Recently I started an attempt to make the campsites shown on https://opencampingmap.org googleable.

One part of this attempt will be an indexable list of campsites by country.

However, the main trouble with this seems to be broken mapping which will make the generation of such a list really cumbersome.

As an Example I came across this place: osm.org/way/335229905

There are multiple problems with this site in its current form. I will fix them later but use it as an illustration for a broken site first.

The main problem here are nodes tagged tourism=caravan_site and tents=yes which reside inside two polygons tagged tourism=camp-site.

As an example we have a node tagged:

• name =C11
• power_supply=yes
• tents=yes
• tourism =caravan_site

The way this node should be tagged instead is:

• tourism=camp_pitch
• caravans=yes
• tents=yes
• ref=C11
• power_supply=yes

Please do never map individual pitches as tourism=caravan_site or tourism=camp_site. Use tourism=camp_pitch instead.

This said, in this case even the two polygons are not individual camp-sites themselves.

What should be done instead is merging the two polygons tagged tourism=camp_site (osm.org/way/335229905 and osm.org/way/335229904) into one multipolygon with two outer rings as we are obviosly talking about one single campground rather than two. I also consider “Campground Loop A” a feature of one of these rings rather than its name. So best would be using the description tag on the to be created rings then.

The name tag of the to be created Multipolygons should then be Fort Pickens Campground which is surprisingly tagged on none of the objects currently.

I do not have local knowledge of this campground but there may well be camp-site features outside these polygons.

The way to map the site in this case would be a site relation. I wrote about this in my blog some time ago: https://blog.geggus.net/2021/09/announcing-support-for-site-relations-in-opencampingmap/

Project Abstract

The primary aim of this Google Summer of Code project is to re-introduce transit support in Valhalla, the OpenStreetMap based Routing Engine. Initially, Valhalla supported a mode to route transit, but due to a bottleneck from a third-party library, it became unviable to continue support transit routing. Therefore, the aim of the project is to directly parse raw General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data and remove the dependency.

The high level overview of the project is visible here:

GitHub Project

Specific details of each pull request will be described below.

What has been done

The first stage of the project was importing GTFS and ensuring that we can parse the data. GTFS is a set of text files, and rather than iterating through them manually, I decided to use a third party library to automize the read-write process. Just_gtfs allows us to read and store transit data in variables rather than manually trying to parse text. Moreover, I can create sample test data without being concerned about creating invalid data.

After parsing GTFS data, the next step was to pre-process them so that they could fit into Valhalla’s existing data format. Firstly, since the map is divided into tiles – square regions of equal area – I sorted the data according to which tile it belongs to. Tiles are beneficial to save computing power because only the information that belong inside the tile need to be processed when routing through small regions.

Parsing GTFS Pull Request

The sorted data then needed to be built into protobufs, which are used as intermediary data storage before they are converted to tiles. Protobufs are much more condense and versatile than raw GTFS data, so we extract the relevant information from GTFS into protobufs and gather the data. This is further useful because instead of iterating through each stop or trip of a tile, the tile could be read as one whole entity, streamlining the reading process.

Creating Protobufs Pull Request

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Original post in Portuguese here

After some time from the return of State of the Map 2022 in Florence, and after a brief reflection on my experience at the event, I would like to share my views on SotM 2022.

Initially, I would like to thank the State of the Map Working Group for providing grants to participate in the event, which I was awarded (more on this later).

About the event, it was 3 very intense days (and sometimes overwhelming)! During SotM, I thought I could enjoy it more, but looking back, I see that it would be practically impossible. Several very interesting presentations at the same time, amazing people to meet and talk to, very well constructed and presented posters, in short, a lot happening at the same time.

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versão em português

In these last 2 years as a full time volunteer, I have developed several mapping projects around Brazil, because I believe it is my duty to contribute because of the deficit the map had in my region. My goal as a mapper is to try to decrease the blank spaces in OpenStreetMap so that more people can use them and thus more mappers emerge.

I understand that not everyone has time or interest in mapping, the most they can do is the basics, and many times they forget about OSM because they can’t use it on a daily basis, even more in a country like Brazil where hardly a worker would have time to be updating maps.

I have dedicated myself daily to OSM, but unfortunately this has a cost and since I am no heir, it has been very difficult to reconcile my volunteer work and my personal life, I have gone through some very complicated phases since I decided to dedicate myself full time, but I also had a lot of help.

Working at OSM is not an easy task, because your work is never finished, there are always new changes that need to be mapped, mistakes to be corrected, it’s a continuous job that requires a certain level of knowledge and experience acquired over time.

One of the first projects I did was using DAMN and then Taskmanger to be able to manage and map entire cities, with this project almost 20 cities were fully mapped from roads to buildings.

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It was a joyful moment, having been selected and given a scholarship to attend the hybrid conference, SOTM 2022 in Firenzi Italy, first time to board a plane so it was a whole lot of new experience and excitement, I arrived in Firenzi on the 18th of Thursday evening just in time for the event. The historical city of Firenzi is a beautiful city with a whole lot of sculpture, just like what I see in the movies.

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First stop, Cercedilla

The Spanish government has decided to fully subsidise the regional train services around major Spanish cities for the rest of the year, to try and encourage people to use public transport more. Now I don’t use Madrid’s Cercanias services very often, because I work mostly from home, but I decided to get my free ticket and explore the region a bit more. Then it occurred to me that I could also take advantage of the offer to do a bit of OSM mapping in different places.

So yesterday I got on the train and headed to Cercedilla, sitting at the foot of Madrid’s mountains. It’s a station I have been to many times, but always to start a hike - you can walk straight out of the station and onto a trail that takes you up to those mountains. This time I headed for the nearby village, gathering addresses and points of interest as I went.

I was giving a test run to the Every Door application, presented by Ilya Zverev at this year’s State of the Map event in Florence. It worked very well for capturing the points of interest, the address and building interface was a little trickier to understand - but I liked it and will use it again. I need to check whether I can configure it a bit more so that I don’t need to add so much to the data later at home. But I can stop being the mapper with the old Garmin GPS for a while.

More OSM away days around Madrid will come, the free ticket lasts until the end of the year!

It is always amazing to connect with like-minded people on topics you are interested in and talk about making it better. That’s what State of The Map has always been to me. And this time, thanks to HOT UnSummit, I got a chance to attend one as a student, and understand the use cases of maps from a very fresh perspective.

After more than 5 years of working in the mapping sector, I decided to pursue my Master’s in Cartography and being a student again, both of the conferences of SoTM and FOSS4G proved to be very beneficial to attend and understand the ways the mapping community are branching out in.

I have been a part of the SoTM community for a few years now and have got a chance to even present some of the talks on OSM and validation. However, the whole experience at Florence this time was very different and engaging. The first in person conference after COVID, it was fantastic to meet everyone I knew in person and connect on maps and more.

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I discovered OSM a month ago, and I found it a really interesting project. A sad thing is that sometimes there are really bad mapped areas, with no streets curves, no parkings and even no schools or schools without name! Although it does give me something to work on.

Introduction to JOSM Route Visualization

Hi, this diary is for showing what I have done in GSoC 2022. Two months went so fast that I suddenly realize the final date has come. But I still want to follow the guidance and try something I haven't done before, and I can't wait to show the power of this plugin and some new functions that help.

JOSM route visualization plugin is for displaying the full picture of the public transport routes, which is convenient for users to query and greatly improves the efficiency of route maps and members modification.

Checking the relevant function, you can open the relation editor of some route or public transport objects , and then grasp a big picture of the distribution of routes by specially enhanced image instead of a list of way members. In the meanwhile, the path-finding algorithm and logic handling is great for users to choose the next way to extend existed routes from given options rather than add ways needed manually.

Previous Posts

Greetings

Progress in First Half

First Half Summary

• Fix the problem that target route figure is under the layer of other irrelevant models.[merge_request1][merge_request2]
• Make the ways under the route relation of same type as the selected relation of route more evident and add waterway features.[merge_request2]
• Mark the selected stop in main window[merge_request3]
• Listing distance from next and previous stops and relation routes in the dropdown of clicked stop[merge_request4]

Second Half Summary

• Add turn restriction to guarantee path-finding logic to avoid ways it shouldn't be turning to. [merge_request5]
• Add access restriction to guarantee path-finding logic to avoid ways that have no permission for route extension according to transport mode match.[merge_request5]
• Handling Roundabout[merge_request6]

Effect Contrast (Part of visual effects display)

Target route floating problem:

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Removing duplicate bike paths, updating details of bike paths, and improving routing information is fun! The Sockburn roundabout and bridge is one of the most hostile places for bikes and pedestrians I have ever visited. In the process of surveying it with a fieldpaper map, I almost got hit a few times. To be fair, I was biking with one hand, the other was holding the map XD. I sent an email to the CCC asking if they were intending to improve it.

Adding businesses in the Upper Riccarton chinatown area was great fun! It adds so much texture when you really get down to the fine details. Such an interesting place that I never hear people talk about. I really recommend Ramen Miyako, it slaps.

About me in English.
https://mappers.un.org/news/blog/2022/09/UN-Mapper-of-the-month-September-2022

My motivation for attending the conferences was to share the local perspective of open mapping communities and learn from other communities on how they uphold diversity, sustainability, and impact in solving challenges in their communities. I’m grateful to unSummit scholarships for covering all of my travel expenses so that I could participate in this global gathering! - It was worth it.

I was impressed to see and meet the diverse groups represented at the conference, as well as to see that the majority of grantees (both from Unsummit and FOSS4G grants) come from underrepresented communities, which made the conference more interesting - I met and connected with people from different corners of the world… Peru, Fiji, Brazil, Cape Verde, Jamaica, Guinea, Vietnam, and others who have different ideas about open mapping and how they use geodata to solve local community challenges.

SotM was incredible…there are so many applications for OSM data, and they vary greatly from north to south. SotM was also full of community talks and how OSM communities are leveraging data to solve problems in their communities: all of the talks that I attended were excellent, but my favorite was Florian’s talk titled “How to Kill OSM.” (https://2022.stateofthemap.org/sessions/A8JLUY/) - in my opinion, he had great ideas about OSM’s sustainability thinking.

FOSS4G - a more diverse participation, i.e. academia, developers, users, community, business people, and so on: sometimes I would reconsider approaching someone, worried that they would open their computers and run scripts to explain what they do - haha (you should know by now that I am not a technical person, I enjoy working with them though) - but I still enjoyed every minute of the conference with amazing workshops and talks.

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On the search for some nice curvy roads. Found some decent ones. SR 424 seems lovely. Next time up I want to go to the Whitefish Ski Resort area before it gets too busy in winter. Not sure if I’ll go there or Ashley Lake next, but it’ll be one of the two. Might knock out both at the same time.

I discovered OSM some time ago… Currently I try to learn every time I can a few things new on it. By trying and trying, for example it is now that I discover the diary section😎

It is both fun and useful since we contribute to a good initiative while having fun.

I thought for quite a few days on the Jochen’s study for the OSM data model, and I’ve no idea on whether it’s good or bad or how to improve it. The process feels pretty straightforward to me.

But that’s the issue. It’s not impossible. To fix OSM data issues, changing the data model is not important. Frankly, I don’t have anything to add to my 2019 talk at Heidelberg. It was a reply to Jochen’s and Andy’s musings on API 0.7 back then, and it is still now.

OSM Africa Monthly Mapathon is an initiative to support OpenStreetMap community development in Africa. The aim is to bring OSM communities across Africa together to learn from each other, network, and grow the spirit of collaboration while contributing data to OpenStreetMap.

Inspired by Gustavo’s diary on his SotM experience, I am putting some of my thoughts down on paper…

This was only my second in-person State of the Map (first in Belgium) but it felt like I’d been many times - people were so welcoming and open, the organisation and volunteers were great and there were a lot of familiar faces (and usernames).

On Friday my main track highlights were Martijn on 10 years of MapRoulette and Kristen on Entry Level Mobile Mapping.

On the Friday afternoon (also World Humanitarian Day), I hosted the HOT unSummit Humanitarian sessions (which you can watch again here) and we heard fantastic stories and insights and saw some great maps, data and tools from 12 different speakers, all relevant to humanitarian open mapping and from all corners of the world. Kudos to the speakers for being so well prepared and to the audience for being so engaged and curious. It was a really great afternoon.

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utilsplugin

• must have plugin
• provides several useful tools for faster and more efficient editing in JOSM
• e.g. "Split objects" by pressing "Alt"+"x" as an alternative to the terracer plugin in case of more complex shapes
• more info: https://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/Help/Plugin/UtilsPlugin2

Buildings_tool

• must have plugin
• press "b" to activate the plugin
• rectangular buildings can be created with just two mouse clicks if another object is selected as guide for orientation
• if no other object is selected, three mouse clicks are required
• tag "building=yes" is inserted automatically
• pressing "CTRL" deactives auto-snapping. This is required to avoid that the new building has shared nodes with highways
• choosing a node of an existing building as first node offers the possibility to align the new building to the one already existing.
• more information: osm.wiki/JOSM/Plugins/BuildingsTools

HouseNumberTaggingTool

• used to assign house numbers to ways or nodes
• simply select an object and press "k" on the keyboard to open a window with common address keys
• if (downloaded) objects in the vicinity have already assigned keys like "addr:street" or "addr:postcode" these values can be easily selection from a drop-down list. This avoids false edits.
• tool allows to automatically apply increments to house numbers every time a new house number is assigned (increment slider at the bottom of the window)
• more info: https://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/Help/Plugin/HouseNumberTaggingTool

Terracer

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More than 5 mysterious building sites were found in Kissidougou district, Guinea, where the satellite maps show only forest.

These sites were crowded each with more than 30 buildings, each are squares with size about 100x30 m. It is very clear to be seen when we take a look at the OpenTopomap in the north and the east of Kissidougou city, where these buildings are rendered as a lot of big black spots.

The position marked in the article is only one typical example among them: osm.org/#map=15/9.2019/-10.0495

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