Hi Jay.

I sympathise with you about the difficulty of making out individual buildings in built-up areas. I’ve been there myself.

I think you have may the right call of creating buildings when you can identify individual buildings and creating nodes when you cannot identify individual buildings. However, I suggest you create a “business type node” instead of an entrance node as in editing mode all these different businesses just appear as doors. It makes it difficult identifying an individual business to edit.

Kind Regards

Thanks for all your comments.

@LivingWithDragons you make a valid comment that having every feature in iD walkthrough mapped would overwhelm beginners. It would probably be better to have one example of each feature mapped in the walkthrough, e.g. one street light, one drinking fountain, one power pole. An indoor map of a train station would map indoors and public transport at the same time. One train track could be mapped as a public transport route.

@team2019alpaca I find streetcomplete an excellent little mobile app too. I never knew you could choose your quests by zooming in until you mentioned you just added opening hours. I just completed quests in the random order they were presented to me. Thanks for the tip.

@stevea, I wish I had described my mapping experience as eloquently as you did, but I guess I am too new to see the forest for the trees. I didn’t realise until you mentioned it, that I do have strong opinions about indoor mapping and 3D mapping for such a new mapper. Upon reflection, I realise these opinions were formed over time from apps that I used prior to OSM. I preferred the map apps that clicked on an entrance to a building to reveal an indoor map. I found the 3D map apps frustrating because the 3D skyscrapers would hide my routing. Once I started mapping those opinions became even stronger.

Hi Warin61,

I don’t specifically go mapping. If I’m out to get something from the shops, then I’ll take a photo for OSM use later.

I’ve refined my process since I posted to my diary. I still take portrait photos from across the street. Taking landscape photos of a business’s opening hours from across the street appeared as a blur. So, I take photo’s of business hours signs on this side of the street now.

Thanks for your comments.

@znrgl, thanks for the link to qwant maps which to me is a perfect example of how OSM should work for users. OSM should be for users and mappers. Each user is a potential mapper.

A mapper must use an editor to change the map so it really isn’t correct to say OSM is just for mappers as there is a user mode and a mapper mode. The user mode needs to be more like qwant maps.

Thank you for your comments.

www.openstreetmap.org is probably the top destination in the OSM ecosystem when people read openstreetmap contributors on a map. When they reach www.openstreetmap.org to use maps, I imagine they would be underwhelmed with the OSM experience as I was when I first used the map. This experience damages the whole OSM community, even the apps that are based on OSM. OSM should be the prime example of OSM to attract more users and contributors which will grow the OSM ecosystem. I don’t understand why the OSM app developers are not trying to improve OSM, as that would attract more people to their products.

Andy, I was able to add a marker to the map. but the marker wasn’t added to the downloaded map.

GOwin and n76 thank you for the recommended mobile apps. In the end, I decided to use Magic Earth for my map needs. When I tried Magic Earth I was told that I needed to switch on mobile data as there were no offline maps, but I had downloaded the maps earlier. I raised the issue with Magic Earth. Early days.

Thank you GOwin for the learnosm.org link which is an excellent resource and which is also linked from the Magic Earth help. When I typed in “openstreet map” in the Play Store, OSMAND was the only result, although Maps.me was listed as “You Might Also Like”. I found the dog too kooky.

Thank you for your help. Very impressive.

I don’t have the 3D map as an option. How do I access 3D maps in openstreetmap.org ?

Thank you all for your comments. I have also read your diary’s. Both have been inspirational and provided me with food for thought.

Just to clarify for you @ChristianA the OsmAnd data download size was less than Here, but it still took considerably longer to download.

It was interesting to learn that it has only been in the last few years with the emergence of open data policies that OSM has gained access to Aerial Imagery and the permission to bulk import “addresses and buildings” with varying degrees of success from different jurisdictions. It was also interesting to learn there are OSM AI tools (which require powerful computers) that can now map the outline of buildings these days creating even less work for mappers.

The key learning from your comments are to use tools such as the “AddressIntrapolation plugin” and the “AI tool” to automate the mapping process as much as possible before doing manual mapping.

I have heard my government use the buzzwords “opening up data for the digital economy”, but I must confess I do not know the specifics of licensing that data. However, I will reach out to my government to find out if its possible to do bulk imports of full address data to OSM. I must admit the street numbers and buildings have not been mapped in my area and it really took the winds from my sails seeing the amount of outstanding work. Still, you have inspired me to try a different approach.

Thanks for your Encouragement.

Hi beautifulplaces,

I’m not importing official addresses. I didn’t even know that was possible. I’m using the iD editor to add addresses that I have visited such as friends, family, shops, cafes, restaurants. My intention is to add nodes with street numbers for my area and maybe buildings later. Somebody was kind enough to add the street number for my friend. I am returning that favour in my local area.

Hopefully, I can also add public transport routes I use, but that really looks complicated.

I’m surprised to learn OSM doesn’t cooperate with municipalities because I am using my local state aerial photos in the iD editor to map my neighbourhood. I’m assuming the aerial photos are legit.