStreetMap. The official app of the Asian indoor and martial arts games, which takes place in September in Ashgabat, will also use OSM maps.

opendigitalradio.org uses a Leaflet map to show the location of their local DAB (Digital Audio Broadcas) + stations equipment that are already in use.

Open Data

In Sweden public authorities are changing to the license model CC-0. They start with TK50 satellite fotos (including height data), street register and others. (automatic translation)

Licences

The board of the OSM Foundation has accepted the Geocoding Guidelines. The guideline explains how the OSMF interprets the Open Database License 1.0 in relation to geocoding.

Software

Vincent Privat invites Osmose developers on Dev-fr to view JOSM tickets and discuss: 1) Export of the Validation Messages to a xml/json file and 2) Develop a Standalone JOSM Validator (jar) in command line without GUI.

road.cc introduces “Bike Citizens” as their Cycling app of the week. The free OSM-based bicycle router may be upgraded by city maps or route suggestions. User comments speak of some odd routing behaviour though.

Programming

User -karlos- does not want to add new features to his 3D renderer OSM go any more.

Wille Marcel, author of OSMCha, suggests on GitHub to add an API for user blocks to the OSM API.

User fannymonori writes the final report for her Google Summer of Code project, that consisted in implementing an OpenGL-based renderer for the libosmscout library.

User SomeoneElse wrote an OSM diary entry explaining how to use a Microsoft Azure cloud server to render OpenStreetMap map tiles.

Releases

Since version 2.4.0 the web-based editor can also access the ESRI World Imagery layer. Also some speed-ups and new presets were part of the update.

Other “geo” things

Astun Technology announced via Twitter that all those who missed Steven Feldman’s very humorous presentation on #FakeMaps at FOSS4G can now catch up on it on the Internet.

Andy Mabett draws attention to a proposal of a new HTML element for easier embedding of maps into web sites.

aharvey shows its bicycle setup for 360 degree Mapillary photos.

Still demand for it? Apparently, there is – Garmin issues the eighth version of the “Garmin Topo Germany PRO” at a price of 129.00 €. Hint: Map white spots to get them coloured 😉

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 appropriate.

This weeklyOSM was produced by Anne Ghisla, Nakaner, PierZen, Polyglot, Spec80, TheFive, YoViajo, derFred, jcoupey, jinalfoflia, k_zoar, kreuzschnabel, muramototomoya.