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Mapping
The French city of Rennes, announced ► that it is hosting three mapping parties, during which citizens will be helped in adding shops to OpenStreetMap.
Pieter Vander announced that now MapComplete is able to detect tree species automatically by using PlantNet.org API, making it easier to link a tree to its correct species while mapping tree location on OpenStreetMap.
Requests have been made for comments on the following proposal:
highway=scramble for indicating that a path needs use of hands to travel over.
Voting on the following proposal has closed :
crossing:markings, to declare the existence and style of pedestrian crossing markings, was approved with 29 votes for, 1 vote against and 3 abstentions.
OSM user Mannivu wrote > a diary entry on how to upload pictures to Wikimedia Commons, create a Wikidata element, create a Wikimedia Commons category, link a Wikidata element and a Commons category, and insert those data into OSM.
Martijn van Exel wondered why there is no search form for OSM diaries. Commenters explained how to use your favourite search engine for that.
Events
Katja Haferkorn announced ► that a workshop ► on the topic of OpenStreetMap indoor tagging will be held 14 to 16 October in Frankfurt am Main.
Some statistical figures on the recent SotM in Florence for you.
Humanitarian OSM
Adam Rousell announced that HeiGIT has activated the Disaster openrouteservice in the region of Pakistan in response to the severe monsoonal flooding the country has experienced in recent weeks. Currently, data is being updated every 10 minutes to reflect the dynamic situation and affected infrastructure.
Deutsche Bahn is using OSM in their passenger information system. It tracks the train’s current speed, position and schedule and informs passengers of points of interest that can be found along the route. Recommended for imitation.
The state of Sachen Anhalt, Germany has released ► a 20 cm resolution digital surface model as open data (via Twitter). The licence ► allows using the data to improve OSM.
Licences
Harry Wood published an article to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Open Database License (ODbL), the licence of OpenStreetMap’s data. The ODbL was created in response to several issues regarding the unsuitability of CC BY-SA licences when applied to map data.
Andres Gomez Casanova has published two Spanish-language videos in which he explains the incompatibility of ODbL and CC-BY:
The use of DRM in derivative works where ODbL allows it but CC-BY does not.
They expand ► on an article from 10 April (we reported earlier).
Software
[1] Ilya Zverik published a tutorial for his Every Door OpenStreetMap editor (for POIs and entrances) along with the release of version 2.0 of the software. Downloads are available for Android and iOS. Release notes are on GitHub.
Arno Wolter, one of the three founders and CEO of the Initiative for Safer Roads, talked about their new project Gefahrenstellen.de, which seeks to help parents and schoolchildren select the path to school with the least traffic and risk. The project uses HeiGIT’s openrouteservice as a routing service, which in turn uses OSM data.
Altilunium has released Pataddress, an open-source alternative to what3words (but with four words instead) with a built-in word frequency analyser to build a custom word database in your own language.
GraphHopper has released version 6.0 of their routing engine. This update offers faster route calculation, more flexibility, better instructions, and developer documentation.
HeiGIT, the Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology, reported that a building completeness indicator has been added to the ohsome quality analyst. This indicator uses proxy variables to predict the expected area of buildings in a given area of interest and then compares this prediction to the total area of buildings currently mapped in OSM.
Marcel Reinmuth wrote that the Open Healthcare Access Map has now achieved global coverage. The Open Healthcare Access Map uses OpenStreetMap, HeiGIT’s openrouteservice, and WorldPop to estimate the number of people living within a certain distance of a healthcare facility. The data is also available on the Humanitarian Data Exchange.
The RapiD development team at Meta blogged about an ‘early preview’ of RapiD 2.0 alpha, an OSM editor with access to AI-generated open data. The big change is a rewrite of the graphics engine to improve overall performance. They are asking for feedback via GitHub, Slack or Facebook.
Felt announced that Erica Fischer, the creator of the library Tippecanoe, joined the company to continue her open-source work. Tippecanoe is a GeoJSON to vector map tiles converter, with a specific aesthetic intent to enable making a scale-independent view of the data. At any zoom level, the density and texture of the data is still visible, rather than having to manually exclude certain classes of data.
Programming
The osm2pgsql team just announced that the source code of osm2pgsql has gone through a security audit. None of the tests revealed any severe security issues, but users should be aware that they should properly set up a secure system environment. The team have amended the manual further to explain several important security practices.
Releases
Vespucci, ‘the editor for Android that allows any kind of editing directly on mobile devices’, released version 18.0.0. The highlights are described in a blog post.
Marcos Dione discovered that JPEG map tile files with quality parameter set to 70–80 are 50% or less their size in PNG, suitable for low-resolution, offline, low-connectivity, or mobile map apps. He also updated his osm-tile-tools to accept JPEG tile file format.
Did you know …
… Marcel Reinmuth presented several maps with information on abortion access in Germany that were created using HeiGIT’s openrouteservice?
… you can find places with vegetarian (diet:vegetarian) and vegan (diet:vegan) options by using Veggiekarte?
… that an anonymous critic collects problems with the what3words algorithm and implementation?
OSM in the media
OpenCage is partnering with the MapScaping podcast to help promote OSM-based projects. The selected projects will receive a 30 second promotional message at the start of a podcast episode and logo inclusions on the MapScaping front page and Twitter account. Any project using OpenStreetMap is eligible (tools, technologies, services, open source, NGO, or for-profit start-up). You can apply until Saturday 15 October.
Other “geo” things
The events associated with the funeral rites for Queen Elizabeth II would seem an unlikely reason for an item of geospatial news. However, Gizmodoreported that a number of odd errors occurred through the use of what3words to help people find the end of the queue for viewing during the lying in state.
Upcoming Events
Where
What
Online
When
Country
Budapest
OSM Fonó: Short editing introduction and remote help (online, live)
2022-09-23
La Virgen
5ta reunión bimestral de OSM Latinoamérica
2022-09-24
Recife
[online] First pic4review mapathon from UMBRAOSM (BR)
2022-09-24
Cisterna d’Asti
Incontro mapper astigiani
2022-09-24
Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe Hack Weekend
2022-09-24 – 2022-09-25
Gent
OpenTechTalks: OpenStreetMap
2022-09-26
OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting
2022-09-26
Arlon
Réunion des contributeurs OpenStreetMap, Arlon (Belgium)
2022-09-26
San Jose
South Bay Map Night
✓
2022-09-28
Derby
OSM East Midlands/Nottingham meetup
2022-09-27
London
Geomob London
2022-09-28
Washington
OSM US Mappy Hour
✓
2022-09-29
Vern-sur-Seiche
Atelier participatif « Recensement des commerces »
2022-09-29
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorfer OpenStreetMap-Treffen
✓
2022-09-30
Villa de Cos
Notathon en OpenStreetMap – resolvamos notas de México
2022-10-01
Hacktoberfest 2022
2022-10-01 – 2022-10-31
臺北市
OpenStreetMap x Wikidata Taipei #45
2022-10-03
Stuttgart
Stuttgarter Stammtisch
2022-10-04
London
London pub meet-up
2022-10-04
London
Missing Maps London Mapathon
2022-10-04
Berlin
OSM-Verkehrswende #39 (Online)
✓
2022-10-04
Murray
OSM Utah Monthly Meetup
2022-10-06
Mannheim
Mapathon in der Moschee
2022-10-06
Град Крагујевац
OSM Serbia regular meetup
✓
2022-10-06
La Chapelle-des-Fougeretz
Atelier participatif « Recensement des commerces »
2022-10-07
Kaiserslautern
OSM Mapping Event Erfassung von Barrieren
2022-10-08
京都市
京都!街歩き!マッピングパーティ:第32回 Re:妙心寺
2022-10-08
Polokwane Local Municipality
OSM Africa October Mapathon
✓
2022-10-08
Polokwane Local Municipality
OSM Africa October Mapathon
✓
2022-10-08
Washington
MappingDC Mappy Hour
2022-10-12
San Jose
South Bay Map Night
✓
2022-10-12
München
Münchner OSM-Treffen
2022-10-11
Frankfurt am Main
Arbeitstreffen Indoor OSM 2022
2022-10-14 – 2022-10-16
Note: If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.