OpenStreetMap
I’ve added a new feature to the Irish Townlands site. It now shows a list of all the OSM user who have been adding townlands, baronies, electoral division and civil parishes in Ireland.
I’m looking through the OSM database and finding a lot of weird quirks in the admin_hierachy. There are lots of things that are tagged admin_level=2 that I don’t think are quite right. If you get a message from me, it might be because of that.
I’ve moved the townlands web application to: http://www.townlands.ie/
The source code is on github: https://github.com/rory/osm-irish-townlands/
Feel free to request new features or report problems via github’s ‘issues’: https://github.com/rory/osm-irish-townlands/issues?state=open
We in the OpenStreetMap Ireland community are trying to add some of Ireland’s smallest administrative units, townlands, aswell as other historically relevant boundaries like baronies and civil parishes.
I’ve made a site showing Irish Traditional Townland’s which shows the details of each townland and barony and civil parish in the country. We still have a lot to do. We focussed on the townlands, baronies and civil parishes of Co. Carlow first.
I also added a townland mapping progress, which shows how much we have mapped of each area. I also added some county by county data completeness checks, showing gaps and overlaps.
So, once again I'm trying to track down old maps of Ireland from the 19th centuary. They are still relevant to mapping in Ireland and would be a great benefit to OSM in Ireland.
The British Library has copies (You can see if you search their catalog for "[Townland Survey of the County of] Dublin. Surveyed in 1836-37. Corrected to 1843. Scale, six inches to one statute mile." ). I'm contacting them to find out about getting copies, prices, copyright status etc.
Has anyone talked to the British Library before about OSM? Has anyone traced anything from some maps that came from the British Library? Are they aware of OSM?
The Kenyan Government is opening up some data. I wonder if it'd be interesting/possible/useful to import it into OpenStreetMap. That would depend on the licence and if it's useful.
Just a note that I've started a side project to make and sell maps based Open Street Map on the kindle store. More details here: http://www.kindle-maps.com
Where can I get the mapnik style file for the noname map?
I'm making a custom Irish language map (i.e. from "name:ga"), and I would like to make a noname map for name:ga, i.e. highlight all roads that don't have a name:ga tag. However I can't find out how to make a noname map anywhere. I've already got a mapnik rendering set up making a normal name:ga map, so that's fine.
Hackerspaces are community-operated physical places, where people can meet and work on their projects. It's possible to map them using leisure=hackerspace. I've created a map of all the hackerspaces in OSM. It'll auto-update every 6 hours.
Add your hackerspace to openstreetmap!
I recently got a little strap on video camera for my motorbike helmet.
I've been using it while riding into work, and from looking at it afterwards I can add a lot more detail to OSM. I've been adding lane information from it. E.g: changeset #2289593, changeset #2288280
I've been looking into creating and offline openstreetmap cd, and I've looked at navit. However the osm2navit programme doesn't work with the latest planet dump file.
I finally got round to drawing over some of my GPS traces while in Lamu, Kenya last year. Added a few streets and a few schools.
I've imported the Irish Lighthouse data that Dolphin3900 got. (more details: osm.org/user/Dolphin3900/diary/1233)
I recently discovered the landuse=grass tag (osm.wiki/Proposed_features/Misc._urban_open_space) and I have started applying it to local areas around me, based on local knowledge.
I'm in two minds about this tag though. I think we should map these little grassy areas in these urban areas. I think anything landuse=grass means that people can walk over it, but their shoes might get a big muddy. In otherwords it's a step below highway=track. In fact most of the landuse=grass areas I've been mapping have had a highway=track way going through them. A area tagged with landuse=grass could be used for routing. It also makes the map look nicer and more accurate.
My only complaint is with the name. I don't like it. Should we tag the whole serengetti with landuse=grass? I don't like bringing in localized terms for things (eg landuse=village_green). I think tags should be understandable to what's on the ground ("Oh this bit of ground is used as a grassy area"). This makes mapping easier, since you don't have to have the Map Features page open.
Well after a night on the town I thought I'd had enough to drink, so I ambled towards the night bus service (in Dublin it's called Nitelink). Luckily I was not drunk enough to forget about mapping, so I turned on my GPS (a wonderful little NaviGPS BGT-31) and fell asleep on the bus. Luckily I woke up before my stop and was able to get home. Hence I've added most of Dublin's Nitelink 7N service to OSM.
See also:
* osm.org/user/rorym/diary/4088
* osm.org/user/rorym/diary/2071
Added a the Dublin Bus route from the start in Dublin city centre as far out as Celbridge. I've got all the ways added, but not all the bus stops. I'm not sure where it goes after Celbridge Main street.
Bus route here: osm.org/browse/relation/52346
I've discovered relations and am using them to map some of the public bus routes in my city, Dublin, Ireland.
I'm mapping them like this:
* Bus stops are nodes, with highway=bus_stop and operator="Dublin Bus".
* The relations are type=route route=bus ref=$BUSNUMBER operator="Dublin Bus"
* I'm then adding the bus stop nodes to the relation. Sometimes I make them have the 'stop' role, but I think it should be obvious when a node is a member of a bus route and it's a highway=bus_stop it should be obvious. :)
* I'm adding the ways. No need to mark them with a certain role. If a bus route splits, (because of oneway restrictions), I'm just adding them. It should be obvious when this happens (the route splits in 2 along two opposite oneway streets, then meets up later).
Any thoughts? It might be fun later to figure out how to get mapnik to render these as a separate later.
Last weekend I walked around Killiney Hill Park. I brought my new NaviGPS BGT-31 and recorded some traces. I was then able to add the footpaths to the park. This is my first real contribution to OpenStreetMap because no-one had made traces there before and you can't see the paths from the aerial maps.
I've finally figured out how to get my NaviGPS BGT-31 working and saving data. It's great! I can get a decent signal while it's in my pocket or in the top pocket of my bag. That should make it easier to record lots and lots of tracks. I've ordered a 1GB membory card. Although the inbuilt memory can store 20,000 points, it'll only really store 8,100 points as a 'trace', that you can download. That's about 2 hours mapping.
Anyways after a bit of fiddlying to clean up the GPX trace in JOSM () I've uploaded my first trace (). :D Yay! I can see what's addictive about mapping!
Just a quick note, my NaviGPS BGT-31 arrived today from Storage Depot. I am suprised at how quickly it arrived. I've got some hacking a poking to do now. :) I'm looking forward to making a proper contribution to OpenStreetMaps, instead of just tracking aerial images.:)
