On April 3, 2024, an earthquake happened outside the coast of Hualien, which caused serious roadblocks and human casualties. OpenStreetMap Taiwan has opened 3 projects for mapping affected areas, requesting worldwide mappers to map buildings, landuses, missing roads or waterways in Hualien.

• Central Cross-island Highway eastern section: https://tasks.hotosm.org/projects/16508
• Suhua Highway: https://tasks.hotosm.org/projects/16507/
• Hua-Dong Valley northern part, Sincheng, Siulin, Hualien, Ji’an, Shoufong: https://tasks.hotosm.org/projects/16505

We are talking if there is a possibility to donate the newest satellite image after the earthquake to map the after-earthquake situations. And the possibility of hosting mapping events on-site after the affected area returns to normal, helping locals by mapping the newest map data.

That’s the name of the workshops I facilitated last week, with the goal of introducing/promoting OpenStreetMap, along with introducing tools like FieldPaper, OpenAerialMap, Sketch-Map Tool and Umap, to meet the objectives of local DRR practitioners’ upcoming mapping initiative.

Last Friday I had conducted two workshop in Iloilo, one (unplanned) for Iloilo’s Provincial DRRMO (disaster agency), and another for Iloilo City own DRRMO. In the Philippines, city charters may provide them autonomy from the geographic province they’re part of. These Disaster Risk Reduction Management Offices (a tongue-full, I know) are the government agencies responsible for mitigating localized disaster risks, and planning for disaster prevention for their respective territories.

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While commercial map providers like Google, provide map data in local Indian languages, the local language labels are usually transliterated from English, resulting in errors. OSM, Wikidata and Wikipedia platforms provide a way to improve the local language maps leveraging multilingual labels through Wikidata identifiers on OSM, through semi automated updates. For good quality maps on Wikipedia and OSM, the Wikidata location needs to be accurate and Wikidata identifier should be uniquely mapped to the actual OSM geometry. I worked on removing the mismatches for villages of a district in Andhra Pradesh. I have documented my experience as clearly as possible, so that even users with less programming and tools skills can contribute to the work. As an example, identifying and fixing errors in Wikidata location is given below.

Identifying and fixing error in locations on Wikidata pages

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As we announced in a previous post, we continue to inform the OpenStreetMap LATAM community about the SOTM LATAM 2024 committees, and now we present the Programming Committee.

The main functions of this committee are:

• Propose the activity program during the days of the SOTM
• Design protocol activities
• Design the event Tracks
• Design parallel activities
• Design recreation activities
• Coordinate with the speakers what is necessary for their participations
• Evaluate the carrying out of recognition of mappers in the region

The committee members are:

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Well did that alone

As we announced in the previous post, we continue to inform the OpenStreetMap LATAM community about the SOTM LATAM 2024 committees, and now we present the Academic Program Committee.

The main functions of this committee are:

• Evaluate the presentation proposals received
• Evaluate scholarship applications received
• Management of travel and accommodation scholarships

As additional information for those interested in presenting a talk or presentation, the topics may be (but are not limited to):

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So I thought surveys meant that I go out and ask people… conduct a survey, but apparently it means that you have been there personally to check it… so… that means I didn’t tag any of my entries where it would apply with this… lol

Welcome to my fourth OpenStreetMap NextGen development diary.
Sorry for being a day late! I wanted to finish up one of the new features which caused this small delay. ✨

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

🐙 My work is available publicly on this GitHub repository:
https://github.com/Zaczero/openstreetmap-ng

Let’s summarize the last week’s work:

Client-side Trace Images

While migrating the traces functionality, I came up with an amazing and seemingly obvious idea. Why not make trace images SVGs and render them client-sided? This feature has few significant advantages: even faster trace uploading, no additional disk usage, unlimited customization, infinite resolution, faster page loading. And so here it is:

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Not A Goodbye!

This is the Closing Chapter! However, the story continues😀

My friend (and colleague) Ola messaged me and asked, “Eden, how do you feel, that your internship at HOTOSM is ending soon?” I took a long pause to answer that 🥹.

As the curtains draw close on this chapter of my professional journey, I find myself reflecting on colourful experiences, lessons, and memories that have defined my time as an intern at HOTOSM.

It’s been 3 months already!?🥹 Like someone rightly said “time goes by quickly, when you are having fun”. I’m usually the type of person that looks forward to the end of a thing because I learnt to always finish what I started. But this time, it felt weird! A mix of nostalgia and anticipation.

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Overview

Progress has been solid over the past week. My main focus is still trying to add in as many missing buildings as possible, but I’ve covered the following during the week:

• Micromapping. While fixing two schools and two shopping centres, I decided to micromap them using a combination of aerial imagery and my local knowledge.

• More buildings. I’m still just trying to “fill in the blanks” and get buildings added.

• Small fixes. While doing other mapping, I came across various small issues that I fixed at the same time.

Micromapping

Schools

While updating some details for Victoria Park High School & Victoria Park Primary School, I decided to micromap them while fixing some misalignments. I tried to map in a way that makes sense and not just to make it look pretty on the renderer.

While doing this, I noticed that the park next to the High School had some seemingly strange boundaries. I need to do some more research to confirm where the park boundaries lie, so for now it remains the same.

Shopping Centres

Similar to how I started with the schools, I wanted to correct some details and fix some “wonky” mapping from older imagery. I ended up doing some pretty detailed micromapping except for changing some shop details - I know that they aren’t there any more, but I don’t have the current shop details at the moment.

More Buildings

I’m very happy with the progress that I’ve made. It’s slow at times, but it is moving and I can see the difference. There has been a decent amount of properties that had a node with address but no area mapped for the building. This has come in handy once or twice where I could verify the building to ensure that it is still there, which wasn’t always the case.

Having said that, it would still be great for a local to confirm all of this, there’s only so much I can do from Ireland.

Small Fixes

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Today 4/6/2024 , created a login

Need to get familiar with editing of maps.

Need to see if a markup can be held without release while fine-tuning the content or just for reference.

https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/was-changing-the-road-classifications-to-align-with-south-australias-bypass-law-really-an-import/111445

Guidance missing for Queensland

There is no clear indication on the Australian Tagging Guidelines/Roads about how Queensland Roads should be classified according to a national hierarchy.

This diary note is about rural roads. I live in a smallish country town and there are few urban roads that aren’t covered by the rural roads hierarchy

Classification and tagging in Australia

The primary guidance appears to be the comprehensive Victorian classification, which classified roads as M, A, B, C or D, or unclassified, with M, A, B and C routes signed. These are to be tagged as Motorway, Trunk, Primary, Secondary and Tertiary.

Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia sign C roads (with the exception of a handful of South Australian Roads) and the extent of the classifications varies by State or Territory. NSW only signs A and B roads.

NSW classification and tagging.

NSW is significant to Queensland classification as the primary traffic interface to Queensland is NSW. Traffic into South Australia and the Northern Terrirory is negligible by comparison.

NSW readily corresponds to Victoria at the top levels with M, A and B roads as corresponding to the Victorian Hierarchy.

The NSW Roads Act 1993 specifies an elaborate classification, but tagging is based on simplified NSW Main Road classifications at the B and below level. The two categories are State Roads and Regional Roads. 1. State Roads, which are largely A and B roads but include some others (e.g. Byrock to Brewarrina, Tumut to Tumbarumba) which are unnumbered. (as noted above M and A roads are tagged as higher in the hierarchy). 2. Regional Roads, which appear to be the balance of NSW Main Roads.

For Openstreetmap, NSW State Roads, whether signed as B or not, are tagged as primary roads. Regional Roads are tagged as secondary roads. There is a clear source for contributors in this Official Map of classified roads

Suggested Queensland classification

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It is with great excitement that we present to you the Organizing Committee of the SotM LATAM 2024 which will take place in Belem, Brazil, from December 6 to 8 of this year.

This volunteer committee has, among others, the functions that the SotM Working Group assumes in the global SotM, that is, mainly:

• seeking a host location,
• arranging sponsorship,
• organising the detail of the conference,
• promoting the conference, and
• running the conference.

This committee is made up of those who, at the last AbreLatam 2023 in Montevideo, Uruguay, had the initial idea of holding the SotM Latam together with the FOSS4G 2024 that was announced at said event. Other map enthusiasts have been joining this initial group, contributing different visions and perspectives that we are sure will enrich SOTM LATAM 2024.

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Presentation of the Organizing Committee of SOTM LATAM 2024 in Brazil. Amazônia, Belém - Pará Brazil

It is with great excitement that we introduce you to the Organization Committee of SotM LATAM 2024 that will take place in Belén, Brazil, from December 6 to 8 of this year.

It is with great excitement that we introduce you to the Organization Committee of SotM LATAM 2024 that will take place in Belén, Brazil, from December 6 to 8 of this year.

This volunteer committee has, among others, the functions that the SotM Working Group assumes in the global SotM, that is, mainly:

… See full entry

I’ve gotten most, if not all of the sidewalks mapped out within Avalon Borough. As I’ve worked eastward from Ben Avon, I’ve encountered a few other sidewalks mapped separately, many of which do not specifically note pedestrian crossings, so I plan to comb over those to see what I can make more consistent. There is a section of ORB/PA-65 where there are many crossings that are not tagged correctly. As this section is chock-full of turning vehicles, this seems rather dangerous, so I’m going to go through that area to map and tag things with pedestrian safety and accessibility in mind.

I have proceeded across the border into Bellevue, as well, with many of the above concerns in mind while tracing aerial photography.

Don’t worry, I won’t write a report every week!

So, the second week of capturing imagery with the GoPro Max granted by Meta is over. I’ve uploaded around 30,000 images since I started, but I’m not quite sure how many.

Here’s a little animation of my progress. It certainly helps me to stay motivated, if I can visualize my progress:

I still have only used it cycling and walking, but I had an ebike at my disposal on Easter Monday which was great for two reasons: The streets weren’t as busy because of the holiday, and I could obviously cover more ground. This was the only day so far that the camera battery ran out of energy before me. I might borrow it again to venture out further into the country.

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ODK

For those that don’t know, ODK is an incredible suite of tools for field data collection.

The Field Mapping Tasking Manager(FMTM) leverages two of their tools to coordinate field tagging of map data:

• ODK Central as the centralised server to store survey data.
• ODK Collect as the mobile app for survey-based data collection on mobile phones (working very nicely in offline contexts too).

Entities

• ODK Entities were introduced to Central in September 2023, in order to more easily track the same feature over time.
• As a result, we have a nice way to store a feature, with geometry and properties, in ODK Central.
  • This could quite easily map to the OSM ID, feature geometry, and feature tags.
• The geometry can then be selected in ODK Collect survey questions.

How To Use Entities

Create an Entity List

Within ODK Central, a collection of Entities is called an Entity List (or dataset via the API).

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