During most of the time I’ve been mapping in OpenStreetMap I’ve concentrated mainly on mapping town and city centres in the UK in high levels of detail. I try and map all the shops and buildings on the streets I’ve surveyed by taking photos of the streets and buildings. In the last few years I extended this to start adding the ‘Simple 3D buildings’ tags (osm.wiki/Simple_3D_Buildings) to buildings, enabling additional details to be recorded about buildings and for them to be rendered in 3D.

Recently I finished mapping Hertford town centre in detail including 3D tags and this can be seen on OSM (in 2D) at osm.org/#map=18/51.79638/-0.07740, and in various 3D renderings such as F4 Map (https://demo.f4map.com/#lat=51.7962036&lon=-0.0795818&zoom=18) and OSM Buildings (https://osmbuildings.org/?lat=51.79617&lon=-0.07938&zoom=17.8&tilt=30). Many other renderings are available – see osm.wiki/wiki/3D.

Other places where I’ve done much 3D mapping in the UK have included Alton, Eastbourne, Dartford, Llandudno, Conwy, Leytonstone, Bridport, between Strood and Chatham, and bits of East London around Limehouse and Hackney. I also did a bit of 3D mapping in Santiago de Compostela and Madrid in Spain. The area though where I’ve done the most 3D mapping has been in central London. London I’m sure has the largest number of 3D mapped buildings in the UK with a few different mappers doing some incredible 3D mapping both in terms of the number of buildings mapped and the level of detail on several complex buildings. I’ve personally though tended to do mainly simpler buildings, and my mapping has been scattered around various different areas I’ve visited.

… Vaata tervet sissekannet

Today, part of the Derby (UK) inner ring road extension was partially opened, and is now mapped in OSM - making OSM the first map to show the road (as far as I'm aware). I imagine it will take some time before it appears on other maps - Google Maps for example doesn't show changes to some major roads in Derby which happened several months ago.

The road is named after a computer game character - Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series of games, which were developed in Derby. I don't know whether this is only road in Britain named after a computer game character, but it is certainly unusual and gets a mention on the BBC news website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/8674444.stm

At the moment only the eastbound carriageway is open, so the westbound section is shown as under construction. In addition, the classification of the old route via Normanton Road and Leopold Street has now been downgraded, and Leopold Street is now closed to vehicles at the eastern end.

The surrounding area has also been greatly improved recently with the addition of buildings from OS StreetView, with surveying on the ground of some buildings to get details such as names of buildings, house numbers and points of interest.