What a treat -30.6743046,26.7295793 http://conville-farm.com/

It was a nice day. I think I just added more cameras. I also saw several cats, and a very excited dog who ran over to the fence to jump up and say hi. A nice day, indeed.

I also noticed that one of the house numbers on the north side of E Culver Ave seems to be out of order with the rest. The house numbers go: 537, 543, 555, 605, 569, 577. 605 is between 555 and 569, which doesn’t make sense. 618 is across the street, and starts the even-numbered 600 houses. Was it meant to maybe be 565 and some clerical error happened? Is it even a mistake at all or is this something deliberate? I have no idea, but it definitely threw me. I wonder if they struggle to receive packages.

I have to mapping projects I’m doing here. The first one, the one that has most of my focus is my home community of Fairview, California. The other is Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. For both projects I rely on a variety of tools:

• the Bing visual
• Google maps
• County GIS records

While Google has good data most of the time, I have spotted a couple dozen errors since I’ve started on these projects. When I can easily submit a correction to them, I do. When I can’t, I make sure my work better reflects what the county map tells me.

A few kilometers from the town of Luncavița in Tulcea County, tourists visiting the Măcin Mountains National Park can stop off in Cetățuia hamlet — a paradise for beekeepers who have brought bees to the linden forests (that define this hamlet) and for tourists who want to stay in a quiet place, next to the mountains, as this is the only locality in Tulcea County that resembles a mountain village. However, it didn’t have detailed OpenStreetMap coverage, until now. We have mapped this area in detail and are pleased to announce that the map is complete. You can view the before-and-after images below.

Before detailed mapping

… See full entry

Orange is pleasant to walk around. The houses are unique and interesting, the people are friendly, and sometimes there are dogs outside you can say hi to (and I say hi to every single one). Even in the quieter neighborhoods, it’s still a lively place. At least, during the day.

At night, it’s perfectly quiet and still. Because of this, I like to walk around at night; sometimes to help digest a large meal, sometimes just to think a bit before bed. Despite the solitude, I don’t feel entirely alone, because I’m being watched by a network of doorbell cameras. Some of them are set far enough back that I’m pretty sure they can’t see me. Others are close enough that they come alive and emit a faint glow when I walk by. Can they see in the dark? Does someone get a push notification alerting them to my presence? I’m not breaking the law, but it feels like I am.

I’m interested in privacy rights, and how technology makes it easy to surveil entire groups of people, always without their consent. I believe that people have a right to know when they’re being watched, and by whom, at least as long as recording in public remains legal. To that end, I’m starting to map doorbell cameras.

I did some research beforehand to see what the community thinks of mapping private objects. I’m still new, and I want to make sure I contribute in a way that is welcome and helpful. The Good practice page also reads: “Be brave in what you add…”

I read the Mapping private information wiki page. As far as I can tell, nothing there explicitly prohibits doorbell camera mapping. I believe I can also satisfy verifiability requirements: someone with a reasonably up-to-date prescription could stand on the same sidewalk and verify that these devices exist at a given location.

I also found a forum thread with some lively debate. The arguments I read in favor were convincing. Then, I checked the map, which had 1,121 camera:mount=doorbell tags, some of which go quite far back.

… See full entry

Peta Bencana Banjir Kabupaten Aceh Tamiang

gpx desa terdampak
PDF Ukuran Kertas A-0
Google view

Current wiki guidance for tagging slipways (osm.wiki/Tag:leisure=slipway) is as follows:

A typical mapping might be to make a short highway=service way to the water’s edge and make the final node a leisure=slipway.

The highway=service that is part of the physical slipway is often further refined with a service=slipway. Keep in mind though that this does not replace leisure=slipway, mapped as a node on the end of that way.

Some mappers instead tag the whole way as leisure=slipway without using a highway=* tag, or sometimes in combination with highway=service (here service=slipway can be applied as well as above).

In other words there are two options (the first being implicitly preferred)

Option 1 - tag the node

• way: highway=service + service=slipway
• final node: leisure=slipway

Option 2 - tag the way

• way: leisure=slipway + optional highway=service + service=slipway
• final node: not tagged

The map marks an icon for both nodes and ways tagged with leisure=slipway. It’s therefore likely not advisable to do both. But which one is preferable?

There is some discussion about this on the wiki but no apparent resolution and it appears to refer to previous versions of the guidance: osm.wiki/Talk:Tag:leisure%3Dslipway

Though there is a question raised about wether leisure=slipway should be replaced by highway=service + service=slipway outright, especially given not all slips are for leisure use. But the map only marks an icon for leisure=slipway so this is likely not recommended.

Status quo

I wrote a script to analyse the data from of an area on the south east coast of Scotland.

https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/2hdk

The results:

• 45: option 1 (includes 16 orphaned nodes with no way)
• 62: option 2

So option 2 appears to be preferred, however it results in the map icon being placed at the mid point of the slip.

For ways that are correctly scoped to just the sloped slipway, this is probably ok. Longer ways should be split anyway.

… See full entry

To edit an OpenStreetMap (OSM) diary entry, you must navigate to the specific post while logged into your account.

Steps to Edit Your OSM Diary

• Log in to your account on OpenStreetMap.org.
• Click on your username in the top right corner to go to your user profile.
• Click the “New Diary Entry” link (usually located in the menu tab just below your username).
• Find the specific entry you want to change and click on its title to open the full post.
• Scroll to the bottom of the post text; you will see an “Edit this entry” button.
• Click it to open the editor, make your changes, and hit Save.

Important Notes

… See full entry

I was a bit too sleepy to post last night, but I got coffee and wandered by Long Dog Coffee and Treats, a delightful dachshund-themed café (with treats for both two-legged and four-legged friends) because that POI was not on the map. :)

https://accda.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=2045711bf8a44a109d83d31300e5f5ed

Ashland, Cherryland, Hayward Acres and Fairview all used to have “Hayward” as their city for their addresses. The U.S. post office reverted their names to their historical place names. I am taking care of Fairview (I live here) but if anyone wants to help with the other communities, please jump in.

So as I was mapping some rooftop solar, I noticed that some of the houses were all offset from the Bing image data by the same amount. I’m pretty sure there’s a way to resolve this without turning my GPS on and driving around a bunch, but where’s the fun in that? I also wanted to play around with Go Map!! and get comfortable with uploading traces in general, so I turned on Go Map!!’s GPS and drove around a bunch while listening to a podcast. Seeing the GPS data later on in JOSM was neat! It was also a reminder that GPS has a sampling frequency, and moving in a car, even at 25 miles per hour, spreads those samples out.

I’m guessing this is an imagery offset problem (I think that’s usually more likely to be incorrect), but I want to be sure so the solar panels are correct. I have to dig in some more. I know there are various ways to do it, but I’m entirely too sleepy to figure them out right now, which means it is officially a tomorrow thing. :)

Edit: I got a brief second wind. I learned that there is an imagery offset database, although neither of the two options available helped in this instance. I also noticed that both Bing and ESRI imagery comport, so the buildings are offset by the same amount compared to both images.

I checked the history of one of the buildings, and it was created in 2018 from Bing imagery. I then checked the buildings against ESRI Clarity, and they match much better. Now it’s officially a tomorrow thing. ;)

I started mapping my community last month. Looking at how the map is filling in, I think I’m about 1/4 to a 1/3 done with getting Fairview on the map. I’m focusing on homes, property boundaries, trees, pools and other out buildings.

Tonight I also worked on sidewalks and crossings.

Was a map user with Mapinfo for years at work, and added Google Earth Pro to that skill set. AllTrails uses OSM for their base map. Recommended by Carey Spies.

Enjoying the learning process so far. Have edited the course cart path at the Grizzly. And have added the path/driveway to Dale Spies’ house.

Last weekend I gave a talk about OpenStreetMap and biking at the Madison Bike Advocacy Meetup. This is a monthly meeting of people interested in biking and local bike advocacy. The purpose of the talk was to give a high-level overview of what OpenStreetMap is, how it can be used for biking and bike advocacy, and how you can contribute to OpenStreetMap. About two-thirds of the audience had previously heard about OSM. I think the talk was well received and there were many questions during the Q&A period. And in the days after the event I saw some OSM editing activity from new contributors.

The slides, notes, and resources are available in this Github repository under a CC BY-SA license. Please feel free to reuse it!

All mistakes and omissions are mine.

I’m finding it difficult to pick a particular mapping task to focus on, because even in my corner of Orange, there seems to be so much to do. For example, I’ve noticed that the sidewalk ways sort of peter out a few blocks away from the Circle. I was glancing at some geometry last night, and also noticed that some people have tagged a few backyard swimming pools, but there are plenty of unmapped pools visible on imagery. I spent a little time adding some pools, as well as adding access=private tags the existing ones. It’s nice to have some stuff to do that doesn’t always involve going out somewhere (not that that would be feasible in people’s backyards anyway heh).

Then I noticed solar panels on aerial imagery, and wondered if anyone had tagged them. I know people tag larger power infrastructure, but mapping rooftop solar seems like it would be cool data to have, too, especially in Southern California, where it works particularly well. It’s also easy to do from imagery.

The neighborhood with the pools also has a decent amount of rooftop solar, so I mapped a few of those as well. I realized, though, after uploading a bunch (oops), that some of the panels aren’t necessarily photovoltaic cells; they could be rooftop water heating, especially smaller areas that look particularly black. I plan to go back through and try to verify if they really are rooftop solar. Most probably are, and most of them look distinctive or big enough that I’d be confident in tagging them as rooftop photovoltaic cells, but a few of them could also be rooftop water heating, so I might just remove the photovoltaic-specific tags from them for now. It’s still rooftop solar, but the particular energy use will just be ambiguous. I think that’s better than it being incorrect.

Focus!

I need to pick a few things to focus on and them see them through to completion, I think. I have a bad habit of starting projects and not finishing them. In no particular order, I’d like to map:

… See full entry

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RETEX: Encounters Along My Mapping Walks

(translation by ChatGpt)

to be continued, maybe:

• journal entry (upcoming): Existential Questions About My Encounter with Panoramax
• journal entry (upcoming): Existential Questions About OSM and the Wikimedia World
• journal entry (upcoming): My First Experiences With an RTK Rover and an RTK Base

My urban recycling trek is now complete (at least regarding the attempt to map all voluntary drop-off points in the GPS&O intercommunality). I still need to clear up some fixme tags. This journal entry isn’t about mapping information but simply about a few encounters I had during my walks. They are just brief flashes of emotion, smiles, or frustration.

To understand the atmosphere of these encounters, picture me as:

• 70 years old, usually in shorts (except below 11°C)
• with a backpack (20L)
• always carrying at least one hiking pole in one hand and a camera in the other
• sometimes with a pole sticking out of my backpack holding a GNSS antenna at head height

The Best of the Best: Hunting for AEDs

in a micro-crèche

2025-09-08 in Médan I’m looking for a micro-daycare facility to verify the presence of an AED (Osmose suggestion). I wander a bit around the assumed location at the end of a residential cul-de-sac and eventually identify the daycare. I hesitate to enter the garden and ring the doorbell when an educator opens a ground-floor window, leans out, and asks whether I’m looking for something and if she can help (a polite way of saying “we’re watching, please move along”).

We exchange a couple of rather friendly minutes during which I silently give up on asking whether I may come in to photograph the AED (didn’t seem very wise). Instead, I hand her my phone and ask if she can photograph the AED on their wall (at least we both know she will avoid putting any children in the frame).

… See full entry

It was a lovely day outside today. I added some fire hydrants along East Almond, and also adjusted the crossing at Almond and Center, which I believe must’ve been edited based on out-of-date aerial imagery. The previous nodes and ways specified unmarked, uncontrolled intersections for all but one crossing, which matches the existing Bing imagery. I walk through this area all the time, though, and the city installed more stop signs and painted the remaining three crossings with yellow ladder crosswalks some months back. So, I’ve updated the map to reflect this.

Some of the hydrants along (or just off of) Almond were Clow hydrants, as I’ve seen before, but instead of a more recognizable model number, these all just read “5” underneath “Clow”. A quick search didn’t turn up any “Clow 5” hydrants, although it is, admittedly, hard to Google, and I was outside on my phone when I searched.

That being said, I did another quick search just now on my computer, and I found a PDF that mentions a “Clow #5” hydrant. Mystery solved! I tagged these as “model: 5” at the time, so there’s nothing to do!

Do you know how to map access points to the beach?

   

Check out the tagging scheme that we have developed for mapping access to beaches and other coastal recreational areas

   

Manguinhos Bay, Armação dos Búzios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, viewed in the overpass turbo, filtering tag barrier=gate (red). Mapa data © OpenStreetMap contributors, Nov. 15, 2025.

   

Collaborative mapping of beach access with OpenStreetMap

 

I participated as a Keynote Speaker in the II Beach Access Network (BAN) Research Workshop, held between August 18 and 20, 2025, at Casa da Ciência, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), and showed how to map beach access points with OpenStreetMap. Now you can read the text about the tagging scheme and some details of this mapping.

Download the text

 

… See full entry

New development completed and occupied.

Consists of:
1 - 7 Norman Close, ST. ALBANS, AL1 2DW
1 - 5 King Offa Terrace, Wallingford Walk, ST. ALBANS, AL1 2EL
18A - 18B Abbots Avenue West, ST. ALBANS, AL1 2EJ

While I mapped driveways years ago in my neighborhood, I didn’t include access tags. I saw that later someone added access=private tags, and I thought nothing of it assuming it was the correct tag. So now when I just mapped scores of them in the neighborhood additions, I just now had the thought to look on the wiki for the tag definition.

As said by the wiki, the definition of access=private:

Public access is not allowed. Access is granted with individual permission only. Examples: A driveway with a no trespassing or keep out sign; A company parking lot for employees only. “Individual permission” has been interpreted to also include delivery people making a delivery to a resident or drivers picking up a resident by request.

Most of that makes sense - but in the examples, why would it specify a driveway would need a “No Trespassing” or a “Keep Out” sign? Just wondering if I need to retag some driveways in line with common (or changing) practice, or at least having more confidence in tagging them correctly.