Welcome to the thirteenth OpenStreetMap NextGen development diary.

🔖 You can read other development diaries here:
osm.org/user/NorthCrab/diary/

⭐ This project is open-source — join us today!
https://github.com/Zaczero/openstreetmap-ng

🛈 This initiative is not affiliated with the OpenStreetMap Foundation.

In case you missed it…

Last week, we showcased Search 2.0: a comprehensive overhaul of the search functionality. For the first time, OSM search is now simple and intuitive to use. It’s a must-see (there’s a video too)!

Default Editor Switching

This week, OpenStreetMap-NG introduced a convenient way to change your default editor. By exposing this functionality, previously hidden in settings, we prevent editor lock-in and allow users to easily experiment with other editors. A small icon now indicates which editor is currently set as default.

Faster and Slimmer GPX Traces

We completed a major overhaul of the GPX trace database design. Here are the results:

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Hi! This is Faiza Waziha. One of the Gurus of the Open Mapping Guru Fellowship. This journey started when I was selected to be a part of this incredible journey in 2023.

First of all, I want to mention the vibes this community gives. It is very welcoming, energetic and inspiring. I love the enthusiasm so much!! This is one of the reasons I get to learn so much from them and to communicate with them without worries.

There were 3 tracks in the fellowship (Training, Mapping, and Validation). I was part of the Mapping track. After getting the briefing about what we will be doing for the next 5 months, I was pumped up for the challenges. We got to map various countries; India, Bangladesh and also some Island countries like Tonga, Vanuatu, and Micronesia. Which were very interesting and got learned many geological characteristics of those areas.

From this fellowship, I have learned to use Josm (It is the most efficient thing a mapper can have to map anything and I love it!!), Mappilary and Everydoor. Also the use of Josm in validation, how to use the open data source for data analysis in QGIS. These skills will help me in building my career as a GIS analyst.

This fellowship allowed me to connect and communicate with many talented individuals like Brazil Singh Rittik Vai, Khan Mohammed Ibtehal Vai, Can Unen and many more. It was also a great experience to be a part of Slum area mapping in Mirpur in collaboration with World Vision Bangladesh. I get to lead an amazing team- Sozin’s Comet in the Climate Change Challenge 2024. Though we didn’t win any prizes it has helped me a lot in how to manage a team, how to stay motivated and keep others motivated. I learned that communication is the key to leadership. I have grown as a mapper and also a better human being.

Lastly, I want to thank Mikko Tamura, and Honey Fombuena for their immense support and for pushing us to reach our goals. Thank you so much!!

Sometimes I think I’m a bottom feeder going through the map and cleaning up the obvious errors and this comes from my observations over time and cleaning up thousands of duplicate buildings.

Because many countries do not have good census data you can do a rough calculation by multiplying the number of houses by an average number of people who live in them. It isn’t perfect but if you have nothing better then it works.

So duplicate buildings are a problem. When you’re looking to see how many schools you need duplicate buildings mess the numbers up. Buildings incorrectly tagged or not tagged at all also mess the numbers up.

Then we get to the imagery used. These days I’m seeing more and more microsoft BuildingFootprints tags on buildings. They are normally very accurate and align well with Bing imagery. The largest most accurate satellites are only accurate to 60 meters so the imagery has to be aligned. My recommendation would be to use Bing imagery and find a building that aligns with it. Then switch to your preferred imagery and align it with the Bing aligned one.

This helps ensure that buildings are only mapped once and when you add buildings you don’t add an existing building and if someone imports using microsoft BuildingFootprints then your building won’t be remapped 10 meters away in the future.

Disposable mappers are often used meaning many will only may a few times. So we don’t really have time to train them.

We want to get the most accurate mapping we can from them and as many buildings as we can. With JOSM buildings_tool plugin I can highlight one building then add more by clicking and holding down the button, moving to the opposite corner of the building and releasing the mouse button. If they aren’t in line it takes another mouse button click. You get a rectangular building correctly labelled. This is far less than using iD. Plus you don’t need a validator to inspect each one to see if it is correct.

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Well, the fellowship was the first of its kind for me. The whole time, the commitment led me to learn and know the vast features and tools of OpenStreetMap. The fact that overwhelmed me most that how the organization has managed and engaged numerous volunteers and improved its tools over time. Training and resources were efficient and convenient in a structure that proved instrumental for me in completing the tasks. The biggest delight is seeing my edits come into visualization within moments which truly instills a feeling that I am making an impact by mapping. Throughout the whole time, I have been able to discover a little of it and may also have made slight and/or big mistakes during edits or validation, ahead of this, I want to explore this platform more and be an instrumental mapper.

Day 25 and 1/4 of the challenge done!

Today I mapped Kosovë and I found out that we have not one but two villages name Kosovë in Albania.

Kosovë has a population of 931 according to 2011 population census.

“#100villagesin100days #day25”

The Importance of Community Mapping

Over the past two decades, in particular, mapping has become open access, since map data is increasingly used to support society facing crisis. As this goal gained momentum, a community-driven mapping interface emerged in 2003. Open Street Maps pioneered the way for easy updating and access to map data at your fingertips.

It was a marvel back then, and these mapping tools paved the way for Crowdsourced Mapping after the catastrophe in Haiti in 2010. However, there is still a large human resource deficit that can only be satisfied if we make OSM knowledge prominent throughout institutions and schools alike, as was cultivated in the OSM Guru Program during in-person training at JNTU, Hyderabad.

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From a casual interest in maps to fully diving into the depths of community mapping and data validation, that is how I can describe my OpenStreetMap journey up to this point.

Programs conducted by the YouthMappers Network, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, and the Open Mapping Hub Asia Pacific taught me everything I know in the field of open mapping. These programs continuously introduced me to the wonders of the geospatial field, from the creation of maps to real-world applications of open spatial data; and they consistently piqued my interest, driving me to learn even more. When the opportunity came to be one of OMHAP’s Open Mapping Gurus, I was ecstatic. It was a chance to learn from the best and most experienced people in the field and an opportunity to help the community—the core value of being an open mapper.

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Me, MySelf and OM Guru Fellowship

Hello Fellas! Greetings from Indonesian Mapper.

Okay, I believe this is my first diary entry as I start contributing to OpenStreetMap. I’m not sure how many people will be interested in reading my diary, but I’ll share my story here.

“Above the sky, there is still sky” - it’s a quote we’ve probably heard before. OpenStreetMap is made up of many contributors from around the world, all of whom are great mappers and work diligently for the world. I realize that the knowledge I have now must have been possessed by several people before me. Because of this, I feel that with OpenStreetMap, I can learn and collaborate with other mappers.

Just a quick flashback to 2019 when I made my first contribution to OpenStreetMap. At that time, I was still unsure of what OpenStreetMap was. I thought it was just a mapping tool and had no idea about the many surprises it held.

As a geography student, mapping is my passion, and I enjoy contributing to OpenStreetMap. To my surprise, I became the best mapper in a competition held by OpenStreetMap Indonesia. In 2021, I was the only Indonesian participant in the HOTOSM internship. The following year, I was hired at OpenStreetMap Indonesia (POI), and now I am part of the OM Guru Fellowship program. The Om Guru gives us tasks to work on each month, I am responsible as a validator, where the tasks given to me are things related to validation. I carry out validation using quite a lot of media such as OSMCha or OSM Inspector, of course, this adds to my knowledge and skills.

“For me, by consistently practicing and loving what we do, we will invite miracles into our lives”.

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Munich Trudering shines – München Trudering leuchtet

Fascinated by the conceptual work and the impressive renderings of the “MASTERPLAN BELEUCHTUNGSKONZEPT FREIHAM NORD” <1> I was wondering if one would be able to “re-engineer” the existing reality of a city or a city district by means and capabilities of Open Street Map in order to finally achieve a rendering similar to <2>.

First steps

OK, I thought, let me try to find out. I started to walk through the streets of my neighbourhood identifying and positioning street lamps with the tool EVERY DOOR. As always the devil is hidden in the detail. How to determine height? Typically in the early evenings (I order to see the laser dot), I started to measure the distance from street level to lamp body with an of the shelf laser instrument (BOSCH Zamo 3). This worked quite well in not so busy streets however I did not had the guts so far to do a measurement in one of the main streets with constant traffic especially when the lamp poles are located at the center of a 4 lane street. I need to find an alternative solution for those cases. Height is one of the most important parameters for illumination.

I was made aware by a very helpful OSM member <3> that there is a moving map renderer <4> to display exactly the kind of rendering I was looking for. It turned out that this tool is becoming my most important tool for quality control. Gaps and irregularities in “lighting” and referencing are very easy to identify.

“Picture 1”: Current progress for Munich Trudering.

Next steps

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Took me two days to finish Zdojan because yesterday had almost no time at all to map.

Zdojan is a village in Diber with a population of around, 1477 (as per 2011 population census).

“#100villagesin100days #day24”

Just getting started with OSM tonight. Ive been a lover of maps and geography since as far back as I can remember. My interest in globes and maps lead me to travel to many places and put experiences with long standing “points on paper”. What has brought me to learn about openstreetmaps is an interest (an obsession rather) in helping to connect a growing global community of freedom fighters who believe money should not be controlled by an oligarchy, but remain open source.

For all the merchants who see the infrastructure of money as public domain and recognize how imperative it is to ensure everyone has access to permissionless, uncensorable transactions, I solute you and will be working on helping the growing but still niche community know where they can shop with other like minded people.

There are several mapping organizations on this same beat, and I believe the decentralization and variety of options to map these merchant datapoints, highlighting and emphasizing certain relevant offerings within the broader community will be net beneficial to all, as well as keep standards competitive and delivery of info evolving.

Looking forward to to using this platform!

Hello Friends, I am Tilok I am from Assam, India. I would like to share my OM Guru fellowship experience.

For the past five months, I’ve been on an incredible journey as an OM Guru, Asia Pacific Hub Mapping Fellow. It involved exploring the digital landscapes of Micronesia, Vanuatu, Philippines, Tonga, India, Pakistan and many more through different humanatarian projects.

My mission? To map these regions using IDEditor and JOSM. I felt like a digital explorer, uncovering and mapping unmapped roads, buildings, and landmarks.

Enter Everydoor, a game-changer for adding Points of Interest (POIs). This mobile app turned POI hunting into a real-life treasure hunt! I must’ve added over 100 POIs around my own neighborhood, making the map a more accurate reflection of the cool places around me.

But the real thrill came with Mapillary. This app lets us collect POIs on the go! Imagine cruising down the highways and streets, phone mounted on the dashboard, capturing street views that were previously missing. It’s like creating a digital time capsule of the places I visit. Back home on Wi-Fi, I’d use Rapid Editor to review the photos and add those missing POIs. It’s incredibly satisfying to see those blank stretches on the map suddenly come alive with street view data!

And let’s not forget validation – the quality check of the mapping world. Coming into the fellowship, I had dabbled in validation, but these past months filled me with confidence. Now, I can ensure the accuracy of other mappers’ work, making the entire map even more reliable.

Speaking of making a difference, checking out https://yosmhm.neis-one.org/ and seeing my “mapping footprints” is truly inspiring. It’s a visual representation of my contribution to this massive, collaborative project.

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Today, I want to look back on my time with OpenStreetMap (OSM) and how the OSM Guru Fellowship has helped me grow.

I started contributing to OSM in 2019. Since then, I’ve made over 2000 changesets. Each one has helped make the map a bit better and more accurate.

Working with Jungle Bus and GeoMinds has been great. These projects showed me how important good maps are, especially in places that need them most. I’m proud to have been a part of their work.

One of my biggest projects was mapping public transportation in Kochi. We added 24,000 kilometers of routes to OSM. It was a huge task, but knowing it helps people get around the city makes it all worth it.

The OSM Guru Fellowship has been amazing. It taught me a lot about OSM and its concepts, giving me the skills I needed to be a better mapper. I learned that knowledge is power, but community is even more powerful.

The OSM community is something I love being part of. It’s inspiring to see people from all over the world work together to map the world. The fellowship connected me with others who are just as passionate about mapping as I am.

Looking back, I’m thankful for everything I’ve learned and the people I’ve met. The OSM Guru Fellowship has been a big part of my journey, and I’m excited for what comes next. Here’s to more mapping and a stronger community!

Kinnakorai is a beautiful village about 50 km from Ooty town. The beauty lies in the journey to the village itself. Kinnakorai is similar to any other remote mountain village in India, but the villagers looked at us like we came from Krypton on a UFO. I can’t blame them at all because we were in full gear with 25 people on different motorcycles.

By the way, the day I realized that the road to the village was incorrect, I had the complete GPX trace along the route. So, I planned to fix the roads, and here we are. I edited the roads with my GPX traces and pushed the updates to OSM. Now anyone can rely on those maps. :)

Today I mapped a village named Vesqi located in Baldushk, close to the capital.

I did not know there was a reservoir in Baldushk so another one to visit added to my list.

“#100villagesin100days #day23”

Today I mapped the tiny village of Kaftall.

Kaftall does not have many houses, but they are spread all around the hill in quite a big area.

I also moved around a little and mapped some building on the surrounding areas.

“#100villagesin100days #day22”

In new version of userscript, I focused on analyzing edits. QuickLook for changesets, hotkeys, filtering changesets, mass actions and more.

Help wanted: I would be grateful if someone knows how to get into the site code and manage the map (add new objects, change layers, colors …) This would make it much easier for new features to appear. Otherwise, they will only be available in OSM-NG (: upd: solution found!

👮‍♂️ QuickLook of changes in tags

Now you don’t need to open OSMCha for simple changesets. Tag changes will be visible directly on the changeset page.

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I started my journey as an OSM contributor in August 2018. My knowledge was initially limited to the iD editor and HOT tasking manager platform, with minimal community mapathon contributions within Nigeria. Consequently, my contributions to OSM were very low and inconsistent.

In November 2023, while seeking more opportunities to volunteer and contribute to the growing OpenStreetMap community, I discovered the OM Guru fellowship organized by the Open Mapping Hub Asia-Pacific. I applied as a Mapper, which complemented my background as a Remote Sensing and GIS student.

During my six-month tenure in the fellowship, I was exposed to various aspects of mapping, from building data capturing using JOSM, to Amenities/POI mapping with Every Door, and street-level imagery capturing using Mapillary, focusing on Disaster, Humanitarian, and Climate action. Additionally, I learned and developed my skills in JOSM validation and field mapping. The weekly training sessions and webinars exposed me to more applications of GIS and Remote Sensing in open spatial data science, thus enhancing my geospatial expertise.

One significant highlight of the fellowship was the Climate Change Challenge, where OM Guru-led groups competed in 8 climate challenges. I led a team of OSM contributors, which provided me with valuable leadership and teamwork experience. I was exposed to more applications and tools within the OSM ecosystem, such as Mapswipe, Maproullete, and mapping with RapidID. I contributed to mapping high priority, disaster prone and impacted areas in Asia-pacific countries.

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I can’t save the changes. It shows error instead

Travelling to Thessaloniki today and got a 10-hour bumpy bus drive ahead.

Mapping while travelling by bus is definitely a huge challenge, but I think I managed to map Hajdaraj.

I think the village includes another area close to it, but somehow it is separated in a different residential area. Ill double check to make sure I got it all.

“#100villagesin100days #day21”