Digital platforms increasingly combine maps, data, and responsive web interfaces to help people access information from different devices.

OpenStreetMap is an interesting example of how an open mapping community can collaboratively create and maintain geographic data. Users can contribute mapping information, discuss changes, and document their mapping activities through user diaries.

From a web-development perspective, mapping platforms demonstrate the importance of responsive interfaces, clear navigation, structured information, and community participation.

My interest in this area is focused on understanding how modern web technologies can present large amounts of information in a simple and accessible way.

Community-driven projects also show how technology can bring contributors together to improve publicly available information.

On August 12th, 2025, I made my first edit to OpenStreetMap. It has now been exactly one year since I began editing. Here are some of the coolest things I’ve done in my relatively small amount of time spent on this hobby:

• 3,095 changesets

• 226486 contributions

• Added a “surface=” tag to every primary road, trunk road, and motorway in Virginia

• Made changes in 64 countries

• Procrastinated mountains of homework

It felt like this year went by so fast. I still remember the moment I discovered OpenStreetMap and how I got instantly addicted.

I hope to be an active contributor for years to come and meet tons of mappy people like me!

I’ve now uploaded to the Internet a little web-based program called GPX Reference Point Generator (GPXRPG).

GPXRPG may be of interest to the subset of OSM Contributors who use the OSM iD Editor for “armchair mapping”.

These Contributors add to the OSM database new Area features - particularly urban building footprints - by tracing the outline of each building on an aerial imagery background layer. Before commencing to trace new building outlines, they need to check that the aerial imagery background they have chosen is aligned to OSM’s coordinate system with sub-metre accuracy (and if not, adjust the alignment using the iD Editor’s Imagery Offset dialog).

Two items are required to provide a basis for the alignment check:

1. a “target spot” in the iD Editor’s Aerial Imagery Background Layer that has accurately known latitude-longitude coordinates. A visible Survey Control Mark with published coordinates would meet this requirement perfectly.

2. a “reference point feature” in the iD Editor’s OSM Data Layer located at the same coordinates.

GPXRPG is a simple tool to create the required “reference point feature”.
It generates and downloads a GPX track file modelling an Arrow with its tip placed exactly at the published position of the target spot. This track file can then easily be dragged-and-dropped to the iD Editor’s map window to provide that vital OSM reference point feature.

GPXRPG includes a User Guide button which opens a document including an illustrated walk-through of an “armchair mapping” session using a Survey Control Mark and a GPX track file.

You can checkout this program and user guide at www.davidhaycraft.id.au/GPXRPG. Careful - this URL is case-sensitive!

For tomorrow’s eclipse I built a small free tool that reconstructs the ground-level view anywhere in the visibility zone, with buildings and forests from OSM extruded over real terrain, and the eclipse computed minute by minute. I posted the technical details on the community forum this week. The tool is at 2026eclipse.eu. Feedback on how your area renders is very welcome, especially where height tagging is sparse.

If you’re that afraid of AI, stop trying to beat AI at its own game.

Get out there and develop the originality that only humans can bring!!!

• URL: osmapp.org
• Full changelogs:
  • github.com/zbycz/osmapp/releases/tag/v1.8.0 (Nov 9, 2025)
  • github.com/zbycz/osmapp/releases/tag/v1.9.0 (Aug 7, 2026)

OsmAPP is the one integrated app for OpenStreetMap ecosystem for both web and mobile. It should be as easy to use as Google Maps, but fully open-source using all the great services around. It was first aimed at broad public, but now it becomes apparent, that it works best for the OpenStreetMap contributors, who want better UX or share OSM around.

The November release didn’t recieve its release notes until now, so we announce both version together. Also, mind that OsmAPP is updated continuously with every commit, versioning is used only for summarizing the changes.

Special thanks to all 6 contributors in both releases (BilbozZ, Dlurak, Fan Yaowen, Gabriele Monaco, Roman Deev, homtec). ❤️

v1.9.0 (Aug 7, 2026)

This release is mainly an announcement of the OpenClimbing fork 🎉

Since 2023 the OpenClimbing project has been developed alongside OsmAPP in one codebase. But recently the needs of both projects have started to differ, so we decided to fork it into a separate repository. The maintainership of the new repo was kindly taken by @jvaclavik.

Feel free to visit and add a star! Also, check out a ton of new features:
🌐 ➡️ https://github.com/jvaclavik/openclimbing  
           https://openclimbing.org/
           LATEST RELEASE: blogpost – OpenClimbing v2.0

To ensure higher reliability, OsmAPP was moved out of Vercel, and is now powered by a hacky-static-export, currently residing at Github Pages.

general

• next.js hacky-static-export by @zbycz in #1450, #1493
• auto deploy VPS on push by @zbycz in #1469

FeaturePanel

• ⏰ Add coloring for opening times to indicate state by @homtec in #1141
• Instant fetching for ways by @zbycz in #1488

SearchBox

• show z/x/y tile boundaries by @zbycz in #1472
• add more overpass hosts + retry if busy by @jvaclavik in #1460

Locales

… See full entry

Imagine opening a map and finding almost everything you need for climbing in one place: areas, crags and routes, grades in your preferred system, topo photos, rock type, sun and shade – together with your own ascents and projects.

That is what we are building with OpenClimbing.

OpenClimbing is an open-source climbing guide built on top of OpenStreetMap and other open data. Instead of creating another closed climbing database, we want the data to stay open, reusable and editable by the whole community.

Today, OpenClimbing already contains almost 40,000 climbing routes, with more than 6,000 routes drawn directly on photos, across over 1,000 climbing areas in 31 countries – and the numbers keep growing as people add and improve data in OpenStreetMap.

Anyone can improve a crag, add a missing route or create a topo – and those improvements become part of an open dataset that can also be used by other applications.

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Hello guys, It’s me, plato59 and I realized that I am 76th place in Edits of the Philippines for August 10, 2026 according to OSMstats

Source: https://osmstats.neis-one.org/?item=countries&country=Philippines

I went to miles farm today. 8/10/2026

No new street developments. Mostly just new houses

A while back a message popped up in my inbox inviting me to compete for a GoPro Max2 360-degree sport camera, courtesy of Meta, which of course now owns Mapillary and thus has a vested interest in supporting crowdsourced collection of street-level imagery. I submitted the application assuming it would come to naught and was pleasantly surprised when a GoPro Max2 appeared on my doorstep on July 15th. What follows is a review of that camera for collecting street-level imagery. Amazon sells this camera for $299. To put that in perspective, I paid about $200 for a RealMe model RMX3241 when we got to Italy for SOTM a couple of years ago and discovered that my wife’s iPhone was not unlocked as advertised, so a local Italian SIM card wouldn’t work.

Description:

The GoPro Max2 features back-to-back fixed-focus-to-infinity fisheye lenses. The built-in processor stitches those images together and stores the combined image as a 360-degree view of everything, not just horizontally but vertically as well. A smartphone app, Quik, can be downloaded to control the camera via a wifi connection (and that is vastly easier than trying to control the camera via the tiny LCD screen). The camera can collect both video and still images, 360-degree JPEGs, which can be displayed by VLC Media Player as well as GoPro’s proprietary Player. GoPro Player, a free download, is a desktop imagery editor that allows you to trim video files and also to edit the point of view of video and still photos.

After charging the batteries I did some initial filming by walking around my back yard and viewing the videos on the camera’s LED screen. That led to basic familiarity; after a short time the controls became relatively intuitive. I downloaded the Quik app to my Android phone, connected the camera and phone, and used it to start and stop the camera, select modes, and generally experimented a bit, then deleted those test videos. The Quik app is not hard to figure out.

… See full entry

from marathon to speedway

I build bike + train loops in France by crossing OpenStreetMap with the official cycling-route reference (RVM / Réseau vélo et marche). Two points I’d value the community’s view on: at which level the identity (ref) of a multi-level superroute should live, and whether the emerging ref:FR:RVM tag (which carries the RVM id and gives an exact OSM↔RVM join key) is worth spreading. Full write-up (FR): https://tisseurdevoies.fr/articles/openstreetmap-veloroutes-retour-experience

Today I finished mapping all the homes in the Stonebrae Country Club, a gated community surrounding a golf course at the top of the loop where Fairview Avenue becomes Hayward Avenue. In 2010 I worked as a NARFU Census taker and had to note down which addresses were inhabitable because they hadn’t been built yet. Now all that land with just paved streets are homes. Many of my children’s friends live there as they attended the elementary school across the street from the outer bounds of the neighborhood.

Next step is to start my way down Hayward Avenue and eventually into the heart of the city.

Looking 4 surrounding Flock action

I have already forgotten how I first came across StreetComplete, but what I do remember is that I immediately fell in love with the concept of the app.

I like wandering around and exploring. When travelling, the things that attract me the most are actually very “normal”. Maybe there is a neighbourhood, maybe a lovely park, maybe a path along the river… I just follow the direction of the road and take a turn at a junction if I feel like it.

I don’t know. I just really don’t like those crowded and buzzing tourist attractions. On the contrary, it is in the nooks and crannies of everyday life that I can feel the vibe of a neighbourhood, a town, or a city.

This convenience store has some good samosas. This small community park offers the best shade during the scorching summer. This path along the canal has ducks and geese to guide your walk…

From these small and seemingly negligible things, I feel a city comes alive.

And that’s why StreetComplete is my best travel companion. It pulls up a bunch of quests for me to explore. The surface of the pavement, the sound signal at a crossing, the bin at a bus stop, the name of a store… It simply guides me to dive deeper into an area, and I can explore while completing the quests along the way.

Gamification is a good way to encourage contributions to OSM, but for me, StreetComplete is far more than just a game. It lets me immerse myself into a city and teaches me how to look at it from a new perspective.

Is You Now We Started Adding A Lot Of New Stuff And Changes To R 8 Side And R 16 Side. R 8 Side Will Be Done At Aug 29th And R 16 Side Will Be Done On Last Day Of Sep.

··· I didn’t start contributing to OSM because of any grand philosophy or ideology. I simply began editing because I needed to. But as I became more involved, I learned more about what I believed OSM stood for—openness, decentralization, freedom to collaborate, and a community built around shared stewardship rather than commercial ownership. At least, that was how I came to understand OSM.

That understanding was what motivated me to continue contributing. I chose to spend my time improving OSM instead of Google Maps or the dominant commercial map used in my country. I even spent time studying OSM’s principles and community practices because I wanted to contribute in a way that respected those values.

If utility had been my only motivation, I probably wouldn’t have contributed to OSM at all. In the region where I live, almost nobody actually uses OSM. From a purely practical perspective, my efforts have very little visible impact. Yet I kept contributing because I believed OSM represented something fundamentally different from commercial mapping platforms. That belief—not efficiency or popularity—was what made my contributions meaningful.

For that reason, I don’t believe corporate participation is inherently a problem. OSM is open to everyone, and companies should absolutely be free to use the data and contribute to improving it.

My concern is not that companies participate. My concern is whether, over time, the priorities of the project could gradually shift toward the interests of organizations that naturally have business objectives and far greater resources than individual volunteers. Simply saying that “companies are part of the community” doesn’t fully address that concern. To me, the more important question is not whether companies belong here, but how the community ensures that the values and priorities shaped by volunteers remain just as influential as corporate interests.

Perhaps this is the source of my confusion.

… See full entry

Mapping

Over the past year, our OpenStreetMap Pakistan community has been actively working to map high-risk flood zones across the country—both areas historically affected by extreme flooding and regions facing critical vulnerability during upcoming monsoon seasons.

Shifting from Reactive Response to Proactive Preparedness

During last year’s monsoon floods, our mapping response began after the disaster had already struck. While those post-disaster edits were vital for ongoing emergency response, we recognised the need to get ahead of the curve.

This year, we shifted our strategy completely: we initiated pre-disaster mapping well before the monsoon season arrived.

By leveraging flood projections and high-risk zone data from the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and prominent emergency monitoring sources, we identified priority regions across Pakistan. We began our efforts by focusing heavily on areas categorised as the highest risk of severe flooding, ensuring that digital infrastructure is in place before rising waters cut off communities.

Community Coordination & HOT Tasking Manager

Together with two fellow community members, I took charge of creating, organizing, and managing dedicated projects on the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) Tasking Manager.

To drive contributions and sustain momentum, we have been organising community mapping parties and mapathons. Local mappers and volunteers across Pakistan came together to trace the following:

*Missing road networks and bridge connections

*Remote village footprints and building clusters

*Key natural landmarks and waterways

These precise layers are already empowering ground rescue teams, military logistics, and international aid agencies to plan evacuation routes, calculate population exposure, and navigate flood-affected corridors.

Global Recognition

Our community’s proactive mapping drive was recently highlighted in a feature article by the UK newspaper Oxford Herald:

… See full entry

This afternoon, I noticed that several of my colleagues were visiting a recently opened school in the far south.

They took several photos, which is quite a rarity on the internet, since not many people actually go there and upload pictures of the newly built buildings.

I wanted to upload those photos, hoping they might be useful for anyone trying to find information about the place.

Then I remembered that OpenStreetMap has this image=* tag.

I could associate an image with the place by adding an image URL there. So I opened Vespucci on my Android phone and added the image URL to the object.

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Now I’m back at my PC, and I wanted to make a simple app (or maybe just a script) to browse every image=* tag that exists in OpenStreetMap.

At first, I thought of doing it the usual way : build a Leaflet web map, query the Overpass API, then display the images in popups.

But then I remembered that the Overpass API has recently been under heavy load.

From what I’ve heard, it’s because of a barrage of AI scrapers… or maybe just a flood of quick-and-dirty, vibe-coded OSM apps being produced en masse.

Whatever the exact reason, it has noticeably affected the service.

Knowing that, I was discouraged from making the situation any worse. So I scrapped that idea.

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Then I remembered something else:

Overpass Ultra.

I don’t know exactly how it works internally, but I assume it uses a different Overpass API endpoint than the ones I would normally query directly.

If that’s the case, perhaps using Ultra wouldn’t add to the current strain on the public Overpass servers.

I also realized that Overpass Ultra’s advanced styling syntax lets me solve the whole problem directly within the query itself, without having to build my own Leaflet-based web app.

So here it is: a quickly put-together Ultra query that displays every OpenStreetMap object containing an image=* tag and shows the referenced image in a simple popup.

… See full entry

I’m on my mobile phone, and l find it the most useful tool. If l must work on OSM from the laptop, l’d have to do it offline. For that, l’d have to download the josm offline map, after locating the coordinates.

05/08/’26 01:18