The OSM QA Tiles project, hosted by Mapbox, generates vector tiles from OSM data.

Owing to some recent changes in our architecture, the paths from where to retrieve QA tiles have changed. Any file that was earlier found at the path https://s3.amazonaws.com/mapbox/osm-qa-tiles/, can now be found at https://s3.amazonaws.com/mapbox/osm-qa-tiles-production/. If you are using QA tiles generated by Mapbox, please update your code to receive the latest updates.

The Mapbox data team visualizes our mapping team activity with the OSM Edit Report. We’ve just launched an improved front-end, designed by @geohacker and myself, using a punchcard-style visualisation to display the edits of the team. This makes it easier for us to spot activity, and dig deeper when additional mapping context is needed.

The new Edit Report provides a count of the total edits for a given time duration, and makes it easy to spot active editors (>100 edits per day) through the sorted listing. This helps us analyse the average number of edits we are making to OpenStreetMap, identify patterns in editing, and spot anomalies. For example, weekdays have more edits than weekends and holidays.

We’re all ears for any suggestions you have to improve the tool. The code is in the open, and we’d love for you to use the edit report in your project. Do get in touch if you need help setting up!

As part of the on-boarding process at Mapbox, Sanjay, Abhishek and me set out to map levels and types of buildings around the Mapbox office in Indiranagar with help from Maning. The general idea was to micro map using field papers to identify the number of levels in each building and also classify buildings more appropriately under building=commercial or building=residential tags instead of classifying them under the more generic building=yes tag. Identifying levels on buildings would also make the 3D map of Indiranagar vastly denser.

Armed with field papers and pens, we entered micro-mapping territory. Just before splitting and heading out by ourselves, Maning suggested using a <number-of-levels>,<building-type> code for each building, so we wouldn’t overcrowd our field papers with writing. This would mean that for a residential building with three levels, we use 3,R. Walking around, with passersby looking at us queerly was interesting to say the least!

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