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9/8 – 9/14 2015

Africa Year of edit [1]

Mapping

• There are  Music-Flashmobs, Timefreezing-Flashmobs, and Students-Flashmobs – but what about a Mapping-Flashmob?
• User k1wi has published tag usage statistics for the tags exit_to=* und destination=* in highway exits in the USA. k1wi created similar tagging statistics for roads in Spain.
• JOSM validator reports 6,432 errors in Nukus, Uzbekistan. How did this happen?
• Richard Fairhurst asks on the Tagging mailing list how to tag cycling cafés (coffee shops catering to cyclists).
• Joachim (jojo4u) asks for comments concerning his proposal  for setting the default value for oneway=* on highway exits (highway=motorway_link) to undefined.
• David Marschall asks the Tagging mailing list about using relations for mapping underground rivers (for instance the Danube between Immendingen and Aachtopf)

Community

• [1] Ramani Huria published a “Year of Edits” video showing OSM growth in Africa between 2013 and 2015.
• User MeisterLampe from Brazil is happy. His new home town of Blumenau in southern Brazil is better mapped on OSM than on Google. However, as houses and house numbers are missing, he had to start on a more detailed mapping project and he’s pleased with the community’s support (post in German – automatic translation to English).
• baditaflorin produced a top 25 list of cities by counting the number of POIs in them. Note the comment section on counting methods.
• SK53 reports about news channels thinking that Google owns OpenStreetMap.
• The Dutch community is discussing public transport data in their country and comparing it to nvloket data. A lot of data is still in an old standard.
• Pierre-Yves Berrard discovered an area on the Bano rendering which is far too busy to be useful. Christian Quest will have a look whether it is a bug. Other proposed to render the data in a different way. (via talk-fr)
• How much do you know about OpenStreetMap? Here’s an OpenStreetMap Quiz.
• The United States Peace Corps expands their student mapping program from a pilot for 140 students to a US wide offering.
• Vincent Vaneyken is the Belgian Mapper of the Month.
• The students of AgroTIC improved OpenStreetMap as part of a geography module. The focus was this year on accessibility for wheelchair users in Gignac (34). Last year they focussed on taking photos for Mapillary. (via René-Luc D’Hont on talk-fr, automatic translation)
• The Asia Foundation (TAF) organised an OSM workshop for the region of Dumaguete in the Philippines.
• Stefan Keller created a Wiki page for “Geohashing”. Geohashing is an outdoor activity inspired by the web comic xkcd. While Google Maps are often used for Geohashing, among the many “achievements” in the game there is an OSM-Achievement for contributing to OSM.
• Anonymaps shows why tagging roads in the US using only ref won’t work.
• Daniel Koć is asking on the Talk mailing list about the goal of the project “main page” openstreetmap.org. He proposed uMap-like functionality on GitHub, which was faced rejection. Steve Coast commented on the topic in the discussion.

Import

• Albin Larsson posted an update on his progress cleaning up monster polygons (initial post here).

OpenStreetMap Foundation

• OpenStreetMap US elections take place from October 12th to 18th 2015. Current president Alyssa Wright explains why you should run for the OpenStreetMap US board.

Events

• The first “Engineers Without Borders” Map-a-thon will take place on September 26 at the University of Sydney, Australia and will focus on mapping the Maubara province in Timor Leste.
• Frederik Ramm is announcing an OSM-HackWeekend on October 17 and 18 in the Geofabrik in Karlsruhe.
• Hawkeye lists the 10 most important reasons, why You should join the State of the Map Scotland. The conference, which is just a stone’s throw off the English Channel will take place on the 30th of September!
• The videos of State of the Map LatAm are now online (however, all videos are uploaded with the same description).

Humanitarian OSM

• Guido from Doctors Without Borders thanks all volunteers from HOT and Missing Maps for their work in south Sudan and explains the importance of this mapping work for him as an epidemiologist.
• User Athaikdin from the Missing Maps Project blogs about mapathons in Zimbabwe and Bangladesh and writes about the difficulties that can arise with remote mapping, even with good satellite imagery.

Maps

• Daniel Koć mentions the beta of Wikimedia Maps on the talk mailing list.
• Luis Dinger created a nice 3D view of Manhattan and other cities with Cinema4d, OSM and other data sources. Unfortunately in a Guardian article about these maps “Google’s OpenStreetMap” is cited as a source (since corrected).
• Enjalot posted a web app with a concise interactive visualization of different map projections (also see “The True Size” for exploring the effects of the Mercator projection).
• JB released a new version of his topographic rendering (attention: .pdf download) for a hiking route on La Chaine des Puy. He made the program he developed for it available for download  (tutorial included).
• After publication of a contested map which displayed refugee camps resulted in strong controversies, the Hessische Rundfunk displays a very positive example of helping refugees using the map project “People Like Me – Gemeinsam für Flüchtlinge”.
• Alex Barth from Mapbox confirms on the Talk Mailing list, that beta.mapquest.com uses TomTom data in the USA, Canada and Mexico while it uses OSM data outside the USA (since a couple of weeks MapQuest relies on Mapbox for map services).

Open Data

• The branch Open.NRW wants to know from OSM how it can help us with our work. (3 days left)
• OpenAddresses has now a visualization of the current status of their addresses . The database contains meanwhile around 180 Million entries (via @iandees)
• The United States Interagency Elevation Inventory provides an overview of freely available terrain and surface models in the USA.
• The Swiss OpenStreetMap Association gives an overview of freely available address data in Switzerland.

Software

• The OSM Analytic Difference Engine by MichaelVL provides realtime insights into OSM edits (changesets). Along with a summary of changes like in Achavi, changesets can be visualized. An analysis for Denmark is already available.
• Marble Maps got improved vector rendering and a new vector tile server during a KDE Sprint in Rands.
• This video shows how to visualize OSM data with Tableau.
• Geospatial.org informs us about a new JOSM plugin to import indoorGML (note: for any imports, please consult the import guidelines).
• On September 9th, 2015 Version 3.9.0 of OpenLayers was released.
• Mapbox released a new very fast JavaScript library for line and polygon clipping (via @LeafletJS).

Other “geo” things

• Spiegel Online summarises the current situation of Galileo on the occasion of the successful launch of two new Galileo satellites: Alba and Oriana. Also Heise reported about the launch.
• BBC4 ran a documentary on Ordnance Survey, the UK national mapping agency. Ordnance Survey blogged it. In some countries you may watch the program within the next months. 
• This map of the syrian civil war made by a 19 year old from the Netherlands is so good that it is being used by CNN.
• CartoDB closed 23 Million US Dollars in a series B funding round.
• Security consultant Rüdiger Trost released the Android App HelpHelp2 which displays on Google Maps where donations for refugees are needed.
• TomTom has launched RoadDNA, a product aimed at bringing self-driving car tech to more potential developers.
• Apple was awarded 49 new patents in a single day, one is about a device for 3D mapping.
• Geoawesomeness gives detailed insight into Apple’s mapping activities including their mapping vans.