Greetings!

I am Sarabjeet Sodhi, an undergraduate student at Manipal University Jaipur, India. Since my childhood, I have been fascinated by maps and loved map-related stuff like scrolling through the satellite imagery on google maps, watching documentaries like “What on Earth?”, and spending hours to find signs of the Sentinelese tribe on the North Sentinel island through satellite images. Mapping for OpenStreetMap feels like a natural upgrade to me.

I like the idea of free and Open-Source software and this summer, I will be contributing to the JOSM editor.

GSoC Project: Support Vespucci preset extensions in JOSM

The default presets which are used by Vespucci are derived from the JOSM’s preset. Vespucci presets however have evolved to support far greater functionalities than those supported by the JOSM. These additional functionalities act as an extension and the project aims to add these extensions to JOSM. These extensions include:-

1. deprecated: makes the preset available only for matching purposes and hides it for new use and searches.
2. regions: stores the list of countries the given preset is applicable for.
3. exclude_regions: if true, inverts the meaning of regions.
4. value_type: states the type of value stored in a key like
   • opening_hours
   • website
   • phone

The detailed list of these extensions can be found here

Adding these extensions to the JOSM will provide a consistent experience for users across the editors.

I will also be working on making the existing Java classes Records, which will help in reducing the boilerplate code, making the code concise, and reducing the static memory footprint of JOSM.

I will be using this diary for posting updates on my project and writing its documentation.

Thank you for reading!

Connect with me on LinkedIn GitHub

I think it’s fair to say that you can rely on me to come up with obscure things to map. This month, it’s urine deflectors. There are part of hostile architecture, built in the 19th century (in Europe) to prevent public wild urination. This is one I came across in Wexford, while I was surveying for benchmarks.

An archaeologist I’m friends with posted about them last October, and I had thought since that that would be something to map, but I hadn’t gotten around to it.

The two in Wexford were the first ones I mapped, and I’ve created wiki pages in English and German. I’m using the hashtag #NotTakingThePiss.

I’ve also made a video about mapping some in Kilkenny.

I was able to track down some on wikicommons using Bing Streetview and Mapillary, so there are a couple in Europe mapped now. They must have been used in Arab countries as well, because I found an Arab word for them on wikidata.

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Prompt: “I have OpenStreetMaps data. I am coding a GUI Program in Python with GTK. I want to create markers and areas on top of openstreetmaps data. What libraries will let me do that?”

Response: “To create markers and areas on top of OpenStreetMap data in a Python GUI program using GTK, you can use the following libraries:

1. PyGObject: This library allows you to use GTK and its associated libraries in Python. It provides bindings for various GTK components, including maps.

2. Gtk.Map: This is a GTK widget that can display maps using different map providers, including OpenStreetMap. You can create an instance of this widget and add it to your GTK application’s window.

3. Gio.Resource: This library allows you to load resources, such as images or data files, into your GTK application. You can use it to load map markers or icons to display on the map.

4. cairo: This is a 2D graphics library that can be used to draw on GTK widgets. You can use cairo to draw areas or polygons on top of the map widget to represent specific regions.

Here’s a basic example to get you started:

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Most hedges have been added to OpenStreetMap as lines. Most renderers show something like this:

and everyone’s happy.

However, from the beginning of OSM, people have mapped some hedges as areas, so for example something like this:

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The Philippines will be greatly affected by Typhoon Mawar in the coming days. It is expected that the typhoon will bring strong winds and heavy rain intensifying the effects of the South West monsoons.

In line with this OpenStreetMap Philippines, has alerted its disaster mapping activation for West Isabela to map out buildings in the area.

Please help us map these areas to identify the location of families for relief and support post-disaster.

Thank you!

TY MAWAR RESPONSE ACTIVATION - PHILIPPINES - WEST ISABELA 2 - BUILDINGS

TY MAWAR RESPONSE ACTIVATION - PHILIPPINES - WEST ISABELA 2 - BUILDINGS

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For some months now, Champs-Libres is working for NMBS/SNCB, the national railway company of Belgium, for reusing OSM data from Belgian stations. NMBS/SNCB has an interest in OSM data for improving some services to travellers, especially regarding accessibility data, and especially for bicycles. Have a look at the wiki page for more insights!

This first diary entry is about the basic data about the Belgian stations, the “stations” themselves and the railway platforms. For reusing OSM data, we need to have a complete and right information about these objects! Next posts will be on mapping the accessibility (steps, footways, elevators, …).

How a railway station is represented in OSM?

There is a long page on the OSM wiki describing how a railway station should be mapped. The French version of the page is even more complete, partly thanks to a long collaboration between OSM and the SNCF.

To summarize, we can say:

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My husband is making me laugh

Oh, Mulberry Grove, Bond County, Illinois A village of only 520 people. I forget how, but me and my colleague Lovelyfurball88, found out about this place. We have been micro-mapping it for a while, and progress has been slow, as micro-mapping goes. Why? why not man, this place had only roads so it deserves something. https://mulberrygroveil.org/ I don’t even live near it, I’m just using the satellite photos.

The simple joys of micro mapping I guess.

Is this a motel 6

A section of the Cotswold Way National Trail on Leckhampton Hill was recently improved to make it suitable for off-road Tramper wheelchairs and mobility scooters.

The path has been widened and resurfaced:

Steps where the path meets Hartley Lane have been replaced with a ramp:

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Don’t Overdo It

Use as few nodes as possible, but as many as necessary. This makes it much easier for later mappers to improve or update things.

Keep Consistent Distance Between Nodes

Makes rendered maps look much nicer :)

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Today was an eventful one, Members of our group (LMT, Nsukka) came together to get it right as we opened the 14788 project on HOTosm titled ENUGU STATE -MAP NIGERIA MAPATHON CAMPAIGN -LET’S MAP NSUKKA LGA FOR SDGS AND SOCIAL GOOD and we commenced to map with iD Editor meanwhile with my little knowledge I also help to direct and answer some of my teammates questions like “how do I put #tags?, why is my task showing error instead of submitting?, How many edits will get me to become an advance mapper?” etc.

I benefited mostly when our trainer Miss Juliet from Lion Mappers Team Enugu Campus expanded my knowledge on mapping with JOSM and even much more when she introduced RapiD which I believe is easier and faster compared to ID Editor.

I am confident that my mapping skills have improved today more than what it was yesterday. I and my Team members have gained greatly today and we are really excited about it.

A big thanks to Unique Mappers Network and their contribution to open-source data sets.

Greetings everyone! Would love to invite you to a series of mapping nights in the following weeks!

I will be hosting the MapRoulette Nights every Sunday 9PM Philippine Time (UTC +8) via Google Meet.

No prizes, no shizz, just plain mapping with people with the same interest. Let’s spin the Mapping Wheel and see where it lands.

To join us, please sign up here. We will send the calendar invite with the GMeet Room link.

I added functionality to tilelog to generate per-country usage information for the OSMF Standard Map Layer. The output of this is a CSV file, generated every day, which contains country code, number of unique IPs that day, tiles per second, and tiles per second that were a cache miss, all for each country code.

With a bit of work, I manipulated the files to give me the usage from the 10 countries with the most usage, for the first four months of 2023.

Perhaps more interesting is looking at the usage for each country by the day of week.

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Background

This Peer to Peer Learning Exchange Workshop Series is aimed at providing a space for knowledge exchange to benefit the newly emerging OSM communities in Dominica and Saint Lucia. OSM community representatives from across the globe joined this 1-hour virtual session. It was extremely interesting to note that there were attendees from several different countries among the 36 persons who were in this April 25th peer to peer learning session. This was the first of six online sessions. The sessions are spearheaded by the Humanitarian OpenStreetmap Team (HOT) Community Working Group.

What is the OSM Community?

The Peer to Peer learning session kicked off with a discussion on “What is an OSM Community?” While some persons defined it in a broader sense, a group of like-minded people, who come together to map and some went into further detail. This included explaining the importance of charging a small membership fee in order to keep the group accessible for persons from all income brackets. One representative also mentioned the importance of having multiple members on the board of directors for continuity and accountability.

What should be the vision and mission of an OSM Community?

The general consensus was that the mission was to be a representative organization for mappers and mapping in their country/region. Further, it is important that clear goals and objectives are developed for example, increasing the number of mappers in the community, improving the quality of data and promoting the use of OSM data for community development

What should be the values to promote as an OSM community?

The dominant theme was that of inclusivity: ensuring that the OSM community was a welcoming and accessible space for all. In documenting the values the common approach is to have an informal policy at first, but written documents can be prepared and shared on the OSM Wiki.

Is there a need to register as an OSM community, either at a country or regional level?

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Why?

Because there is no worldwide quality source for addresses!

Really, that’s no joke. There are many commercial providers for “industrialized countries” of variable quality/pricing but worldwide coverage is lacking, the data formats are diverse and the license terms provider specific.

There are also some open source projects related to addresses though, each with their gochas. Two of these projects are mentioned in the last section “Honorable Mentions” at the end of this article, along with their drawbacks.

This project is born in order to provide quality addresses with worldwide coverage under an open license, by directly extracting addresses from the raw data dumps of OpenStreetMap.

Birth of OpenStreetData.org

How does the it look like? Here is a screenshot, but if you prefer, check out the website directly.

It is divided into two parts: extracts and addresses. Another “points of interest” was planned, but not further developed due to lack of time.

Country dumps

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First, I am human not a AI.

Recently I got a block by SomeoneElse mostly because my changeset comments were not perfect. I understand their meaning, but the DWG could have talked about it, before blocking just for this.

Explanation for my changeset comments:

I am using hashtag comments, like #DEU, #industry, etc. already a long while. Using hashtags leads in a time, where I got introduced in usecases of hashtags at SOTM and I saw tools who evaluates them (like HDYC and other organised mapping (like HOTOSM using hashtags automatically. The people are using hashtags to filter posts in social network platforms like Twitter.

According to chatgpt you can quickly find an simple explanation what #DEU or #LBY means. It is about the code of ISO 3166-1 alpha 2 which is just a indicator for the countries where the changeset was edited.

The other hashtags were just known categories and local or professional abbrevations. Maybe there is a gap of categorizing or filter changesets for a better overview where and what a mapper is editing.

If you have questions, I am happy to answer them.

오픈스트리트맵 기여자들이 텔레그램에서 좀더 재밌게 소통하고 편한 공간이 되기를 바라면서, 텔레그램에서 쓸 수 있는 OSM 딱지[스티커]를 만들었습니다.
스티커 이미지는 고치거나 더 추가할 수 있으므로 알맞은 이미지나 아이디어가 있으신 분은 알려주시면 고려하도록 하겠습니다.

I wanted to make Telegram a more fun and comfortable place for OSM contributors to communicate, so I created OSM stickers for Telegram.
The sticker image can be fixed or added, so if you have a good image or idea, let me know and I’ll take it into consideration.

You can see all the previews of the stickers by going OpenStreetMap(OSM;오픈스트리트맵)
Please let me know if there is any issue with portrait rights in the above images.

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