The end of a thing they say is better than the beginning, but my experience with HOTOSM was nothing short of good from the start to the end. On the 27th of May, I met with some of the amazing people I would be working with; Kshitij and Shola, my mentors, my co-intern, Azhar, Sam and Eden, her mentors. From the very first moment, I felt welcomed and although there was still that little feeling of doubt you get on your first day at anything, I was sure I would have a great time. Next, I met Petya, the most amazing and supportive coordinator.

It was my first time connecting and working with people from other parts of the world and it was a wonderful experience. Something interesting that hit me from the start was that almost everyone I spoke with was chatty. That was quite a new zone for me. I was used to just giving brief answers to describe myself or my day. But I saw that sharing made it an even friendlier environment. Petya once said, that “sharing is caring”, and I have truly learned that. Shared experiences help people bond and relate to you better. Speaking well instead of vaguely is something I have now adopted and getting better at.

Every Wednesday was a time to look forward to, as that was when I had weekly progress reviews with my mentors. I learned new things in interesting ways, laughed with them, and got to know about them. My mentors were so open to sharing and imparting their knowledge, it was a community that was truly invested in my growth in their ways. The time zone difference was interesting, my wonderful mentor, Kshitij who is almost 6 hours ahead of my time still always gave his Wednesday evenings to fix my task blockers and help me grow in my career. Although I could tell he enjoyed working, I knew that was a sacrifice he made every Wednesday and I am very grateful for that. Shola and I are in the same time zone but with different commitments, she still always showed up and reached out to ensure I was doing okay.

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I’m running linux as my desktop OS and couldn’t find a tool I was happy with for viewing the GPS coordinates stored in a photograph’s metadata (exif). I whipped up this quick-and-dirty shell script to do it for me.

~/.local/bin/photolocation :

xdg-open $(seq 1 4 | while read i; do exif "$1" -m --ifd=GPS -t=0x000$i; done  | tr '\n' ' ' | awk  '{printf ("%s%.6f %s%.6f\n",$1,$2+$3/60+$4/3600,$5,$6+$7/60+$8/3600)}' |sed 's/[NE]//;s/[SW]/-/;' | awk '{printf "https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=" $1 "&mlon=" $2 "#map=18/" $1 "/" $2 "\n"}')

I also made a .desktop entry so I can run it from the file manager or from my image viewer by choosing “open with…”

.local/share/applications/photolocation.desktop :

[Desktop Entry]
Name=View location in OpenStreetMap
TryExec=photolocation
Exec=photolocation %f
Terminal=false
Type=Application
MimeType=image/jpeg;image/jpg;
Keywords=Picture;Photo;Photograph;Map;OpenStreetMap;

URL: osmapp.org

For those who doesn’t know, OsmAPP is trying to be the one integrated app for everyday use which runs both on web and on mobile. It should be as easy to use as Google Maps, but fully opensource with privacy in mind. We have still some way to go, but it is getting much better recently.

Release 1.5.0 brought some great changes from wonderful contributors @Dlurak, @amenk, @loviuz and also from the core team @jvaclavik and me. See https://github.com/zbycz/osmapp/releases/tag/v1.5.0

In search of Opening Hours Editor

Opening hour widget was something I wanted to do for a long time. It always seemed as a big task, until I read a message from user @Mapspot on the OpenStreetMap Discord server: “A little 2x7 text box interface where you type the opening/closing time for each day would typically suffice”. What could be so hard about 2x7 boxes, right?

My first requirement was, that I cannot ruin existing advanced opening_hours. That meant, that I have to parse the value in my intermediate objects, then build the text again, and if it doesn’t match, lets tell user, that they should better use YoHours :-) This also brought some challenges, that Editor should be shown even when original text was Sa,Su ..., but after parsing it becomes Sa-Su ....

There were only a few expections like 24/7 which was quite easy to catch, and opening_hour without specified days, which is internally translated to Mo-Su ....

In the end, it took two days of work and it was so satisfying to see it working in the end. Some issues like Multiple images for feature or Wikimedia Upload, takes months to finish (or even almost a year in the second case), and this was ready in such a short time. Also worth mentioning is, that this was possible by @Dlurak’s work on the opening_hours renderer also featured in this release.

More details and screenshots in Pull Request

One image is worth a thousand words

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Trip to New Zealand

In this diary, I’m going to explain how I draw buildings (and shape in general), with my tricks for doing the most precise work possible and achieving the greatest possible symmetry and alignment, but without measuring everything out either.

It’s my meticulous way of trying to do things as perfectly as possible, and everyone does it the way they want. There are many times when I do things more simply and less precisely

If you want more tips, see my following diary : osm.org/user/Koreller/diary/408451

Tip 1: Use JOSM

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It was like getting back to the start point for all of us, revisiting the basics of OSM with my in-person training in Grab last June 30 for the KartaView x OSM Philippines meetup event. It was a great event that allowed me and fellow mappers to share about our knowledge in Basic ID editor and other mapping methods while also contributing to map data in areas recently affected by the Mt. Kanlaon eruption in the Philippines.

Truth be told, a lot of the participants are already quite experienced when it comes to OSM, but this also provided me the opportunity to have a more hands-on teaching session with those that are still learning or still getting used to the Basic ID Editor. It was a great experience to be able to teach and guide more closely and watch our beginner participants progress and be able to contribute to the task, beginning with creating an OSM Account, to adding features through ID editor and saving their changes!

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Either include my portion it’s on my map

Otilo

Hi, I’m known as catme0w on the internet, and I’m a contributor to Google Summer of Code 2024. Below are my contributions during GSoC.

This post is not yet complete and will be updated gradually with detailed progress throughout my GSoC journey.

Goals

These goals were initially discussed and finalized at https://github.com/stadiamaps/ferrostar/issues/102.

• ✅ Making requests to an arbitrary routing backend and parsing the response into a route
• ✅ Decide on a map framework (Leaflet -> MapLibre GL JS. This has taken some detours, I’ll cover it soon… )
• ✅ Search for the destination using an autocomplete search box
• ✅ Displaying the route on the map
• ✅ Showing the user’s location on the map
• ✅ Updating the user’s location on the map “live” if the web page is visible, and having a tracking mode that follows the user around
• ✅ Showing a banner indicating the next maneuver
• ✅ Updating the navigation state when a new location update arrives + update the UI

“Stretch goals”

• ⏳ A simple list view showing all remaining steps
• ⏳ Recalculating when the user strays too far off the route
• ✅ A MapLibre integration with “3D” / isometric perspective
• ✅ Speech synthesis using the Web Speech APIs

You can find all my contributions to Ferrostar at https://github.com/stadiamaps/ferrostar/pulls?q=is%3Apr+author%3ACatMe0w.

Final Product

Here’s a web demo: https://stadiamaps.github.io/ferrostar/web-demo/

• TODO: Other things?

Lastly, I would like to sincerely thank my mentor Ian and Jacob for their assistance. I’m glad to have met such an outstanding team. Without their support, none of this would have been possible.

Sailing today with P&E.

Forecast was for 10 knots with gusts to 18.

Easy out of the marina and then across the fjord to Nesodden. Very lumpy and heeling over. P&E learnt a new word “goffered” ie to get a wave in the face.

osm.org/user/mad_folio/traces/11441064

BUILDINGS ADDED BY USER ZH9567 IN OPENSTREETMAP AROUND THE KLANG VALLEY AS OF 20 AUGUST 2024

Data generated through Overpass Turbo, with all features with the tag building=* on OpenStreetMap with latest revision made by Zh9567. Note that it include buildings added by others and last updated by the user, but not include buildings added by the user and got updated by other users.

As we can see in the map, Zh9567 mapped many buildings around the Klang Valley. They are mainly concentrated in Klang, southern Shah Alam, Subang Jaya, Puchong, Seri Kembangan, Kajang, Cheras, and Ampang.

As of 20 August 2024, there are 715,932 buildings (23,987 hectares) added into OpenStreetMap in Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, and Selangor combined. Zh9567 has added and updated 510,000 buildings (11,007 hectares) around the region, with a total of 71% (or 45.9% if counted by hectares). And these numbers will continue to rise in the future.

This is quite a major contribution in OpenStreetMap. Let’s help improve OpenStreetMap together!

Kindly fill in our survey about knowledge and opinion of maps among Malaysians (for Malaysians only at the moment): https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc5KOuuNLtZAAkFU8DYO_-xjZixJVTY3NukRORiIfLtGGaQVA/viewform?usp=sf_link
Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Zh9567
Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/zh9567

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No, not that kind of a minister!

Anyways, at the moment, Heritage Week is on in Ireland, and I gave a talk on Monday in our new library building (on OSM) about “Citizen Science and Linked OpenData” using mostly my holy well survey as an example, but a bit the Ogham Project as well. I used one of the toilets in the library to explain how the general tagging works, because it is quite nano mapped and relatable.

The Minister for Heritage (and other things) was present and kindly posted on Facebook about it afterwards: https://www.facebook.com/MinisterMalcolmNoonan/posts/pfbid09t7ubGw1CgEN6vNZeUqTGFngepAsKsARzxiJbinr6siLtn9ovPuXdEA46spxdW8xl

Just for context, in the first photo, he’s the guy in the middle, and the elderly people are descendants of Hubert Butler (on wikipedia), they were the other VIP guests so to speak.

It’s a busy week for him, so I was pretty happy that he attended and promoted OSMin his post. (Even though we still have to work on the spelling, but at least he didn’t use the plural like so many other people.)

I talked about the Wikiverse as well, of course. Wikimedia Ireland dedicated a blog post to it beforehand as advertisement for the talk. Thanks very much for that as well!

Recently started running to work.

It is painful every morning.

But it is never regretted.

It’s been a while since I last wrote about iD’s development and thought it would be a nice idea to make this a more regular thing in addition to the regular online community chats.

Recently, there have been some new features implemented that are worth showcasing, including several great ways that community members are stepping up to contribute to iD.

iD v2.30 release

In his Google Summer of Code project, Mattia Pezzotti has implemented support for street level imagery from Panoramax. Panoramax is a relatively new completely free and open-source alternative to other street level imagery providers such as Mapillary, KartaView or Bing Streetside. It even includes features like a federated system architecture and the possibility to self-host the server software if you need to. Check the project out on panoramax.fr to read more and how to contribute your own pictures.

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Read part 1 here.

I drive through the new RCUT intersection again today, this time making a GPS trace of my movements. I attempted to make each of the possible turns in the configuration. I did have to make one illegal maneuver, as the left turn north from Athens-Boonesboro does not go anywhere, and, while the light is installed and the turn lane unblocked, there are signs indicating that no turn is possible from that lane. The light is (as far as I can tell), in a semi-permanent red arrow state until the side road is developed. Since the turn lane is divided from the main road by a concrete island, the only way out is to make an impermissible left turn or unsafely reverse back into traffic. I chose to make the left turn. Cones or bollards are probably warranted to keep motorists from accessing the left turn lane to nowhere.

Based on this trace, I attempted to align the nodes for the separated left turn and U-turn lanes to the correct positions. Since the lane begins further back from where the dividing island begins, there is some ambiguity on when to split the lane into a separate line; I chose to break it off roughly where the dividing island begins. This makes for a less visually appealing line, but it does semantically indicate where lane changes are still technically possible.

This matches the approach I saw elsewhere on OSM, in Troy, MI. Apple Maps does the same thing (possibly with OSM data), while Bing Maps maps the entire turn lane as separate. Google Maps has a very interesting mix where one direction breaks away at the dividing island, but the other direction breaks away much further back in the turn lane. Google Street-View imagery from November 2021 shows bollards dividing the entire turn lane, so their system must’ve used that as the dividing point . Bing Maps imagery collected in April 2022 do not show these dividers.

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Glad I found this app so I’m able to help out, as my neighborhood is very very much out of date! Many roads are missing and names are missing for many roads on the map…. Now, if I can figure out how to actually get my note to save, or how to name a road, then I’ll be in business!! hahaha.

Introduction

Another little update. I am writing these, usually, on Sundays. Since I am still a new user of OSM I am writing these as a little how are things going. I wanted to share my experiences and ideas with the greater OSM community.

Confused

I am still doing the mapping and having a super hard time in some ways. I have a disability and if the OSM community could make the program more accessible that would be helpful to a lot of folks. I am haaving a really hard time mapping and understanding what the tools do. For instance attributes like car=wheel, just took that out of the air. I am not fully understanding the relationships and how many should be tagged and if there is a standard block of them already made up for new users. If anyone has any ideas on how to understand the relationships more please feel free to let me know.

Disability and Accessibility

I know I just mentioned that I have a challenge and I am curious what the OSM community is reaching out to folks with challenges. Keep in mind I know nothing about what OSM is or has been doing to make this possible. Its a thought I had.

GitHub

No idea what github is and I am not sure if I should use it or not. I would love to learn more about it and what I can use it for and what one cannot use it for.

StreetComplete

I am having a lot of fun doing this. Its simple yet important information. I am super curious about what happens and what the data collected goes towards after a quest is completed. Its simple yet I feel I am contributing in a small simple way.

Conclusion

Its not much but some questions and thoughts this time. Have a wonderful day!

Ask

If anyone knows of any answers to my questions, or thoughts, or people I could reachout to please let me know and feel free to DM me.

Pete Masters called our attention on this new feature for communities on OpenStreetMap, so I decided to give it a try.

First thing to say is that it resulted me very confusing, not only the name -as is told in the comments of the original publication- but the sign up process too. Here are some screen captures to ilustrate the process:

This part was easy but confusing. I had to take a look at the URL to be sure I was not trying to create another OSM user. And I had my OSM user live and open in another tab.

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Lexington, KY is in the process of installing new “RCUT” intersections on Athens-Boonesboro Road 0, to support future development, including a new pro soccer stadium 1 along the corridor near the I-75 interstate access. I am attempting to add the features as they go live. The first section, at Competition Drive went live on 2024-07-22. I have made a first cut at adding it in this edit, basing it off of the map imagery provided by the state transportation cabinet, a drive-through I made, and an existing similar intersection in Troy, MI.

Still todo:

• I think I may still need to add 2 signal heads for the Competition Drive side street.
• I need to drive-through again and record a GPS trace to align the nodes.
• There are still multiple changes that will be made to intersections along this corridor in the coming months.

Strava > OSM

1. Export GPX from Strava ride
2. Upload to GPS Traces
3. Wait
4. Trace over it
5. For multiuse choose “Cycle & Foot Path”

“Where a pathway is designated for pedestrians but is also allowed for bicycles you can use highway=footway and bicycle=yes.” osm.wiki/Tag:highway=footway