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24/10/2024-30/10/2024
Mapping
- Requests for comments have been made on the
amenity=travelers_loungeproposal for mapping public seating areas within transit facilities, such as airport lounges or waiting areas at railway stations.
Community
- [1] Strubbl’s OSM profile page features a comic inspired by xkcd #386 titled ‘Duty Calls‘.
- Alan Grant has been conducting a systematic update of local points of interest (POI) across several neighbourhoods in the city of Málaga, Spain, and has been detailing the process in a series of OSM diary entries.
- Arnalie Vicario gave an overview of the OSMF Membership Campaign 2024; 392 new members have signed up since the start of the campaign in March with 16 new countries now having members.
- Carlos Lunna has documented
► his research on socio-technical interactions in the Altos and streams of the North Zone of Recife and its adjacent area in Olinda, Recife Metropolitan Area, Northeast Brazil, noting ► changes in public spaces such as the Alto do Eucalipto. He has observed community-led changes, such as sports markings, and later improvements by the NGO G10 Favelas, including playgrounds and painted staircases, highlighting local adaptations and evolving landscape changes driven by residents’ needs. - Jacopofar shared his experience of contributing 360° imagery to Mapillary using a GoPro MAX, describing its benefits for capturing detailed street views, particularly in Milan, Italy, and detailing the camera setup, recording insights, and tips for improving coverage on OpenStreetMap.
- Daniel Capilla has created a new wiki userbox for those OpenStreetMap users who contribute to OpenBenches, a crowdsourcing project that gathers information about memorial benches around the world.
►
OpenStreetMap Foundation
- Christoph Hormann observed that the OSMF currently faces challenges in producing high-quality small-scale maps using OpenStreetMap data for public communication.
Local chapter news
- At the KonGeoS 2024 conference in Würzburg, Germany, FOSSGIS e.V. representatives talked ► to geodesy students about open source GIS software, including OpenStreetMap, and introduced FOSSGIS to many attendees, highlighting opportunities for student contributions and wider use of OpenStreetMap data.
- OpenStreetMap Austria will showcase ► OpenStreetMap at the Maker Faire ► in Salzburg on Saturday 9 November, inviting attendees to explore mapping and interact with both new and experienced mappers at this DIY-focused event.
►Events
- The FOSSGIS 2025 conference is accepting ► submissions for various formats, including talks, workshops, lightning talks, and posters, until Tuesday 5 November. Special focus is on ’25 Years of FOSSGIS e.V.’, inviting contributions that reflect on the organisation’s history, milestones, and member experiences. The programme and registrations will open in January 2025.
- OpenStreetMap US has announced the Mapping USA 2025 virtual event, scheduled for 24 and 25 January 2025, and is inviting proposals for talks and workshops by Monday 25 November, with registration details and an optional $10 non-member donation.
- Volker Krause reported on his work at the OSM Hack Weekend, which focused on preparing the KDE Itinerary public transport client for integration with MOTIS v2, improving map features for trip views, and advancing indoor routing testing. These improvements were made possible through collaboration, highlighting the value of hack weekends, which are supported by donations from the KDE and OSM chapters.
- Jimmy Angelakos will present at the PostgreSQL Conference Europe 2024 on using the free tools of PostGIS and OpenStreetMap to integrate GIS capabilities into PostgreSQL.
- In his blog, Ravi Dwivedi reflected on his experience of attending the 2024 State of the Map in Nairobi, Kenya, discussing the diverse OpenStreetMap community, project insights, logistical aspects, and suggestions for more open source communication tools in organising such events.
- The OSM Kerala Community Meetup on November 16-17 is an annual gathering, organised by the OSM Kerala (India) community since 2022. The call for talks closes on Monday 4 November, and the deadline for scholarship requests is Thursday 7 November.
- IDéO BFC has published a recording of the webinar ‘OpenStreetMap: A Digital Commons Serving Local Communities’, led by Alban Vivert, founding member of the French Federation of OpenStreetMap Professionals ►. In the same video, Aymeric Dutremble presented ► the initiative of the Haut-Jura Regional Natural Park around OSM and upcoming events ► highlighting OpenStreetMap.
a recording of the webinar ‘OpenStreetMap: A Digital Commons Serving Local Communities’, led by Alban Vivert, founding member of the Maps
- Zsolt Ero shared several updates about OpenFreeMap, a free and open-source map hosting solution that offers custom styles for websites and apps using OpenStreetMap data. Since its launch one month ago, it has gained around 2,000 GitHub stars, handles 300 requests per second, and has 2 TB of daily traffic.
- Rebecca Laurel, a cyclist from Leicester UK, has created ► a Halloween-themed GPS artwork by riding a 112 kilometre route in the shape of a skeleton; a challenging project, as the legs and ribs had to be traced. Rebecca’s previous Strava art creations include pumpkins and ghosts.
OSM in action
- Votermap provides an interactive visual comparison of US presidential election data between 2016 and 2020, showing individual county vote distributions based on population density and county vote totals.
- Shahwaiz Bukhari built ‘Safe Route’, an OpenStreetMap-based route planner that calculates the likelihood of encountering crime along a given path, using historical data. The crime data is customisable through a CSV file that includes the coordinates of past incidents.
- Scrambled Maps is a daily map puzzle in which players rearrange randomly scrambled OpenStreetMap tiles of a city chosen from a pool of 28,000 worldwide. The game includes a feature that makes tiles of the same colour (e.g. ocean tiles) interchangeable, improving playability by reducing trial-and-error frustration.
Open Data
- Pete Masters shared statistics and facts about the open drone imagery hosted on OpenAerialMap, hopefully useful and interesting for the OSM community, as a key user group!
Programming
- Alexey Zakharenkov talked about the design of their metro line route validator, in particular about the algorithm for searching for missed metro stations. Variations of this validator are being used by applications such as Organic Maps and MAPS.ME.
- William Edmisten compared restaurant data from OpenStreetMap and Overture Maps, highlighting differences in data sourcing, accuracy, and update frequency. They found that while Overture has a larger dataset, OSM often shows higher quality in recently edited data, particularly where active local mappers contribute. However, Overture’s confidence scoring can also produce high quality data, especially in areas with strong proprietary data contributions.
- Kieran Farr announced that the 3DStreet traffic simulator now has an option to import OSM Carto tiles and 2.5D buildings from OSM as an alternative to Google Maps and Mapbox Satellite.
- Michael Kreil has made ► VersaTiles, a free and open-source software stack for generating, distributing, and using vector map tiles based on OpenStreetMap data.
about the design of their metro line route 
Releases
- OpenInfrastructureMap released several feature updates, including added water, sewage treatment plants, and reservoirs on the water layer, a visual redesign of the infobox section, and translations for many common tag values.
- HeiGIT’s openrouteservice now has export and snap endpoints, changing the way users interact with and process routing data, making it easier to handle complex use cases or pre-process points for routing queries.
- The OSM Traffic Sign Tool helps users match OpenStreetMap tags with the relevant traffic signs. Version 2.1.0 enhances mobile usability, optimises tag validation, and introduces a streamlined tag selection interface for faster mapping.
Did you know …
- … that OsmAPP offers a convenient interface for everyday use of OpenStreetMap, including a basic search engine, various map layers, and POI editing?
- … that flosm has developed several thematic maps derived from OSM data, such as a power grid map and a public transport map?
Other “geo” things
- dgTerritorio, by the Departamento de gestão do território de Portugal, offers the Webfototeca, with aerial images of Portugal, from 1940 to 2000. The images can be obtained ► through an acquisition ► process.
- Google Maps has reached over 2 billion monthly users, with the company integrating its Gemini AI models for enhanced functionality and promising further improvements in 2025, as highlighted in Alphabet’s Q3 2024 earnings report.
- Jacek Krywko, from Ars Technica, reported that a team of researchers have used drone-based Lidar to map mountainous medieval cities along the Silk Road between East Asia and Europe.
- MapScaping is providing a comprehensive, interactive map for US drone operators, highlighting no-fly zones, restricted airspace and customisable layers for airspace data. It includes search and GPS location capabilities, as well as downloadable datasets, but still requires official FAA authorisation for operations in controlled zones.
- OpenCage shared unique geographical trivia for each US state, showcasing Alaska’s unusual position as the northernmost, westernmost, and easternmost state, Alabama’s geological ‘black belt’ and its historical influence on demographics, Arizona’s complex time zone differences within Native American reservations, and other intriguing state-specific facts, culminating in a ‘geoweirdness’ thread.
- The Concord Consortium’s Geological Models for Explorations of Dynamic Earth (GEODE) project has developed ‘Seismic Explorer’, an interactive tool that visualises global earthquake data, tectonic plate boundaries, and patterns of seismic activity over time, designed to support educational exploration of geophysical phenomena. Gigazine has published a comprehensive guide detailing the features of this visualisation tool.
- s3lph has built a laser-engraved plywood map that displays the locations of hackerspaces around Central Europe. The location of each hackerspace and their SpaceAPI opening states ► are represented by red and green LEDs embedded in a 60 x 70 cm plywood map.
- Victor Vikulov, product owner of the short-term scooter rental service Whoosh, talked about how to develop a navigation system for electric scooters, what are the peculiarities, where to acquire the data (you should know the answer), and how to organise the development taking into account the cartographic specifics of the task.
Upcoming Events
| Where | What | Online | When | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moers | Community-Hackday am 1. – 3. November 2024 im JuNo, Moers Repelen  | 2024-11-01 – 2024-11-03 |  | |
| Berlin | OSM Hackweekend Berlin 11/2024 | 2024-11-02 – 2024-11-03 | | |
| Hobart | FOSS4G SotM Oceania 2024 | 2024-11-05 – 2024-11-08 |  | |
| Missing Maps London: (Online) Mapathon [eng] | 2024-11-05 | |||
| Stuttgart | Stuttgarter OpenStreetMap-Treffen | 2024-11-06 | | |
| Potsdam | Radnetz Brandenburg Mapping Abend #10 | ✓ | 2024-11-06 | |
| LCCWG Monthly Meeting | 2024-11-07 | |||
| Dresden | OSM Stammtisch Dresden | 2024-11-07 | | |
| Dresden | Stammtisch Dresden | 2024-11-07 | | |
| Gent | OpenStreetMap + pizza + velopark – meetup | 2024-11-08 |  | |
| Salzburg | Maker Faire Salzburg 2024 | 2024-11-09 |  | |
| København | OSMmapperCPH | 2024-11-10 |  | |
| Zürich | 169. OSM-Stammtisch Zürich | 2024-11-11 |  | |
| 中正區 | OpenStreetMap x Wikidata Taipei #70 | 2024-11-11 |  | |
| San Jose | South Bay Map Night | ✓ | 2024-11-13 |  |
| Vitoria-Gasteiz | XV edición de las Jornadas Ibéricas de Infraestructuras de Datos Espaciales (JIIDE) | 2024-11-13 – 2024-11-15 |  | |
| Salt Lake City | OSM Utah Monthly Map Night | 2024-11-14 | | |
| Lorain County | OpenStreetMap Midwest Meetup | ✓ | 2024-11-14 | |
| München | Münchner OSM-Treffen | 2024-11-13 | | |
| OSM US Pre-Geoweek Mappy Hour | 2024-11-14 | |||
| Bochum | Bochumer OSM Treffen | 2024-11-14 | | |
| Saint-Claude | Conférence Apéro OpenStreetMap | 2024-11-15 |  | |
| Vythiri | State of the Map Kerala 2024 | 2024-11-15 – 2024-11-16 |  | |
| Saint-Claude | Cartographie collaborative pour tous | 2024-11-16 | | |
| Град Зрењанин | Okupljanje u Zrenjaninu | 2024-11-17 |  | |
| Hannover | OSM-Stammtisch Hannover | 2024-11-18 | | |
| Internationale GeoWoche – Online Mapathon von DRK, HeiGIT, MSF Deutschland, Österreich & Schweiz | 2024-11-18 |
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 MatthiasMatthias, Raquel Dezidério Souto, Strubbl, TheSwavu, TrickyFoxy, YoViajo, barefootstache, derFred, mcliquid.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.
The Safe Route application is only “OSM-based” in the sense that you can use OSM as a basemap via the Folium library, but the route planning is actually implemented using the Google Maps API.