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08/08/2024-14/08/2024
Latest OSM Edits per Tile [1] | © Pascal Neis | Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
Mapping
- In Austria, it is now permitted for cyclists to continue cycling after a short stop despite a red traffic light as long as the new dedicated traffic sign is present. Thomas Neubauer has already mapped
four of the signs relevant to cyclists in Graz and is asking for help to map the others. - A request for comments has been made for the
service=bus_bayproposal. The tag is for indicating that a way’s purpose is for buses to pull over to pick up or drop off passengers. It’s often located at the side of a road or within a bus station or terminal. Bus bays help manage traffic flow and ensure that buses don’t obstruct other vehicles while they’re loading or unloading passengers.
four of the signs relevant to cyclists in Graz and is asking for help to map the others.Community
- Our editorial team member rtnf has put together some congratulations for the 20th anniversary of OSM on his blog. Our small team certainly didn’t manage to collect all the congratulations. All the best from the weeklyOSM team for the next 20 years and beyond!
- Elliott Plack blogged about the different types of OSM Notes and how the ones that require local knowledge may be of less value, given that most OSM Notes are resolved from the armchair.
- Marcus tooted OpenStreetMap a thank you. They took their family to Kings Island amusement park for the 4th of July and used Organic Maps app to get there, find a hotel and a place to eat with no issues at all. Daniel also noted the extensive attention to detail in the mapping of amusement parks on OpenStreetMap and provided several examples, such as Disneyland, Movie Park Germany, and Europa-Park.
- Martin Hoffmann reported that his project, Railway History Map, has been featured in a Heise article ► commemorating the 20th anniversary of OpenStreetMap.
- OpenStreetMap Việt Nam tooted a request for people to follow their account and boost their posts, promising a lot of interesting content to follow.
- Steve Coast reflected on OpenStreetMap’s 20 year journey, highlighting its growth from a bold idea to a global volunteer-driven project that has mapped the world for free. He recounted his initial doubts about the project’s viability, which faded after seeing unexpectedly detailed maps of Cuba. Coast highlighted the role of people, ideas, and technology in OSM’s success and encourages the community to continue to innovate and create new projects that can change the world.
- Richard Fairhurst reminisced about the early days of OpenStreetMap, pointing out that you could not have started OSM in 2024. The nascent project would be squashed by Google, founder under Reddit/Hacker News users’ expectations of ‘why not good yet’, or flame out in some controversy over privacy or disputed borders.
- [1] OpenStreetMap Utah explained how to use Pascal Neis’ ‘Latest OpenStreetMap Edits per Tile’, which allows users to view recent edits to OpenStreetMap in specific areas, including details such as who made the edits, the types of edits, and how to filter and bookmark specific map views. The application also supports RSS subscriptions for updates on new edits within a selected map view.
OpenStreetMap Foundation
- There is a new draft of the proposed OSM Editor Inclusion Policy. The guidelines will set out the criteria new editors will have to meet to be featured on the OSM website.
Events
- OSM Fukushima group hosted a mapping party in Aizu Wakamatsu city, Fukushima, Japan. The iconic castle of Aizu Wakamatsu was mapped to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of OSM. Ten mappers came from near and far to map the symbol of the city, Tsuruga-jo Castle.
- You can still present your project or cartographic visualisation at State of the Map 2024. The call for posters is open until Sunday 25 August. The deadline for the lightning talks registration is Tuesday 20 August.
Humanitarian OSM
- The New Indian Express reported on OpenStreetMap Kerala’s mapping in response to the 2024 Wayanad landslides. This followed on from their mapping of the Kabini River basin with a special focus on flood-affected and landslide-prone regions, a project kick-started in 2023, which was completed in 2024.
Maps
- Jeff Allen’s quick map of the day was transit isochrones from Downtown Eau Claire, Wisconsin, USA.
- OSM is once again providing the base map for the Night of Culture Programme ►.
- Trailcatalog.org is a site that organises and visualises OpenStreetMap trails, allowing users to search for trails globally and view their distance and elevation. The site also facilitates corrections by linking directly back to OSM for editing.
- Sakanoshita has developed a website called ‘TimeMapTravel’, where users can compare and view the state of the OSM map of Japan from 2010 to 2024. In an article introducing ► the service, he says that people can see how the region has changed and how the OSM data has been enriched.
the base 
►OSM in action
- This map helps answer the question ‘what will my city’s climate feel like in 60 years?’. By selecting your city of interest this OSM-based map will show you what current location has the most similar climate to that forecast for 2080.
- Tobias Jordans noticed that Mapillary/Facebook no longer uses the OpenStreetMap buildings in their OSM-based map, but has switched to the Overture Buildings Dataset. The Overture Buildings dataset generally favours OSM over AI data, but adds AI buildings where they are missing in OSM.
- TrailStash tooted they were so flattered that Overpass Ultra was compared to Stamen’s map=yes, that they were compelled to recreate it.
Open Data
- HOT is working to improve the humanitarian usability of open spatial data through OpenStreetMap as part of H2H’s Anticipatory Action Accelerator.
Software
- OpenStreetMap user barefootstache realised that, as of version 4.8, one can have multiple Quick Action trays in OsmAnd. They have created a set of trays that they use regularly and instructions on how to make one’s own trays.
- A new governance document for the iD Tagging Schema project has established positions for two co-maintainers and outlined their responsibilities, decision-making processes, and roles, ensuring transparent and organised management of the project. The guidelines provide instructions on how contributors should add tags and features to the project, emphasising consistency, clarity, and community involvement in contributions.
- fltb blogged an update on their OpenStreetMap public transport relational editor project. Core development is nearing completion, with the focus shifting to feature refinement. A robust state machine now manages editing actions, providing a foundation for undo/redo functionality. The rendering engine is functional but requires aesthetic improvements. Upcoming tasks include building a user-friendly interface and implementing core public transit editing features.
Releases
- Version 1.2.3 of OSHDB has been released and there is a tutorial, ‘First Steps using the OSHDB-API’, available on GitHub. OSHDB is a high-performance framework for spatio-temporal data analysis of OpenStreetMap’s full-history data, developed by HeiGIT, as part of the ohsome project.
- Martijn van Exel was proud to announce a new version of the Overpass API python wrapper, after a five-year hiatus.
- Vespucci 20.1 has been released on Google Play and f-droid.
Did you know …
- … you can travel back in time to 2007 and listen to Steve Coast’s keynote ‘This Mapping Stuff Could Really Take Off’, given at the first State of the Map? The slides from the talk are also available.
- … that you can use OpenAerialMap as background layer for the OpenStreetMap editor, EveryDoor? This is made possible by the OAM mosaic service provided by KonturIO.
- … the wiki page on the subject of ‘Notes‘? The page also has notes on how to use Notes.
- … the web application called OSM Open?
Hauke Stieler has developed it to visualise open shops based on specific times and dates. This enables you to find, for example, restaurants that will be open tomorrow evening. You can also filter the data by any tag and the source code is available on GitHub. - … of the possibility of using bbbike with ‘World Full History’ to search for deleted POIs? Tobias Jordans discovered it when he was looking for a deleted POI (a beer garden that had reopened 😉 ) to restore it.
- … there is an OSM-based map puzzle ►?
OSM in the media
- On the occasion of 20 years of OSM, Les Numériques reported ► in detail on the ‘Google competitor’.
- OpenStreetMap was founded in August 2004, Google Maps in February 2005, six months later. However most media coverage talks about OSM being founded to ‘take on Google Maps’, a feat only possible with access to a time machine. As both SK53 and Simon Poole point out, the original target was the UK’s Ordnance Survey.
- The Italian edition of Wired dedicated ► an article to the 20 years of OpenStreetMap.
- Kim Rixecker wrote ► an article on t3n titled ‘OpenStreetMap: What you need to know about the free alternative to Google Maps’.
►Other “geo” things
- HeiGIT is looking for a Senior Spatial Data Scientist for Climate Action. The person selected will work on generating spatial climate change readiness indicators or greenhouse gas emission estimates in a very high spatial resolution.
- The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission is offering a job vacancy for the position of GIS Specialist, based in Petten (The Netherlands).
- This week’s #geoweirdness considered the geographic oddities of Switzerland.
- Pastmaps offers an extensive collection of over 185,000 historical maps of the United States, allowing users to explore and analyse historical data with professional-grade tools. The platform offers high-resolution, geo-referenced maps that can be searched by city, state or county, and features such as 3D visualisation and map downloads.
- Vegard J. Løwe has developed ‘World in Dots’, an online tool that allows users to create vector dot maps with customisable options such as dot density, size, colour, and shape. Users can create maps by selecting regions or countries, adjusting the canvas size and then downloading the final map in SVG or PNG format.
Upcoming Events
| Where | What | Online | When | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lorain County | OpenStreetMap Midwest Meetup  | ✓ | 2024-08-15 |  |
| Tanah Sareal | Scout Community OSM Training in Jamboree event, Bogor City | 2024-08-15 |  | |
| Umuarama | [on-line] 🎁 20 anos de OSM #1 – Oficina do IVIDES.org para a UNIPAR (Brasil) | 2024-08-16 |  | |
| OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting | 2024-08-16 | |||
| Sankt Augustin | OSM auf der FrOSCon Sankt Augustin | 2024-08-17 – 2024-08-18 |  | |
| Hannover | OSM auf der Maker Faire Hannover | 2024-08-17 – 2024-08-18 | | |
| Варна | OpenStreetMap in Varna (на морето) | 2024-08-17 |  | |
| Hannover | OSM-Stammtisch Hannover | 2024-08-17 | | |
| Meerut | 1st OSM Meerut Mapping Party | 2024-08-18 |  | |
| Sankt Augustin | Vortrag: 20 Jahre OpenStreetMap | 2024-08-18 | | |
| The Municipal District of Kilkenny City | Citizens Science and Linked Open Data | 2024-08-19 |  | |
| The Municipal District of Kilkenny City | Citizen Science: Kilkenny Heritage sites & Linked Open Data for Ireland’s National Heritage Week 2024 | 2024-08-19 | | |
| England | OSM UK Online Chat | 2024-08-19 |  | |
| Santa Maria | [on-line] 🎁 20 anos de OSM #2 – Oficina do IVIDES.org para a UNIPAMPA (Brasil) | 2024-08-20 | | |
| Missing Maps London: (Online) Mid-Month Mapathon | 2024-08-20 | |||
| Bonn | 179. OSM-Stammtisch Bonn | 2024-08-20 | | |
| San Jose | South Bay Map Night | ✓ | 2024-08-21 | |
| Salt Lake City | OSM Utah Monthly Map Night – Mapillary Capturing! | 2024-08-22 | | |
| Lübeck | 145. OSM-Stammtisch Lübeck und Umgebung | 2024-08-22 | | |
| Rio de Janeiro | [on-line] 🎁 20 anos de OSM #3 – Oficina do IVIDES.org no III GSEA-UFRJ (Brasil) | 2024-08-23 | | |
| Diliman | OpenStreetMap 20th Fun Run + Picnic (OSM Philippines community) | 2024-08-24 |  | |
| Karol Bagh Tehsil | 11th OSM Delhi Mapping Party | 2024-08-25 | | |
| Stadtgebiet Bremen | Bremer Mappertreffen | 2024-08-26 | | |
| Düsseldorf | Düsseldorfer OpenStreetMap-Treffen (online) | 2024-08-28 | | |
| Missing Maps Mapathon Potsdam | 2024-08-28 | |||
| [Online] OpenStreetMap Foundation board of Directors – public videomeeting | 2024-08-29 | |||
| Campos dos Goytacazes | [on-line] 🎁 20 anos de OSM #4 – Oficina do IVIDES.org para a UFF-Campos (Brasil) – Lançamento do YouthMappers UFF Campos! | 2024-08-30 | | |
| Stadtgebiet Bremen | 🗺️🎂 [Bremen] Mobile Mappingparty mit Kuchen | 2024-09-01 – 2024-10-01 | | |
| Rostock | Vortrag: 20 Jahre OpenStreetMap – Ein Blick auf die Community und ihre Arbeit | 2024-09-02 | |
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, SeverinGeo, Strubbl, TheSwavu, barefootstache, derFred, freyfogle, jcr83, matheusgomesms, mcliquid, miurahr, rtnf.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.