I’ve begun to add sidewalks in Swissvale Borough.

This is my current methodology (just putting this somewhere so I can reference it later, and adapt to new information/methodology when necessary):

1. add longest section of sidewalk possible (using clearest aerial imagery available, when in doubt, crosscheck with others; using PEMA, Esri, Bing for the most part), tag surface and smoothness where appropriate.
2. add pedestrian crossing across intersecting ways, tag surface and markings.
3. add crossing for intersecting ways (when prompted), tag surface and markings.
4. tag all corners appropriately (curb height, wheelchair access).
5. verify the above using street-level imagery and in-person surveys when possible.
6. change tag for adjacent streets to sidewalk=separate to indicate that the sidewalk is mapped separately.

I’ve lately been doing some small fixes here and there, just trying to tie up some loose ends. This has included some in-person surveys of a few areas, which has raised as many (or more!) questions than it has answered. I still have a long list of other surveys I wish to conduct as my schedule allows. With the weather (generally) getting warmer every week, I feel like these will get more frequent.

I’ve added a few stop signs, but have paused doing that because I’m not entirely sure I was doing it correctly or the preferred way.

I’ve added some bus stops, but have paused doing that in a comprehensive way because I want to figure out how to assign them properly to routes / relations. That’s a whole new dimension of OSM that I don’t have a good grasp of yet, and need to do further research.

I think I’m going to branch out to other areas to work on sidewalks, because adding them is really satisfying. I’ve already gotten feedback from an IRL friend who uses one of the OSM-based apps that they appreciate seeing ‘new’ sidewalks popping up.

I operate StreetFerret, a site that shows runners, walkers, and cyclists which streets they’ve visited in a city or town. StreetFerret works by taking a user’s Strava activity data, and comparing it to OpenStreetMap map data to decide which streets they’ve completed.

For example, this is my StreetFerret map of Warwick, Rhode Island (USA):

OpenStreetMap is an awesome partner for StreetFerret because as the map gets updated, StreetFerret can update its street data too, within about a week. For someone trying to run, walk, or bike every street in their city, they don’t want to get their map to 99%, they want to get it to 100%! So, when they encounter a street that’s wrong in StreetFerret, they are motivated to edit OSM, which makes StreetFerret AND OpenStreetMap better at the same time. StreetFerret users have corrected OSM data countless times in pursuit of 100% completion.

… See full entry

Why are there two airstrips across the street from each other? Rich people being rich, I figured, and moved on mapping Forest Service roads in northwest Montana. While taking a quick break, I googled the names of airstrips — “searight and cimino.” The first result is a 1988 Montana Supreme court case. The case is an appeal related to a much earlier case, in which Murland and Virginia Searight sued Michael Cimino over the construction costs of an airstrip.

One of the things that I really enjoy while mapping is stumbling upon something mildly interesting or unique on the map or imagery and spending a few minutes googling it. This typically leads me to a local news story about the volunteers restoring a remote airport or someone’s blog post about bushwhacking into an abandoned mine marked on a USGS topo map.

… See full entry

After some time away, I am back at validating and helping map buildings in Ireland. The Fingal project is sitting at 30% complete (mapped + validated).

The Map Paint Styles by Jonny really help with the validation process.

Mapping on OpenStreetMap allows many things, like 3D mapping.
Having played Cities: Skylines, I was always intrigued by this game, and the idea emerged: “It would be nice if for Pyongyang I could come up with something nice like Cities: Skylines”.

Well, the reality is that it’s a lot of work (and yes, as always!) and OSM wasn’t designed for 3D… but there are ways of getting close and having a lot of fun! So I explored this topic on the city that interests me, and you guessed it: it’s Pyongyang, see it on DemoF4map !

Today, I estimate that there’s a third of the city “in 3D”, as well as a good proportion of the monuments.

… See full entry

I decided to end my 2,687-day non-stop editing streak today (1^st March 2024), because my mental and physical health has declined to a point where I need to rest more.

A changeset or more per day from Day 1 may have been a good challenge back in October 2016, but maintaining a high-stakes daily editing streak has become too much for me to handle.

I don’t know how long this break will last: it depends on what I need to catch up on other things.

The first paragraph was corrected from 2,686 days to 2,687 days, to reflect the final tally on the How did you contribute to OpenStreetMap? service by Pascal Neis.

I’ve put up a demo page showing my work on minutely updated vector tiles. This demo is using my work for the tiles and the Versatiles Colorful stylesheet.

With this year being the year of OpenStreetMap vector maps I’ve been working on making vector tile maps that update minutely. Most maps don’t need minutely updates and are fine with daily or, at most, weekly. Minutely updates on OpenStreetMap.org are a crucial part of the feedback cycle where mappers can see their edits right away and get inspired to map more often. Typically a mapper can make an edit and see their edit when reloading after 90-180 seconds, compared to the days or weeks of most OSM-based services, or the months or years of proprietary data sources.

Updating maps once a week can be done with a simple architecture that takes the OSM file for the planet and turns it into a single file containing all the tiles for the world. This can scale to daily updates, but not much faster. To do minutely updates we need to generate tiles one-by-one, since they change one-by-one. When combined with the caching requirements for osm.org, this is something no existing software solved.

For some time I’ve been working on Tilekiln, a small piece of software which leverages the existing vector tile generation of PostGIS, the standard geospatial database. Tilekiln is written specifically to meet the unique requirements of a default layer on osm.org. Recently, I’ve been working for the OSMF at setting up minutely updated vector tiles using the Shortbread schema. A schema is a set of definitions for what goes in the vector tiles, and Shortbread is a CC0 licensed schema that anyone can use and there are existing styles for.

… See full entry

I have tentatively completed the sidewalks in Ben Avon, as well as pedestrian crossings, and some fire hydrants. I have added surface materials to most, if not all of the sidewalks and ped crossings. Some of the pedestrian crossings may have had their lines repainted more recently than the available street-level imagery I have access to, so I will update them as necessary.

For now, I’ve held off tagging sidewalks and pedestrian crossings with smoothness and slope data, partly because of the difficulty of adding that manually, but also because I’m not quite sure how useful this data is given that few renderers seem to use this data. Even Wheelmap.org seems to only pull the data on individual buildings/businesses, rather than the condition of the pathways that lead between them. So unless I come across a compelling reason to go back and add this data, this aspect is on pause for me.

One of my next goals was to be adding private driveways and walkways to connect with sidewalks and streets, but I am second-guessing this now. While many are easily visible from a combination of aerial and street-level photography, there are also quite a few that are difficult to see under heavy tree cover.

I am going to investigate how to properly map stop signs and other traffic control devices, and perhaps add speed limits to roadways as I am able.

I also ran into some trouble when adding a bridge area and modifying another bridge area, along with the associated ways that pass over and under it… so I probably need to brush up on how best to modify those for future use.

There are also a couple of areas that probably should be modified to be more in line with existing conditions. For example, there are a few blocks east of Dickson Avenue, between Perrysville and Church that are not included in the adjacent Residential Area when they really should be.

… See full entry

INDRZ is available at the WU https://campus.wu.ac.at Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien Welthandelsplatz 1, AD 1020 Wien

INDRZ indoor maps at the Technical University of Vienna (https://tuwien.ac.at/maps)

I’ve made a start at mapping the shops in Glastonbury - the result of which is that Glasto now has three quarters of all the places tagged with shop=esoteric in the UK.

Some of these could be shop=herbalist or shop=jewellery; others may be better tagged as shop=gift (although that implies most purchases are for other people, which I’m not sure is the case here). There are some that offer alternative medicine or services such as tarot readings. But many of them offer such a mix of items and services that “esoteric” seems the only proper description.

Pavement Lights

I’ve been meaning to tag the pavement lights in and around Dublin for a little while now but just never got around to doing it. While walking (briefly) in town to catch the Dart, I added notes for a couple that I noticed. In hindsight, I should have tagged them while I was there, as a couple are tricky to find due to the shadow of the building.

Having said that, I managed to get a couple in the city centre as well as one in Blackrock Village. Big thanks to b-unicycling for the video that details how to tag them!

Overpass Turbo: Pavement Lights in Ireland

Milestone Markers

I came across a TikTok video which mentioned the old GPO milestone markers. They were used to help the postal service and the community figure out how far away they were from the city centre and the General Post Office.

b-unicycling helped map a lot of them down Malahide Road and towards Howth. There was one in Blackrock (Rock Road) that had been tagged a few years back but was missing the historic=milestone tag, which I added today. I will continue to look out for these as I’m walking around - I actually saw one in person that I had gone past a bunch and not stopped to think what it was.

Overpass Turbo: GPO Milestone Markers

I recently got this comment on my Proposal on Forum. https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/rfc-feature-proposal-deprecating-demolished-railway-tags-cancelled-proposal/109757/2

This undoubtedly hurt my feelings. Since, well, I have been trying to make OSM better in tagging.

As a result, ‘'’I have paused proposal-making for this moment.’’’ Don’t know if this is temporary or permanent, but I have to. Users have undoubtedly hurt how me, as a mapper and pretty much a proposer of lots of proposals, try to improve OSM tagging.

Sorry, if user reads this, it hurt your feelings. I just need to make sure everyone knows.

OpenDataDay Belém/PA - Brazil 2024 – Mapping the historic neighborhood of Cidade Velha.

OpenDataDay Belém/PA - Brasil 2024 – Mapeando o bairro histórico de Cidade Velha. Belém, Pará, Brazil Cidade Velha, Belém-Pará,Brasil

6th March 8:00 – 18:00 Iremos mapear o Bairro Cidade Velha no OpenDataDay em 6 de Março de 2024.

Sua história. Cidade Velha (região originalmente chamada de Mairi),inicialmente batizado como bairro Cidade ou bairro da Sé, é um bairro histórico da cidade paraense de Belém do Pará (estado brasileiro do Pará) iniciado na década de 1620.

Link da Mapatona na Task Manage da HOT: https://tasks.hotosm.org/projects/16218

Bairro Mapeado no Openstreetmap osm.org/relation/5130875

Esse mapeamento ira acontecer presencialmente com o Grupo de Pesquisa Meninas da GEO e Mapeadores de todo o mundo on-line, será um evento Hibrido.

Openstreetmap #ODD #Belém #Brasil #MeninasDaGeo #OSMBrasil

OpenStreetMap Rwanda Monthly Mapathon 2024 Updates.

24th Feb 2024.

… See full entry

I got kind of sidetracked the past couple of days on two separate updates, one of which is in-progress (albeit a low priority for me), and the other I haven’t even started to unravel.

1. I studied the wiki to find the proper tagging method to indicate that the lower portion of Forest Avenue (btwn Brighton and Western, underneath PA-65) is off-limits to large trucks. While out walking around, I noticed a very new, very visible sign that forbids semis, so it’s quite possible that they’ve recently had issues with large trucks exiting PA-65 to attempt deliveries at the industrial area near the Emsworth Locks and Dam, or re-entering 65 farther down the road. While it seems that several other roads in Ben Avon are clearly marked as “no trucks, local deliveries only” (and I have tagged those roads as best as I could for now), this particular tunnel seems to be particularly off-limits. I plan to survey some other entry points into Ben Avon to verify signage and weight limits, and will update as I get better on-the-ground information.

2. I’ve noticed a whole tangled web of issues in the area of Spruce Run near the old Building Mill. Hiking trails cross streams, streams cross roads, streams cross buildings… it is difficult to make complete sense of things. For now I haven’t attempted any clean up in this area, but will do so after I survey the area in person. I am hoping to complete this without too much trespassing, and before the leaves obstruct line-of-sight from publicly-accessible vantage points.

Additionally, until now I have concerned myself with issues that arise from my own edits, but moving forward I will attempt to resolve other lingering issues that appear on the map in the Ben Avon vicinity while I am out-and-about.

One of my resolutions this year was to get my OSM tasks in order. In the few moments of free time I made a list of all (well, not all, just the most realistic) ideas for projects in various stages of design and implementation. I will update the progress on a regular basis.

Notion OSM Project Webside

Today, I got an email from my local conservation officer at the county council (whom I had briefly worked for in 2022, so he knows about my OSM activity) asking me whether there were any lime kilns mapped in County Kilkenny, because the government database didn’t have much to offer. And of course, there are some mapped; I made a video about it in 2021. So I sent him the overpass-turbo query.

I checked the government database which showed 4 lime kilns for that area; OSM had 20 (but I actually added another one that I had previously forgotten about).

When I was home and had access to a proper PC, I also built him a search for field names referring to lime kilns which can be “Kill Field” and “Kiln Field”, because that might hint at some more lime kilns.

Nice to know that all the effort of the last couple of years are paying off (if only metaphorically).

Due to editors that have recently reverted accurate changes and worked against these accurate changes, I will be leaving OSM in search of a better, more friendly mapping service.