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19/02/2019-25/02/2019
Qwant launched an alpha version of an OSM based map 1 | © Qwant Maps © OpenMapTiles © OpenStreetMap contributors
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Mapping
- If the inventor of
highway=unclassifiedhad known how many discussions were going to be held about it, he/she would probably have named it differently. Florian Lohoff asked a question about the distinction betweenhighway=unclassifiedandhighway=residentialand has received around 50 responses so far and still with an upward trend. (Nabble) - Stefan Keller presented
(automatic translation) an improvement to his webtool, which converts freely formatted opening hours copied from web pages into the syntax of opening_hours. As previously noted on the Swiss list (automatic translation) he is seeking feedback. - Mapillary features an article about the lesser-known OSM tool, Deriviste. Deriviste, introduced by Richard Fairhurst in October 2018, allows users to create OSM data while looking at Mapillary images. For example, a click on an image is translated into a data point. The comprehensive blog post contains background information and details how Deriviste should be used, including practical examples.
- Yuu Hayashi announced (automatic translation) a new proposal to change the Japanese road types. This proposal includes cutbacks of redundant tags and content improvement that corrects the gap between global standards and Japanese tagging. He asks for community feedback and is thinking about starting the vote on 10 March.
(automatic 
(automatic Community
- OpenStreetMap France announces (automatic translation) on Twitter that a donation campaign has raised 10,081 €. The first use of this funds was to buy extra server RAM.
- On the Talk-GB mailing list Frederik Ramm asks if anyone knows of a non-profit organisation that has moved from the UK to elsewhere (prompted by the “lack of clarity” over Brexit). Simon Poole elaborates some more reasons – including that the UK doesn’t have a form of incorporation that is well suited to a non-profit like OSM.
- The nominations closed on 20 February 2019 for the board election of OSM US and five people will run for five seats.
- The “Mapper of the Month” February 2019 chosen by OpenStreetMap Belgium is Volker Schmidt (OSM voschix). He has contributed to OSM for nearly 9 years and recently has been mainly active in Padova, where he currently lives.
(automatic OpenStreetMap Foundation
- The minutes of the Licence Working Group meeting on 14 February 2019 have been published. Topics included the handling of inquiries from law enforcement agencies and a letter from the Belgian Ministry of Defence.
- “Can you help make OpenStreetMap.org faster in Brazil, or Australia/New Zealand?” asks the Operations Working Group as the demand on OSM services is increasing and for example reaching around 65 Mbps in Brazil.
- The OSMF Membership Working Group (MWG) uncovered the unusual signups in advance of the recent OSMF board elections and concluded that the signup of 100 employees of the Indian subsidiary of GlobalLogic (GL) was an orchestrated and directed campaign and that the applicants did not sign up voluntarily, personally and individually 1. The findings were sent to the OSMF board at the end of December and later shared with the membership by the MWG. In February GlobalLogic offered to withdraw the memberships following an online meeting between OSMF board and GlobalLogic representatives at the end of January. During the regular board meeting on 20 February 2019 the Board decided to accept GL’s offer to withdraw the memberships. The OSMF also made a summary of the events available to the public.
Humanitarian OSM
- HOT has set up four mapping tasks after a 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck the Peru-Ecuador border region.
- HOT is looking for a new logo for its HOT Summit 2019 in Heidelberg, Germany. The deadline for the participation in this contest is 6 March 2019.
- HeiGIT reports on what’s going on with the MapSwipe app, a micro-tasking app for supporting mapping, for example in the humanitarian sector. A next step is, for example, the integration of the results of machine learning based building detection.
- Melanie Eckle, from Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology (HeiGIT), has been invited to present HeiGIT as well as HOT during the Geo4SDGs at the Geospatial World Forum 2019 in Amsterdam. She will provide an overview of current HOT projects.
- The minutes of the HOT board meeting on 7 February 2019 have been released.
- The author Nicole Martinelli, who belongs to the team behind the Resiliency Maps website, published an article about the importance of open data and tools for disaster resilience. One interesting point is that she uses San Francisco as an example.
- HOT announced the availability of an Instagram page, which you can follow to receive the latest updates.
Maps
- [1] Qwant, “The search engine that respects your privacy”, based in Paris, has launched ( automatic translation) “Qwant-Maps“. The service is based on OSM data. Qwant follows OSMF’s copyright guidelines and promotes our project with an additional link to LearnOSM.
switch2OSM
- On his blog Krzysztof Grajek explains the use of prefabricated docker images for setting up one’s own OSM tile server as an alternative to the Google Maps service, which can become expensive if your website has higher traffic volumes.
Open Data
- The winners of the Open Data Day mini-grants, which are provided by the Open Knowledge organisation, have been announced. Some OSM related projects are amongst the winners.
Software
- OsmAnd Online GPS Tracker, not to be confused with well known OsmAnd navigation, has been upgraded to version 0.4. The new version allows its users to share the track between specific times and to send their location with a timer, i.e. it stops sending the current location after a defined time.
Programming
- In a tweet Julien Coupey announced his results of the recent Karlsruhe Hack Weekend, which look interesting even if you are not a Chinese postman.
- The company Komoot, know for its OSM based cycling and hiking app and the geocoder Photon, has an open vacancy as Backend Engineer.
- The German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure is sponsoring the project TARDUR (automatic translation) (Temporal Access Restrictions for Dynamic Ultra-Flexible Routing) of Heidelberg University and GraphHopper GmbH as part of its mFund programme. The project aims to improve the usage of access restrictions with temporal conditions in OSM.
- mmd would like to introduce limits of 5000 tags per object and 32,000 members per relation for the OSM API. In the ensuing discussion, Simon Poole expresses his doubts about the introduction of “arbitrary” limits.
Releases
- Quincy Morgan announced the release of the new version of iD. The highlights of version 2.14.0 are the introduction of live issue flagging and feature validation with the inclusion of recommended fixes, integration of Telenav’s ImproveOSM data detection tools to identify missing roads, as well as various other fixes and improvements. The full changelog can be found here.
- QGIS has reached version 3.6. This version includes new features such as a new decorator for titles, map canvas copyright and title decorations can now be centred on top or bottom, and the requirement to select a feature before you can edit it. There are many more new and improved features that can be read about in the changelog.
- The lightweight desktop GIS software Simple GIS (for Windows) has been upgraded. Version 11 allows you to build custom data forms, adds support for layer selection when converting pdf to Geotiff, can now deal with ArcGrid and File Geodb datasets, and adds many more new features.
Did you know …
- … the possibility of recording the bus lines that serve a bus stop without having to record the complete route? The “route_ref” tag allows you to enter the line numbers at a bus stop and thus helps others to enter the complete route later.
- … the swift LocalFocus-Batch-Geocoder? The geocoder uses open data from OSM, OpenAdresses, and Who’s On First via a copy-and-paste interface.
- … the wiki page listing the maps generated from OSM?
- … Joel Hansen’s quick guide to quickly drawing many buildings with JOSM and the buildings_tools plugin?
Other “geo” things
- Mikel Maron, head of community at Mapbox and an OSMF board member, elaborated on the importance of mapping, open data and crowdsourcing efforts, such as HOT, in responding to natural disasters. Rapidly evolving technologies can help governments, communities, and aid agencies reduce the impact of natural disasters. He points out that on this basis the transport and logistics industry is in a position to support crisis initiatives proactively, promptly and precisely.
Upcoming Events
| Where | What | When | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manila | 【MapaTime!】 Open Data Day Celebration | 2019-03-02 |  |
| Amagasaki | IODD：尼崎港線アーカイブダンジョン | 2019-03-02 |  |
| Taipei | Open Data Day Taiwan 2019 | 2019-03-02 |  |
| Wuppertal | [Wuppertaler Opendata Day] | 2019-03-02-2019-03-03 |  |
| London | Missing Maps London Mapathon | 2019-03-05 |  |
| Stuttgart | Stuttgarter Stammtisch | 2019-03-06 | |
| Praha/Brno/Ostrava | Kvartální pivo | 2019-03-06 |  |
| Dresden | Stammtisch Dresden | 2019-03-07 | |
| Nantes | Réunion mensuelle | 2019-03-07 |  |
| Ivrea | Incontro mensile | 2019-03-09 |  |
| Oslo | OSM-beer | 2019-03-08 |  |
| Rennes | Réunion mensuelle | 2019-03-11 | |
| Zurich | OSM Stammtisch Zurich | 2019-03-11 |  |
| Lyon | Rencontre mensuelle pour tous | 2019-03-12 | |
| Salt Lake City | SLC Mappy Hour | 2019-03-12 |  |
| Arlon | Espace public numérique d’Arlon – Formation Initiation | 2019-03-12 |  |
| Munich | Münchner Stammtisch | 2019-03-13 | |
| Dresden | FOSSGIS 2019 | 2019-03-13-2019-03-16 | |
| Berlin | 129. Berlin-Brandenburg Stammtisch | 2019-03-14 | |
| Kyoto | 京都！街歩き！マッピングパーティ：第6回 善峯寺 | 2019-03-17 | |
| Chemnitz | Chemnitzer Linux-Tage 2019 | 2019-03-16-2019-03-17 | |
| Taipei | OSM x Wikidata #2 | 2019-03-18 | |
| Cologne Bonn Airport | Bonner Stammtisch | 2019-03-19 | |
| Nottingham | East Midlands Pub meetup | 2019-03-19 |  |
| Scotland | Edinburgh | 2019-03-19 | |
| Salt Lake City | SLC Map Night | 2019-03-19 | |
| Lüneburg | Lüneburger Mappertreffen | 2019-03-19 | |
| Toulouse | Rencontre mensuelle | 2019-03-20 | |
| Karlsruhe | Stammtisch | 2019-03-20 | |
| Nagoya | 図書で調べて編集するオープンデータワークショップ | 2019-03-21 | |
| Greater Vancouver area | Metrotown mappy Hour | 2019-03-22 |  |
| Tokyo | ミャンマーに絵本と地図を届けよう～ミャンマーに届ける翻訳絵本作り＆自由な世界地図作り～ | 2019-03-23 | |
| Portmarnock | Erasmus+ EuYoutH_OSM Meeting | 2019-03-25-2019-03-29 |  |
| Montpellier | State of the Map France 2019 | 2019-06-14-2019-06-16 | |
| Angra do Heroísmo | Erasmus+ EuYoutH_OSM Meeting | 2019-06-24-2019-06-29 |  |
| Minneapolis | State of the Map US 2019 | 2019-09-06-2019-09-08 | |
| Edinburgh | FOSS4GUK 2019 | 2019-09-18-2019-09-21 | |
| Heidelberg | Erasmus+ EuYoutH_OSM Meeting | 2019-09-18-2019-09-23 | |
| Heidelberg | HOT Summit 2019 | 2019-09-19-2019-09-20 | |
| Heidelberg | State of the Map 2019 (international conference) | 2019-09-21-2019-09-23 | |
| Grand-Bassam | State of the Map Africa 2019 | 2019-11-22-2019-11-24 |  |
Note: If you like to see your event here, please put it into the calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM. Please check your event in our public calendar preview and correct it, where appropriate.
This weeklyOSM was produced by Nakaner, Polyglot, Rainero, Rogehm, Sheeplieder, SunCobalt, TheSwavu, YoViajo, derFred, jinalfoflia, kartonage, keithonearth.