16/01/2025-22/01/2025
MERCATOR:EXTREME [1] |, a Web map that displays distortions near the poles. © Drew Ross | map data © OpenStreetMap Contributors.
Mapping
- A request for comments has been made for the
mtb:scale:amtb=*proposal. It proposes a tagging scheme to classify mountain biking trails’ suitability for adaptive mountain biking (AMTB), considering the specific needs of riders with mobility impairments. This scale extends the existingmtb:scalewith additional attributes focusing on trail width, surface, gradient, and obstacles.
Mapping campaigns
- Swiggy (an online food delivery service) and Ola (a ride-hailing service) are currently conducting organised editing in OpenStreetMap across India.
Community
- On Monday 20 January, Donald Trump, once again president of the USA, signed an executive order mandating that US federal agencies rename the northern half of the Gulf of Mexico to the ‘Gulf of America’ on all US federal maps and documents. In response, various reactions followed on the OSM community and the Mastodon en.osm.town instance that recall how OSM handles naming disputes.
- InfosReseaux talked about how OpenStreetMap is helping with managing power grid assets. Accurate tagging and open data are really important in adapting grids to climate challenges. The post mentioned advanced tagging systems, tools like StreetComplete and Osmose, and how they work together with operators like Enedis. It also talks about what the French community has achieved, like reviewing 255,000 transmission towers, improving how power lines are described, and using AI and LiDAR to make improvements.
- OpenCage is planning to restart their long-running interview series with OSM communities around the world. For the first edition, they decided to interview Amanda McCann, long-term OSM stalwart and the creator of WaterwayMap, a map of waterways from OpenStreetMap.
- Thomas Froitzheim, at the ‘Nature.Tourism.Future’ symposium
► of the German Hiking Association, highlighted both the opportunities and challenges of using OpenStreetMap for outdoor tourism, emphasising its potential to improve navigation and the development of hiking trails. - Anne-Karoline Distel, a violinist in ‘The Dubliners Experience’ band, is touring the Netherlands, capturing street-level images, and uploading them to Panoramax.
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Events
- Emilio Mariscal from HOT is set to host a webinar, ‘Open Mapping with ChatMap’, on Thursday 30 January at 12:00 UTC in English. The event will explore groundbreaking ways to leverage WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal for open mapping initiatives. Registration is now open here.
- The State of the Map LATAM ► 2025 Organising Committee is calling ► for logo designs that represent OpenStreetMap, the State of the Map conference, and the spirit of Medellín, Colombia, the event’s host city. Designs must be original, recognisable, and open-licensed (CC BY SA). Submissions are due by Monday 3 February and the winner will receive SotM LatAm 2025 merchandise and recognition on the official event website.
a webinar, ‘Open Mapping with ChatMap’, on Thursday 30 January at 12:00 UTC in English. The event will explore groundbreaking ways to leverage WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal for open mapping initiatives. Registration is now open Maps
- 1 Drew Roos has developed MERCATOR:EXTREME, an interactive web map that displays the Mercator projection and its distortions near the poles. However, you can substitute any point on Earth as the pole, highlighting Mercator’s shortcomings in accurately visualising areas near the poles.
- Historically there has been a bit of an issue with golf-course mappers using odd geometries for courses partly because some of the software that uses OSM data as a source for golf games, for example PGA Tour 2k23, didn’t understand some OSM constructs such as multipolygons. However, it sounds from a changeset comment like this issue might have been resolved and hopefully we’ll see fewer ‘odd geometries’ in the future.
- Sven Geggus described improvements to the OpenStreetMap tile servers for rendering maps with localised names. This is done by adapting openstreetmap-carto-flex-l10n.lua and using the osml10n tool during the database import, which can allow users to achieve localisation in languages such as English, French, or Spanish.
OSM in action
- Secret Melbourne showcased ‘City of Melbourne Cool Routes’, an interactive map that shows streets and spaces that are relatively cooler, helping you plan safe and comfortable journeys through the City of Melbourne.
Software
- AED Map allows ► you to browse for nearby AED defibrillators on a map, providing first aiders quick access to this critical information. The code is available on GitHub.
- Graphmasters specialises in real-time traffic solutions, providing dynamic navigation and route optimisation technologies. Its software addresses urban congestion, fleet management, and logistics challenges by integrating AI and real-time data. Its NUNAV routing engine utilises up-to-date data from OpenStreetMap across all its products.
- HeiGIT tooted some metrics, made using ohsome, about contributions made to OpenStreetMap in 2024, describing the scale of OSM use and demonstrating the analytical capabilities of ohsome.
- Digvijay Kumar highlighted Organic Maps as a privacy-focused open-source alternative to Google Maps built on OpenStreetMap data. It offers offline navigation, detailed maps, hiking and cycling routes, contour lines, and voice guidance, without ads or tracking.
- KartaVoice is a web-based app that makes it easy to collect points of interest using AI, voice commands, and your device’s camera. It captures precise locations, estimates distances, and enables updates such as adding addresses. This streamlined process makes data collection faster than traditional manual methods.
- A new round trip function for BRouter has been proposed, adding customisable parameters for starting direction, round-trip distance, and route behaviours like allowing the same path for return trips. This feature enables users to generate tailored circular routes, improving flexibility for navigation and routing tasks.
- OwnTracks is an open source application for tracking your location privately and securely. It allows users to create a personal location journal or share their location with friends and family using open protocols. The application works with existing servers or self-hosted setups to ensure privacy.
►Programming
- Ilya Zverev is trying to improve EveryDoor by developing a process for uploading photos from mobile to Panoramax and asked about the OAuth authentication process.
Releases
- Vespucci hinted at the addition of Panoramax support as a new feature in their upcoming version 21.0 release.
Did you know that …
- … that the theoretical limit for the OSM object ID value is 9,223,372,036,854,775,807?
- … that the German-style tile server offers a Latin-script rendering for place names? This contrasts with the default OSM standard tile layer, which prefers to show place names in the non-Latin scripts used by locals.
Other “geo” things
- You can use ► ‘Layer Color’, a QGIS plugin, to adjust the background colours of layers and groups in the layer window, in order to make the layer structure clearer and more structured, solely through improved optical differentiation.
- Wille Marcel and Lane Goodman have shared some insights on visualising NASA’s polar geospatial data using 3D mapping libraries such as deck.gl, MapLibre, and Mapbox Globe View. Their blog highlighted challenges with the Mercator projection near the poles and the process of refining tools for the CASEI platform to enable accurate data representation across polar regions. Open source solutions and experiments with Globe View visualisation were detailed to improve geospatial workflows.
Upcoming Events
| Where | What | Online | When | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chambéry | Mapathon en ligne saison 24/25 CartONG  | 2025-01-27 |  | |
| Saint-Étienne | Rencontre Saint-Étienne et sud Loire | 2025-01-27 | | |
| Stadtgebiet Bremen | Bremer Mappertreffen | 2025-01-27 |  | |
| City of Edinburgh | Geomob Edinburgh | 2025-01-28 |  | |
| Београд | Srbija OpenStreetMap okupljanje | 2025-01-28 |  | |
| Berlin | OSM-Verkehrswende #65 | ✓ | 2025-01-28 | |
| MapRVA Map & Yap | 2025-01-30 | |||
| Zagreb | OSM-HR Meetup (Zagreb) | 2025-01-29 |  | |
| Düsseldorf | Düsseldorfer OpenStreetMap-Treffen (online) | 2025-01-29 | | |
| Ugíjar | Mapas y Tapas – Mapping Party! | 2025-01-30 |  | |
| London Borough of Islington | GeoMob London | 2025-01-30 | | |
| Salt Lake City | OSM Utah Monthly Map Night | 2025-02-05 |  | |
| Salzburg | OSM Treffen Salzburg | 2025-02-04 |  | |
| San Jose | South Bay Map Night | ✓ | 2025-02-05 | |
| Missing Maps London: (Online) Mapathon [eng] | 2025-02-04 | |||
| Stuttgart | Stuttgarter OpenStreetMap-Treffen | 2025-02-05 | | |
| iD Community Chat | 2025-02-05 | |||
| Montrouge | Réunion des contributeurs de Montrouge et du Sud de Paris | 2025-02-06 | | |
| Guadalajara | A Synesthete’s Atlas: Cartographic Improvisations between Eric Theise and Fernando Feria | 2025-02-07 |  | |
| OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting | 2025-02-07 | |||
| 中正區 | OpenStreetMap x Wikidata Taipei #73 | 2025-02-10 |  |
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.
This weeklyOSM was produced by PierZen, Raquel Dezidério Souto, Strubbl, TheSwavu, barefootstache, derFred, mcliquid.
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