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Recent diary entries

Thanks to a contribution by user danieldegroot2, dates and date ranges are now displayed in Dutch. Other languages which are currently supported are: English, French and German. If you are interested in adding another locale, please check out the module openstreetmap-date-format (HOWTO).

Screenshot of OpenStreetBrowser, with a map showing buildings and their age in colors. A popup on a "Palais Kazianer" is open. It shows the date when the building was completed in Dutch: "tussen de 15e eeuw en de 16e eeuw" (between 15th and 16th century).

The reason for this module is the flexibility of the date system in OpenStreetMap, which allows for inexact dates like “C16” (16th century), “early 2000s” (sometime between 2000 and 2003), and “1848..1855” (between 1848 and 1855).

Posted by Harry Wood on 13 December 2022 in English.

Back in October in we had a London pub meet-up in the Monkey Puzzle pub. It was pretty well attended. There were three or four people I hadn’t met before. For example I was pleased to meet user okwithmydecay. This username was familiar, I think because I’ve just seen him doing lots of editing in London. Good reason to recognise somebody’s username! We like that!

I took along some OSMUK leaflets which I have received a pack of (Order OSM UK leaflets here). I say leaflets, but they’re more like postcards. Single sheet of card. I think there’s five different designs with five different messages/target audiences. Me & Andy (gravitystorm) were critiquing them in the pub, although on the whole we decided they’re rather good, and certainly good that people have organised this.

OSMUK leaflets Harry and Andy

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Location: Paddington, London, Greater London, England, W2 6QS, United Kingdom
Posted by Teeman on 13 December 2022 in English.

Today, I mapped over 500 buildings in other to map my area to the OSM world, I have come to believe that mapping my locality will make tasks easier for gov’t and NGOs for carrying out their task, census, flood mapping, household, etc. I will send a goodwill message to #UNIQUEMAPPERSTEAM for introducing OSM s to me

Location: Municipal Area Council, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria

Inaugural State Of The Map Conference Nigeria 2022 was super amazing experience and moments I ever share with folks in my entire life. I’ll like to seize this opportunity to share my way to unique mappers network and to Hot#openstreetmappers network. my name is Mamman Ali from Biu local government area of Borno state. I was was introduced to unique mappers network of Nigeria in early 2018, when I was opportune to attend the institute of certified geographers of Nigeria (ICGN) training here in federal university of port Harcourt. with the kind of gesture and hospitality I received from good people of port Harcourt and our humble national coordinator for unique mappers network Nigeria, with the little knowledge and amazing experience I share with people around the unique mappers teams of Nigeria I begin to develop passion and interest mapping and other humanitarian activities that comes intoto my line.

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Location: Mpika District, Muchinga Province, Zambia

Seriously. Me being sleep deprived made me create a huge issues. Lucky for me I knew how to before hand fix the issue…. At least I hope so. Double checking tomorrow to ensure no stray nodes are about again.

Sleep deprivation leads to mistakes. Mistakes lead to even less sleep because they need to be fixed.

TL;DR go the heck to sleep so you don’t make mistakes that’ll cost you more time.

Location: Washoe County, Nevada, United States
Posted by mvexel on 13 December 2022 in English.

I purchased a dashcam a while ago because (1) people drive like absolute idiots where I live (seriously, watch that video) and (2) who knows what you might capture? It’s a Viofo A129 Pro Duo, it has a 4k front-facing camera and an additional HD rear-facing camera. It also has built-in GPS.

sample dashcam image

Because it’s always on, I figure it would be nice to use the footage for mapping purposes as well! The process is not completely straightforward, hence this blog post.

Let’s look at what the camera produces:

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Location: Downtown, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah, United States
Posted by Obianinulu on 13 December 2022 in English. Last updated on 2 July 2023.

The State of the Map conference gave me even more reasons to map my society under the leadership of the Unique Mappers. We had engaging hands-on sessions with Tomtom, who showed us how to map using MapRoulette, and with Mapillary, who showed us how to map using the Mapillary smartphone app. I also got the opportunity to meet with skilled mappers, and their guidance inspired me to resume mapping. As a travel grant recipient, I am thankful to the organization for its assistance. The conference was a huge success.

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First and foremost, I was overjoyed to accept the travel and lodging grant, and attending the conference was a memorable experience. My decision to attend the Inaugural State Of The Map Conference Nigeria 2022 was motivated by a desire to learn new and improved methods for acquiring, managing, interpreting, and analyzing geographic information. As a student studying Geoinformatics and Surveying, I have frequently sorted out strategies that could reduce the occurrence of natural disaster in the country. The search however made me become a volunteer with UniqueMappers Team (UMT) which is under Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT). Since joining this community, I have actively been involved in disaster responses in Nigeria in regards to oil spillage, flooding, terrorism, crimes, diseases outbreak. From the conference I was equipped with both the skill to ethically understand geoinformatics and surveying theories and practices, and also with the understanding of advance skills used by modern geoinformatics and surveying practitioners. I also learnt new innovative techniques that could reduce the occurrence of natural disaster, oil spillage, terrorism, crimes, diseases outbreak in the country. I also use the opportunity to interact with great minds from different part of the globe. I volunteered to serve in the in technical department during the conference. I must thank HOT worldwide and the Unique Mappers team for their honest efforts in providing a travel grant for me to attend the SotM conference. My appreciation also extends to the national coordinator, Mr. Victor Sunday, for directing, supervising, and chairing this excellent project Thanks for hosting this year’s SotM conference 2022. Thank you very much Ifeanacho, Daniel Odife GIS Analyst and Tech +2348089322102 Email: ifeanachoodife2@gmail.com

Location: Alakahia, Obio/Akpor, Rivers State, 500004, Nigeria

Attending the inaugural SotM Nigeria was a memorable experience, From the beginning of the trip (South Eastern Nigeria) which took about 6 hours journey to the conference venue (Port Harcourt) was incredible and successful. The conference gathered people around the globe to explore and share their mind blowing topics, exhibition, research work and experience around OSM, GIS, open data, humanitarian and disaster response at the first ever SotM conference in Nigeria, I was opportune to be part of selected presenters. I shared a paper on the “GEOSPATIAL MAPPING AND ANALYSIS OF HEALTHCARE FACILITIES IN NSUKKA URBAN USING GIS TECHNIQUES”. The conference hosted over 150 virtual participants and over 40 onsite participants who came to share their divers’ experiences on GIS, OSM, Humanitarian response and disaster mapping etc. The conference gave me the opportunity to meet, connect, collaborate and network with participants from U.S, London, Hong Kong, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Lagos, Oyo, Enugu, Port Harcourt and other part of the world, and it exposes me to different application of OSM data and tools that will enhance my research works. indeed, it was another adventure and opportunity for me. I must appreciate the sincere work of HOT global, HOT unsummit, WNH, LOC members and the Unique Mappers team for offering a travel grant to attend the SotM conference. My gratitude also goes to the national coordinator Mr. Victor Sunday for Leading, guiding, and chairing this awesome work and to the LOC port Harcourt team you guys are wonderful.

Thanks for hosting this year’s SotM conference 2022. Thank you very much Akor, Daniel Enechojo GIS Analyst and Tech +2348141954990 Email: danielakor714@gmail.com

Location: Borokiri, Port-Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria
Posted by Manish Adhikari on 12 December 2022 in English.

My Introduction

Hi, I am Manish Adhikari from NEPAL.I am taking undergraduate degree in Geomatics Engineering from Tribhuvan University, Pashchimanchal Campus, Pokhara.I am a youthmapper and mapping volunteer at youthmapper’s chapter GESAN(Geomatics Engineering Students’ Association of Nepal).Currently, I am a HOT Data Quality Intern.I am here to express my 250 days mapping experience and the journey upto now.

Beginning Of The Journey

My OSM journey started from 21st May ,2019.I know about OSM and YouthMappers from the day when we got chance to attend Basic OSM Training conducted by Geomatics Engineering Students’ Association of Nepal.I learned about mapping,id editor,JOSM,adding point ,line and polygon.I was so excited to learn this and started contributing to OSM day by day.

Experience Throughout 250 Days

At the very beginning,I was happy to include my house and its surroundings in the map.Slowly, I started mapping different unmapped parts of my nation.I was motivated day by day in the mapping field because of my related academic field and impression from my senior Anil Basnet,top contributor of OSM from Nepal.I used to participate in different mapathons organized by GESAN.Improving day by day,I was able to become an intermediate mapper from beginner level. There are different projects to which I contributed.I never want to miss any chance to involve in such mapping projects as I had to learn many new things and skills on mapping and improve myself.On this journey , I have recently got a great opportunity as a Data Quality Intern at HOT.I have learned many new ideas on mapping and validation.I got to know the importance of quality mapping and quality data.Accordingly, I have made myself to perform quality mapping and validation with the use of different data quality tools. Here are some of the projects that I have contributed to the date.

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Last November 21 to 25, 2022 we attended Pista ng Mapa and State of the Map Asia 2022 Conference at the Bicol University East Campus in Legazpi City, Albay. It is an open conference about mapping and the importance of using open-source data.

Alt text

A workshop was facilitated by me and Dianne Bencito about using Geospatial data with Python programming. We introduced the basics of python and GIS and gave hands-on activities. I guided and gave materials to the participants to make sure that they are keeping up with the discussion. This workshop helped me to improve speaking in public and properly interact with people confidently.

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Posted by Pan on 12 December 2022 in English. Last updated on 24 February 2025.

During the last days, I attempted to document 3D features of some notable buildings from my region, mostly churches and castles.

Simple 3D Buildings and tagging consensus

Discovering what is the most used tagging scheme was a little bit confusing. At first glance, the OSM-4D roof table seemed to be promising as it offered some very useful tags for churches such as roof:shape=apse_gabled. Unfortunatly, after researching the topic, it appears that OSM-4D isn’t really supported at the moment. Consequently, I had to resort to simple 3D building.

Limitations

Apses and cone roofs

The simple 3D buildings however, while being “the best currently widely supported”, is quite limited. After asking how members of the community would tag apse_gabled and cone roofs, I resorted to divide the half domes of the apsed roofs into multiple small triangles with skillion roofs and document their direction angle. F4map seems so be able to render it in a satisfactory way at times and in some cases in a rather disappointing way. The roof:shape=pyramid was used instead of the cone tag. It seems to be understood by renderers. Of course, while one shouldn’t tag for the renderer, the feed-back of the renderers are useful to identify tagging mistakes.

Besides the cones and apses, having the possibility to tag roofs hipped on one side only would be quite convenient.

Equal min_height and height to create overhang roofs

In order to describe overhang roofs, I resorted to create a “building” with a min_height = to its height and then tag the roof. This element for instance was tagged this way:

building:part yes
description part 3 of the bell tower of the Epallinge church
height 12.75
min_height 12.75
roof:direction 118.64
roof:height 5.95
roof:material tile
roof:shape skillion

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Posted by SomeoneElse on 11 December 2022 in English.

(or, what’s wrong with the general purpose map on my phone that just seems designed just to show me adverts?)

I decided to write this after reading some of the comments on the wiki here and in the community forum here.

People tend to view “things that appear on a map” as “somewhere that they can go”. For example here:

A stroll up Everest

someone who didn’t do their research properly might think that they can just wander along that path to the top of Everest from the south, despite the underlying data suggesting “difficult alpine hiking”. This diary entry is an attempt to try and avoid such misunderstandings.

What options does a map have to different things?

The map at map.atownsend.org.uk shows linear paths and tracks as a single line, It shows legal rights of way (some special categories in England and Wales) and also tries to give some indication of what a walker might expect on that path.

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Location: Isle of Wight Donkey Sanctuary, Ventnor, Isle of Wight, England, PO38 3AA, United Kingdom
Posted by Milhouse on 11 December 2022 in English.

History

I’ve been contributing to OSM for years now in the faith that the use cases for open geospatial data will grow over time. I’m proud of how complete my local area is, and slightly embarrassed at the thought of others seeing how many nodes and ways have my username against their history! I’m aware that OSM data is appearing in more places to the point that every time I see a map or some detailed analysis of a local area, I’m looking for the OSM reference. This has included in the past couple of years:

  • Path surface and quality stats from Strava of recommended bike routes
  • The live map on a British Airways flight I was on.
  • a train route map

I also think the potential for customised renderings of maps is amazing, including some of my favourites:

  • Cyclosm
  • The OpenStreetMap Transport Map layer
  • OpenRailwayMap, particularly the maximum speed rendering, which is nice for visualising the available routes to long distance destinations

Contributing is a never ending task though. It can vary from the high-level detail like landuse to the intricate detail like business opening times and whether a location is completely wheelchair accessible. Plus aerial imagery gets better over time, meaning there’s always scope for revisiting stuff you’ve already mapped to improve it. I’ve always been curious how the data could be reused, (and the WeeklyOSM newsletter is a great place to find new examples) and have started looking at online tutorials for QGIS. I’ve not done any formal training in GIS though.

Ideas

I’m quite interested in the use of sub/urban space, and so a couple of ideas I’d like to try include:

  • calculating the length of protected/unprotected cycle lanes within a polygon (eg a London borough) as an absolute value and as a proportion of total road network
  • calculating the amount of green space within a polygon (eg within a set of council wards) as an absolute value and proportion of total space

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Location: Brentham Garden Suburb, Perivale, London Borough of Ealing, London, Greater London, England, W5 1NZ, United Kingdom

Introduction to myself

My name is Narayan Thapa, and I studied geomatics engineering at Kathmandu University. I’m particularly interested in using OpenStreetMap, UAVs, GIS, Python programming, and cloud computing (Google Earth Engine). In the project “Mapping Banepa Municipality in OSM and its Applications in Mitigating Effects of Urbanization- A Case Study of Urban Rooftop Farming Using Geospatial Technology,” I served as the project lead. I currently work at ICIMOD as an intern.

Introduction to project

This project seeks to address global issues like “zero hunger” (agenda 2), “good health and well-being” (agenda 3), “sustainable cities and communities” (agenda 11), and “climate action” (agenda 13) by creating a bridge between geospatial technology and society. In Nepal, many municipalities are expanding quickly. Agricultural lands have been transformed into structures and infrastructure as a result of rapid urbanization. The urban environment has been negatively impacted by this, as local food production and greenery have declined. Urban areas people were primarily dying for food during the COVID-19 situation, as opposed to from disease. By mapping the current state of rooftop farming in Banepa Municipality and estimating the area for future farming, we hope to find a solution to this issue.

The idea behind the project

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Dear OpenStreetMap Community, fellow mappers

It is my pleasure to present the annual report of the OpenStreetMap Foundation for the year 2022.

First and foremost, we have been thrilled to welcome Grant, our first employee. He has joined the OpenStreetMap Foundation as our senior SRE after many years of volunteering on the Operations Working Group, and we believe that his expertise and experience is a valuable asset to the OpenStreetMap Foundation. We now finally have someone with the both the time and experience to tackle the big infrastructure projects that will lead us to increased resiliency and stability.

If you would like to learn more about Grant and his work, you can listen to an interview with him on the geomob podcast.

The growth of the OpenStreetMap project isn’t slowing down. We recently passed 8 billion nodes, 900 million ways and 10 million relations. We will reach 10 million registered users in 2023.

As the OpenStreetMap project continues to grow, the workload for the Foundation’s volunteer board members has also increased. While we are thrilled to see the project’s success, it is important to acknowledge that this growth also comes with its challenges. In particular, the increased workload can be overwhelming at times, and it is not always easy or fun. This year has, counterintuively, been marked by a relative lack of activity from the Foundation’s board members. While this is not new or unique to the OpenStreetMap Foundation, several of our board members have experienced burnout and have taken a step back from their roles. The burden of board work can be heavy - you join because you think maps are fun, and you end up spending your free time knee-deep in finance, HR and legal matters.

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Location: Bellingham, Southend, London Borough of Lewisham, London, Greater London, England, SE6 3HD, United Kingdom
Posted by PixelDubs on 10 December 2022 in English.

I recently watched a Jay Foreman video on why many maps have trap features. Features such as. Mispelled Names Non Existent Things Making something more bendy. They are done purpose, rather than people copying off OSM without attribution. They can copy OSM but it has errors on its map. But only minor changes so OSM can catch those without an attribution out or a service like Google Maps using OSM data without an attribution or credit.

Location: 89,993, -56,305