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Welcome to my fifth (and a half) OpenStreetMap NextGen development diary.
Tomorrow, I’m returning home and I’ll be able to resume work at full speed 🔥.

This is a short edition of the development diary.

🐙 This project is open-source and publicly available:
https://github.com/Zaczero/openstreetmap-ng

Intro

For the past 13 days I have been on a journey of finding a new place to rent. Without my home office, I wasn’t able to become productive. The place I’m staying at doesn’t have a good office spot and being on my laptop doesn’t help. However, I am now very motivated to get back to work and push even harder!

May Will Be Big

At the end of May, OpenStreetMap-NG will include necessary functionality to run on a testing server, as well as to invite new contributors into the project. Starting with 6th of May, I won’t have any time-consuming plans for this month so I’ll do my best to wrap everything up. What’s exactly left has been described in Diary #5 Short-Term Development Plan. I have already started to prepare the All-in-One Contributor Guide which will also be finished up (it currently lacks backend/frontend-specific guides). This is going to be the first major milestone of the project!

Project Sponsors 🏅

I was happily surprised to see new faces even during my lower activity period. I will do everything to deliver the promised results. As always, thank you for supporting the project, monetarily, and with staring the project on GitHub!

Currently, the project is sponsored by 13 people!
Five private and four public donors on Liberapay, and four public on GitHub Sponsors.

Disclaimer

This project is not affiliated with the OpenStreetMap Foundation. It’s an independent and community-sponsored initiative.

Posted by ZeLonewolf on 30 April 2024 in English. Last updated on 2 May 2024.

There is a long discussion happening in the United States section of the community forum regarding where to draw the line between the “main” populated place node values, and specifically the place=* values of city and town in New England. I thought it would be useful to do a bit of analysis to see how these values are distributed across the database when compared to population. Through this analysis, I include all tags which have place values of city, town, village, hamlet, and isolated_dwelling. I also only include nodes that have a population tag.

My overpass query for each category looks like this:

[out:csv(::id,place,population;true;"|")][timeout:60];
node[place=city][population];
out;

One of the challenges of analyzing this key is that because it represents order-of-magnitude differences, its distribution is log-normal. In other words, it forms a bell curve provided that the X-axis is drawn logarithmically.

To look at this data logarithmically, I grouped the place nodes logarithmically, in steps of 1, 2, and 5 per 10x jump. When viewing the distribution of place=town, the log-normal shape comes out quite clearly. The number on the X axis represents the upper limit of each bin.

See full entry

Posted by ivanbranco on 28 April 2024 in English.

[Semi-automated translation of the Italian diary entry]

On OpenStreetMap, a tree can be represented as a natural=tree node.

Leaf type 🌿

leaf_type is the most common tree-related tag in the database, this is because it is easily verifiable and is supported with a quest by StreetComplete. The values are broadleaved and needleleaved. Some argue that palms should not be tagged as broadleaved but with a value of their own, =palm.

Leaf cycle 🍂

This tag describes whether a tree is deciduous or evergreen. Most needleleaved tree species are evergreen, but this is not always the case, so do not infer this value automatically. You can add this value easily if you know the species, or more simply if it is autumn/winter. If not, you can try to see if satellite or street-level imagery taken at those times are available.

Genus and species 🌳

If you are not an expert, there are tools that can help you recognise the genus/species of a plant, such as Pl@ntNet and iNaturalist, both of which also exist as mobile apps. On OpenStreetMap there are many trees with species (or species:wikidata or species:xx) that do not have leaf_type or leaf_cycle. These values are of course identical for each species (and also for many genus) and can therefore be easily deduced. There are two lists on the OSM wiki that contain these values for genus and species.

MapComplete has a dedicated tree theme that can be used to enter the species while SCEE has a dedicated quest (“What is the genus or species of this tree?”).

Monumental trees 🏛️

Monumental trees can be mapped adding denotation=natural_monument. In Italy they are recorded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forests (Masaf) with annual updates. You can map them by adding ref:masaf, which is a unique code assigned by the ministry.

See full entry

Posted by matthewsheffield on 28 April 2024 in English.

I’ve finished (for a second time!) mapping all the paths in my local cemetery. The first time another mapped decided that concrete or gravel ways designed for walking on weren’t “paths” and deleted them all. He also seemed to have strong feelings about people cycling in cemeteries, which is odd as The Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust actually endorse it as a use of their land. As my daughter is buried in the cemetery I feel some ownership of the place, and do love it and Merlynston creek that flows through it. I’m hoping no one vandalises my work again.

Location: Hadfield, Melbourne, City of Merri-bek, Victoria, 3046, Australia

SotM Latam 2024 - Belém/Pará - Brasil.

The State of the Map Latam 2024 will take place in the city of Belém, Brazil, from December 6 to 8, 2024 at the Instituto Federal do Pará, this being the sixth edition of the ‘Latin American OpenStreetMap Conference’ and aiming to promote the use of OpenStreetMap (OSM), and the integration of OSM mappers, developers, open data communities, free and open source software communities, students, researchers, geoinformation professionals, non-governmental organizations, companies and public institutions.

SotM Latam 2024 After the voting period for choosing the SotM Latam 2024 logo has concluded, I am pleased to announce that the chosen option is 1.

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Location: Marco, Belém, Região Geográfica Imediata de Belém, Região Geográfica Intermediária de Belém, Pará, North Region, 66093-033, Brazil

The eTrex 20x

Years ago when searching for a viewpoint from an old photo where I wanted to do rail photography I managed to locate the exact cliffside overlook and discovered a somewhat hidden gem of trail network in the process.

Though there is an official dirt road in the canyon below and a few desire paths offshooting from it the hills above remained relatively unmapped not showing up in the otherwise void of an area.

With the understatement of the local forecast for the afternoon/evening I packed my beloved eTrex 20x in the camera bag along with my trusty Nikon D700 planning to take in some of the views while there in between tracing runs expecting no more than some cloudiness and a light sprinkling.

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Posted by FargoColdYa on 26 April 2024 in English.

Summary: What if AI creates the Changeset Comments? We could send locations, tag types, and quantities to get an output. AI would have to be run locally with small models for cost and be validated by the user.

Problem 1: Time I assume that 1,000 users create 2 changes in 1 day. We assume that each change set takes 3.5 seconds. 1000 users *2 changes * 3.5 seconds per change = 7000 seconds. OSM Users spend about 1.9 hours per day.

Problem 2: Skill Outsourcing Users should spend time on the things AI can’t do.

Problem 3: Server Side Peer Review We have human generated changeset comments. We could create AI generated changeset comments. We could ask the AI, “are these 2 changeset comments so different that it looks malicious”?

General AI Inputs: 1. Location: Where did the user map? 2. Feature Types: What tags did the user use?

AI Prompt: “You are an AI system. A user made edits in OpenStreetMap, a collaborative mapping project. They mapped locations[Mappleville, MN, USA; Bobville, MN, USA] with tags[50xSidewalks, 20xMarkedCrossings, & 10xReligous Areas]. You will create a changeset comment that concisely tells human reviewers what this changeset was about in 3 sentences or less. Exact numbers are not important. Changesets describe changes, so don’t request anything. Don’t mention anything that is common across all changesets.”

AI Response (https://www.meta.ai/): “Added sidewalks, marked crossings, and religious areas in Mappleville and Bobville, MN. Improved pedestrian and accessibility mapping. Enhanced local community information.”

Specific AI Inputs for Locations: 1. Cities[1 to 5], States[1 to 5], Countries[1 to 5]. 2. Is this a place with unclear boundaries? (What if somebody maps the ocean) 3. What is the size of the bounding box for this edit in KM?

Specific AI Inputs for Feature Types: Tags[1 to 6] & corresponding Quantities

See full entry

Location: Rose Creek, Fargo, Cass County, North Dakota, United States

There are some object categories in OSM whose exact classification is often a matter of contention and edit wars. Main highways are one of the most prominent examples. There was a small edit war in Poland which resulted in no less than 4 blocks, but I did not let that crisis go to waste:

Behold road-watcher, a quick Python project that regurarly queries Overpass API for highway=secondary and above within a specified boundary and then detects any classification changes, sending them to a Discord channel (though it’s trivial to substitute it with another means of notification).

obraz.png

The SMCoSE YouthMappers Chapter, renowned as one of Tanzania’s largest mapping communities, hosted a transformative mapathon on April 14, 2024, at the esteemed Sokoine University of Agriculture. This event marked a pivotal moment of collaboration, extending invitations to other YouthMappers chapters in Morogoro, thus amplifying the inclusivity and impact of the initiative. Central to the mapathon’s objective was the concerted effort to contribute to Project #15530 within the HOT Tasking Manager, focusing on mapping cities across the Eastern and Southern Africa Region. By leveraging the power of open data, participants aimed to craft detailed base maps crucial for diverse applications, ranging from urban planning to efficient disaster response strategies.

Amidst an atmosphere described as “fantastic,” the event witnessed a remarkable accomplishment, the successful mapping of approximately 25,000 buildings. This feat not only underscores the collective dedication of the participants but also showcases the tangible outcomes of community-driven endeavors. Moreover, the mapathon served as a platform for new mappers to acquaint themselves with essential mapping tools such as ID Editors and JOSM, empowering them to contribute meaningfully to the OpenStreetMap ecosystem.

Special recognition is duly owed to the Open Mapping Hub Eastern and Southern Africa (OMHESA) for their unwavering support, notably through the prestigious Spatial People Award. This acknowledgment not only highlights the significance of collaborative partnerships but also accentuates the pivotal role of organizations in facilitating impactful mapathons and community initiatives. In essence, the event epitomized the ethos of collaboration, learning, and contribution inherent within the mapping community, further advancing the cause of open data dissemination and spatial awareness in the region.

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Location: Mazimbu Darajani, Morogoro Municipal, Morogoro Region, Coastal Zone, 67000, Tanzania

Theatro da Paz, Belém/Pará - Brasil

O Theatro da Paz foi fundado em 15 de fevereiro de 1878, durante o período áureo do Ciclo da Borracha, quando ocorreu um grande crescimento econômico na região amazônica. Belém foi considerada “A Capital da Borracha”. Mas, apesar desse progresso a cidade ainda não possuía um teatro de grande porte, capaz de receber espetáculos do gênero lírico. https://www.theatrodapaz.com.br/

Credito da Foto; Wikipedia, https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wiki_Loves_Par%C3%A1#/media/Ficheiro:Teatro_da_Paz_3.jpg Theatro da Paz, Belém/Pará - Brasil

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Location: Campina, Belém, Região Geográfica Imediata de Belém, Região Geográfica Intermediária de Belém, Pará, North Region, Brazil

I am currently on a visit to Ireland 🇮🇪 and a lack of proper office space makes it difficult to stay productive. I will try to prepare something cool to show off this week. Sorry for keeping you waiting!

🍟

Location: Murphystown, Leopardstown Rise, Glencullen Electoral Division, Sandyford, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, County Dublin, Leinster, D18 CV48, Ireland
Posted by mpulve on 22 April 2024 in English. Last updated on 25 April 2024.

Why is OpenStreetMap ID not updated like OpenStreetMap ArcGIS? These are two different datasets that need to be linked/updated! Is ArcGIS taking over for OpenStreetMap and requiring a fee? ArcGIS needs to update OpenStreetMap ID if they participate! OpenStreetMap ArcGIS has not updated dataset in months! Please help with coordinating these two data set updates! Otherwise this in-browser edition will soon be obsolete! Use ArcGIS to compare your area with the link listed: ArcGIS OSM Are there any differences? Can anyone explain why? On the ArcGIS OSM there are more buildings that they imported from datasets. They should have updated the OSM ID data sets to match their information. Now there is a ArcGIS OSM version 2 that appears to be replacing ID OSM… ESRI

Location: Florence, Pinal County, Arizona, 85132, United States

Introduction

Car in action with Insta360 ONE

In this post, I will try to explain my process how to get best out of Insta360 ONE RS 1-inch camera and successfully upload images to Mapillary. It started out of my frustration of dealing with this camera and Mapillary and I hope you will not have to go through what I have been🙂. I will be focusing here more on software side (how to deal with data) rather than on hardware side (how to set up rig for image capture).

Let me first start with disclaimer that this is not easiest camera to work with Mapillary (hence this guide) and that not even Mapillary is recommending it. It definitively captures better images than GoPro 360, but everything with GoPro is more smooth over whole process, so be aware of this. Camera needs to record in video mode and it relies on additional GPS dongle you have to buy.

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We created a F-Droid repository for all Agroecology Map applications.

F-Droid is an open source app store and software repository for Android.

Agroecology Map is a Free Software, based on OpenStreetMap, citizen science platform that aims to assist in mapping and exchanging experiences in Agroecology.

  • How to add the Agroecology Map F-Droid repository?
  1. Settings
  2. Repositories
  3. Add (+) Repository (https://fdroid.agroecologymap.org/repo/)
  4. Scan QR Code or Enter repository URL manually

Step-by-step https://youtube.com/shorts/4Cw3jPzmS2I?si=zYxrgR1fHMfHEDq7