Nice to see a scale bar on the Mapnik map that is accurate across the world. Thanks to OpenLayers 2.1

The "... more OSM coming soon" gremlins are out again on Mapnik. The mapnik layer in Infofreeway is similarly broken. It really gives a bad impression to Joe Public. I know the underlying data is the real treasure, but people get hooked by good-looking, up-to-date maps.

I have added a widget to my Blogger blog to display an OSM map. I wrote the process up in a Wiki page

You can see what the end result looks like at my blog.

Yesterday we added the remaining section of NCN 65 in East Yorkshire. Now on to the route to York.

I've been out to collect data to add addressing close to home. It was surprisingly hard work, but maybe it was the ice underfoot.

I went out twice today and both times saw a strange-looking car with a tower on the roof which I think was the Google Streetview photo car. Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to take a photo of them...

It's a long time since my last diary entry - my blog is on the OSM blog digest. Today we finally completed the market town of Beverley in East Yorkshire,UK.

Over the last week I've been following the route of the cycleway known as the National Byway. Most of the route is easy to follow, but a few places have had their signs twisted or changed. I've tagged the route from the Humber bridge to Sproatley as part of the Byway relation so I hope this route will appear on the cyclemap eventually.

On snowy and cold Easter day, I thought I'd fill a few streets in Hull in. There was no-one about so it was quick and easy. When I compared the photos of street names at home I found two clear easter-eggs on other maps of the area. Seems appropriate somehow.

The town of Hessle in East Yorkshire, UK has had a first pass completed. There's always more to add, especially detail of shops, but streets are mapped and named and main amenities added.

Yesterday we added much of the Wold Road area of Hull to the map. This was badly hit in last year's floods and it is still a mess. See my blog for more.

Cottingham in East Yorkshire has been claimed to be the biggest village in England. It certainly feels like a town when you're trying to map it. I have now covered all of the roads and some of the footpaths. There are quite a few shops to add as amenities, but schools, churches and pubs should be all correct. There are a surprising number of footpaths (no cycling signs everywhere).

I've added a building and a footpath to the map on the edge of a dock in Hull, UK. Nothing strange about that you might think, until you realise that the path goes over the building. The public right-of-way goes over the roof of a warehouse, at about 8m high, near the Albert dock, via steps at both ends.

Someone is changing primary roads to trunk roads in the area I've working on in East Yorkshire. The changes are tagged as anonymous, so I don't know who is changing the routes. The Highway Agency in the UK has a map and a list of trunk roads and there are very few. If we have a tag trunk and primary then surely we should label roads with the correct designation. At the present rate of change there will be no primary roads left.

Feel free to contact me if you disagree or if it's you that's making the changes.

I've been continuing to work on the East Riding of Yorkshire, with plenty still to do. The new API has speeded up the uploads and downloads - I guess segments nearly doubled the data. Rendering is clearly now struggling. Blue tiles and blank tiles are appearing and renders are sometimes taking a few minutes and sometimes a couple of DAYS. I don't have the resources to run tiles@home so it's hard for me to complain, but it is off-putting to see your work disappear under a blank or blue tile, or to wait days to see what mistakes you've made, even though the data is safe.

On the upside, more villages are complete and Hull has a little more detail, and I'm enjoying the experience.

I've had a message from 80n about mapping Hull. Originally I thought I'd stick to the East Riding, but now I've done some work in Hull. It's fairly close to home and there are a number of challenges.

Firstly the railway stopped short of the station, which is a terminus. I found as many places as possible to access the railway, such as bridges and roads alongside the track and I've mapped some of the tracks, including goods lines.

I've also looked up the boundary between Hull and the East Riding from info from both councils. I've traced most of it on the ground so I can draw the boundary. Of course both of these projects have mapped roads too and I've added some streams too.

I'm finding the API server incredibly slow sometimes, so it can be frustrating. I guess funds are tight, but a bit more power is needed. A lot depends on the server, all editing downloads and uploads (JOSM, Potlatch etc.) rely on it and every tile that gets rendered needs it too. It could be the MySQL server that is the bottleneck, but whatever I feel it could endanger the project because people might give up.

I've also gleaned a list of all of the towns, villages etc in East Yorkshire. I wondered if I should post it in Wiki as a means of tracking progress, but since there are only a couple of people working in East Yorkshire it is maybe OTT.

I've had a couple of weeks gathering local traces and uploading them. Our village looks good, with a few amenities yet to plot. I'm spreading out into other villages. I'm surprised how long it takes on foot - I've thought of breaking out the old bike, but I'm not sure I could hack it!

I found the OSM site (from StumbleUpon) and I liked the idea. I like maps and I like the idea of Wiki et al. I have a Garmin ETrek, so I make the tracks etc. but the process looks a bit daunting ...

The village I live is not on the map yet, so it looks a good place to start.

I'm going to walk around gathering some tracks and see what happens next.