12/06/2025-18/06/2025
[1] OSM Perfect Intersections Editor, a prototype by Mikhail Kuzin | Map data © OpenStreetMap Contributors.
Mapping campaigns
- The OpenStreetMap Russia community has announced the completion of a recent online mapathon focused on the city of Morshansk. Over the course of two weeks, 26 participants contributed
by mapping approximately 8,000 buildings, 5,000 addresses, 300 shops, and 150 amenities. Contributors relied primarily on Esri satellite imagery, Yandex panoramas, and the official government cadastre map as their sources.
- In a blog post, Séverin Ménard related his experience mapping the POIs of a small town where he stayed for three days, and encourages other OSM field mappers to share their own experience with the hashtag #MakeYourStayOSM!
Community
- [1] Mikhail Kuzin is developing
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OSMPIE, a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get tool that makes adding and tagging roads and intersections in OpenStreetMap significantly easier, more precise, and more convenient. The tool is still under development and has not yet been officially released, but the developer plans to continue publishing updates through OSM diary entries to gain community feedback.
- Volker Krause detailed how various open public transport data is integrated into the Transitous routing service through standards such as the General Transit Feed Specification, General Bikeshare Feed Specification, and OpenStreetMap. He also outlined how users can contribute to and expand transit data in their own regions.
- Imagoiq has initiated an experimental project to map housing cooperatives in Switzerland with a GitHub repository to gather information about tagging, OSM statistics, data quality checks, and more.
- Pongpeera Wongprasitthiporn has shared some insights on indoor mapping in OpenStreetMap, demonstrating how to use the OsmInEdit tool along with the indoor=* website to accurately represent interior spaces.
- In a recent essay, adreamy urged
►
(summary) the Korean OpenStreetMap community to embrace the platform’s decentralised, non-hierarchical ethos by actively participating in problem solving, guideline development, and quality control without relying on central authority.
- OpenHistoricalMap announced that you can now log in using your OSM account, map labels are in your preferred language by default, and elements are labelled with their dates throughout the site, among other improvements.
OpenStreetMap Foundation
- The OpenStreetMap Foundation has called for self-nominations for its upcoming board election, with submissions accepted until Saturday 5 July 2025 at 23:59:59 UTC. At least three board seats are up for election, with voting scheduled for September.
OSM research
- A new paper from HeiGIT has evaluated the resilience of urban infrastructure, with a focus on road network connectivity and redundancy in the face of extreme weather events. The research was carried out by Sánchez and others and used OpenStreetMap data and the openrouteservice routing engine.
- Gopinath Gnanakumar Malathi and Graham Dove are conducting a study on how OpenStreetMap contributors assess and interpret the quality of geographic data on the platform. The study includes a survey examining contributors’ perspectives on data quality, their understanding of informal community guidelines such as those on the OSM Wiki, and the factors that influence their mapping decisions.
Software
- MysteryHike, a phone-based exploration game, allows users to discover points of interest while navigating real-world locations. The game utilises data from OpenStreetMap but currently does not provide proper attribution.
- The OSM2World project is currently receiving support from the Prototype Fund, a funding initiative of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, to develop tools that simplify the contribution of 3D data to OpenStreetMap. The project focuses on creating real-time preview features that offer immediate feedback, making 3D editing more intuitive and allowing contributors to identify and correct errors before data is uploaded.
- Christan Quest has developed
Panolinker, an application designed to help users identify and select the most suitable Panoramax photo corresponding to a specific geolocated object.
Programming
- At the 2024 FOSSGIS Conference, it was announced
that centimetre-level GNSS correction data is now being freely broadcast across Germany via DAB+ digital radio, enabling offline high-precision positioning without paid services or internet access. Inspired by this, flohoff has built
a working setup using a Quectel LC29H RTK-capable GNSS chip, a DAB+ USB stick, and a Raspberry Pi 5, achieving an RTK fix, meaning GNSS systems could determine positions with centimetre-level precision using the broadcast data. However, the system still relies on an internet connection to fetch ephemeris data, as the LC29H in rover mode doesn’t output it. Efforts are underway to eliminate this dependency by integrating a second GNSS receiver or switching to a dual-role module such as the Unicore UM980.
- Arnav Kamath has developed a framework to evaluate the connectivity of Mumbai’s establishments to the city’s infrastructure. All developed using OpenStreetMap, Python, NumPy, Plotly and Pandas.
Releases
- CoMaps, which was available only as an apk (we reported earlier), is now available on Google Play and F-Droid.
- David Larlet announced the release of uMap version 3, introducing major new features including real-time collaboration, map templates, and improved import helpers.
- Organic Maps has released its June 2025 update, introducing new features including planned route saving, track statistics on iOS, and azimuth indicators for selected locations on Android.
Did you know that …
- … you can use the tag
button_operated=placebo
to mark pedestrian or bicycle push buttons that don’t actually doanything? Some crossing buttons don’t trigger a signal at all, especially during certain times or in automated traffic systems. In some cases, they’ve even been disconnected but not removed.
- … the Myanmar Information Management Unit (MIMU) has pages dedicated to OSM in Burmese, supported by the University of Bern?
Other “geo” things
- Placing Technologies has delved into the origins of web map tiles, an innovation that revolutionised digital mapping by enabling geospatial data to be stored and transmitted efficiently using x/y/z-indexed squares. The system, which began with raster data and later expanded to vector formats, allowed maps to be viewed seamlessly at multiple zoom levels.
Upcoming Events
Note:
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This weeklyOSM was produced by MatthiasMatthias, Raquel Dezidério Souto, Strubbl, Andrew Davidson, barefootstache.
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