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Intro

The Belgian train operator NMBS (Dutch)/SNCB(French) is seeking to improve travelers guidance along its stations and for this it wants to improve the OpenStreetMap data quality of its stations osm.wiki/WikiProject_Belgium/Stations. One such project aims to have a better view as to where a certain train wagon would stop on a given track. This as to now exactly where the 1st Class wagon is, the bike wagon is and so on. However to be able to show this it needs a detailed view of platform zoning, the rail signs and the signaling. (Below you will find what those signals exactly mean.)

Zoning

What:

Some stations divide its platforms in zones. You have in general two types of zoning (I call those two types) general zoning and specific zoning platforms. On general zoning platforms you will find panels A B etc. besides the platform number. Often you will even see those numbers reoccur multiple times on a specific platform. On specific zoning platforms however you will find panels like B2, B1, A1, A2 and those are uniquely placed along the platform.

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direction: Blickrichtung vs. Geltungsrichtung

Das folgende steht im deutschen Wiki: “Die Tags direction=forward und direction=backward sind nur für Knoten gedacht, die zu genau einer Linie gehören. Stützt der Knoten mehr als eine Linie, wären diese Angabe mehrdeutig. Dann sollten Himmelsrichtungen für direction=* verwendet werden. Hinweis: Bitte die gegensätzlichen Bedeutungen bei der forward/backward (Geltungsrichtung) und bei Himmelsrichtung (Oberflächenrichtung) beachten.” Quelle: osm.wiki/DE:Key:direction

Upps, diesen Hinweis im Wiki habe ich übersehen: Gut dass mich ein anderer Mapper auf meine systematischen Falscheingaben freundlich aufmerksam gemacht hat und er und ich mit Hilfe von https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1B5L (Danke an den aufmerksamen Mapper) wenigstens viele von mir gemachte Fehler mit relativ viel Arbeit wieder korrigieren konnte (ganz durch bin ich damit aber noch nicht). Das passiert, wenn man mit dem Lesen der Beschreibung zu früh aufhört, oder meint, man hat nach Jahren OSM-Mapping schon genügend Erfahrung. Ehrlich gesagt, habe ich das Wiki auch erst mehrfach lesen müssen, um diese scheinbare Widersprüchlichkeit zu verstehen.

Es gibt also eine tückische Fehlermöglichkeit beim Mappen von Vorfahrtszeichen, da mit direction zwei grundsätzlich unterschiedliche und zudem gegensätzliche (!) Eigenschaften beschrieben werden.

Geltungsrichtung

1.) Bei Verkehrszeichen wie highway=stop oder highway=give_way ist die übliche Methode, mit direction=forward bzw. backward in Bezug auf die in OSM angegebene Richtung der Straße die Richtung anzugeben, in der gefahren wird, damit das Schild gilt. bzw. “The directions forward and backward can be used to specify the direction of a feature relative to an existing way. This only applies to features which are tagged on a node that is part of a way. Examples may include directed traffic signs.” Quelle: osm.wiki/Key:direction Nutzung: m.E. wichtig z.B. bei Navigationsansagen

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Right! I finally started using OpenStreetMaps.

Thanks to a friend who pointed me to Magic Earth I now have a viable navigation system which uses OSM data and thanks to StreetComplete I am slowly learning about tagging. The multiplicity of apps is not ideal, but a staged approach to OSM concept is clearly necessary. My previous attempts to become an OSM users failed because I was overwhelmed by complexity or perhaps I should say expressiveness.

In the foreseeable future I will be just using StreetComplete to improve my local area, but I am already seeing some issues that require more in-depth changes. Also, there are some edits that I have already submitted, but after reading the wiki I do not believe them to be accurate any more.

Here are a few topics I need to chase:

• terraced houses - the terraced houses in my area are all lumped together. They are not divided up, so assigning numbers requires usually a comma separated list. I would like to fix it and break the rows into single terraced houses with one number each.
• I need to figure out how to mark multiple buildings belonging to a school, church or a care home for elderly.
• terraced bungalow houses - I am guessing they are terraced houses as bungalow definition clearly states detached. My area has many rows of single storey houses
• I may have messed up some bollards by marking them as fixed, whereas in fact some are removable with key. Will need to keep an eye on this and maybe learn to use Vespuchio to fix those in the future.
• Sometimes I am not entirely sure whether a road is asphalt or concrete with some coarse aggregates inside. I was assuming it’s asphalt as that’s what we typically put, but maybe I should take some photos and ask someone who knows better.

https://osmose.openstreetmap.fr/ru/map/

osm.wiki/Key:fixme

• This post is a (machine) translation of the article “‘돌비알’(natural=scree), ‘자갈밭’(natural=shingle), ‘너덜겅’(natural=blockfield) 견줘 보기” into English.

natural=scree, natural=shingle, natural=blockfield

돌비알(scree;talus)

• Something like a rock, built up almost exclusively by weathering and crumbling.
• They build up as they are swept away, creating a steep slope.
• The stones that make up the talus are generally small or variable in size.
• Even if the stone masses are large, they are often sharp because they have not been worn down much.
• ‘scree’ in Wikipedia

자갈밭(shingle)

… See full entry

Részletek / details:

https://wiki.osm.org/Hungary/20231002

Korlátlan mogyorófogyasztással!

Részletek / details:

https://wiki.osm.org/Hungary/20230930

Once upon a time, I was asked why I had only marked the south end of a trail and not the north end.

Well, I said, I haven’t been there, so I don’t have a GPS track. All I have is that USGS line and the one thing I know about it is it’s wrong. As long as it isn’t mapped, someone will be more likely to put down the correct line when they do want to map it. They might not even notice it’s needed if a bad line is there.

Then I said I might come down on the side of mapping everything you can as best you can sometime later.

Well, it’s later. Now I say map it all! And put down the source as you do it. Not just in the changeset note, but actually on the segment. And it can be good to make a guess about trail_visibility. I have more tools now.

Strava heatmap is the best as an average of GPS signals, if you can get it. I have found what is probably the firefighter loop through nearby private lands and not actually available to the public as a hike on there. It looks like a nice loop out there in Kneeland where there’s no public hiking. Only the most popular trails have enough heat to be an average. A random spattering of others have some kind of clues.

I can download system trails from the Forest Service’s data clearinghouse. Most of these match the Forest Service Topo (another source), but some have updated. Some of them match the USGS lines. Okay, a lot. And apparently Six Rivers has no system trails at all. They are seriously slacking. (And now a section of their roads has vanished from the Interactive Visitor Map. What is wrong with you, Six Rivers?)

And there’s ever more imagery. Sometimes it’s just visible. All the other lines available helps to differentiate the actual bit of trail from random fallen trees that make a line on the ground. A ridge trail might have a fuel break competing with trail, so there are plenty of bad signals just looking at photos. Down the gully, that might be just water course. Or trail. Or both.

… See full entry

In the previous episode…

We finally managed to tackle a very popular feature request: datalayers’ fine-grained permissions 🎉. This is a huge step forward, allowing for a given map owner to only open a particular datalayer to edition. It will help people with contributive maps who need to setup a stable/fixed base layer. It also paved the way for even more control over the objects that are allowed for addition and/or edition. Please share with us your desired workflows.

On the UX side of the project, we made a couple of adjustments and fixes to make the editor more intuitive and consistent. Do you see these new crispy icons on the screenshot above? Hopefully it will bring more users, hence more contributors! A couple of new faces jumped in recently and we’re so happy about that 🤗.

You can also look up for icons by name in the ‘Shape properties’ panel, one of our next steps will be to ease icons’ management and additions, another long-awaited feature:

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Hi, I’m Mitsjol.

I’m still pretty new to the world of OpenStreetMap and this is my first diary entry here. Currently, I’m primarily focused on adding details to my charming hometown of Middelburg.

Recently, I stumbled upon a millstone in my hometown. This millstone, a large round stone once used for grinding grain, caught my attention and I wanted to add it to OSM. However, when I tried to add it to, I faced a challenge - there was no fitting tag to accurately represent it.

This got me thinking. How many other millstones around the world are missing from the map simply because there isn’t a dedicated tag for them? There must be a lot, because I’ve also seen them during travels. For instance, in the UK’s Peak District alone, there are estimated to be around 1,500 millstones scattered throughout the landscape.

So I took a significant step in contributing to the OpenStreetMap community by proposing the addition of a new tag - “historic=millstone” on the OpenStreetMap Wiki.

I decided to use “historic=millstone” as the primary tag, although I considered “man_made=millstone” with an optional “historic=yes” tag as an alternative. However, I believe that “historic=millstone” is more accurate and relevant for the majority of millstones that we encounter on the map. Not many new millstones are made in this day and age.

I provided examples from various parts of the world to illustrate the diversity and ubiquity of millstones. From Ireland to Japan, these stones can be found all over the world.

… See full entry

Not sure why someone would want a diary, but what the heck. Not adding anything today.

https://ags.cuzk.cz/arcgis2/services/dmr4g/ImageServer/WMSServer?VERSION=1.3.0&SERVICE=WMS&REQUEST=GetMap&LAYERS=dmr4g:GrayscaleHillshade&CRS={proj}&BBOX={bbox}&WIDTH={width}&HEIGHT={height}&TRANSPARENT=FALSE&FORMAT=image/jpeg&styles=&uniq=4557

Meinen Blog findet man unter https://www.christiansblog.eu

In Croatia some residential areas are well kept, while others are quite lacking. Example: Zadar vs Preko.

What to map?

This begs the question which entity should be mapped first with the largest gain for the effort? This can only be answered in the need of the beholder. For a tourist it would be street names, since accommodations are bound by an address and after the town name, the street name is the next factor to reduce the search area of the location.

There is a major requirement for this to fruition and that is that the town has to have varied street names. Depending where in the country one is traveling, it is quite typical that the street names are equal to the town’s name (e.g. Lazina). In such a situation latitude/longitude coordinates should be a requirement of the host to provide over the house number, because lots are not linearly arranged. Plus lots of such towns don’t have house numbers and/or buildings on the map.

Where are the buildings?

Lots of towns have buildings, though these are usually only a fraction of what actually exists. E.g. in Preko:

… See full entry

Abstract

Most GPS navigation systems today rely heavily on street names and place names for route guidance. While this works well in some situations, it can be confusing and less user-friendly, especially when navigating unfamiliar areas or for people with language barriers.

This project aims to change the game by introducing landmark-based navigation into Valhalla, the OpenStreetMap (OSM) routing engine. Instead of hearing complex instructions like “Turn left onto Obmannamtsgasse,” users will get simple and intuitive directions like “Turn right at the Tesco supermarket.” This landmark-based approach makes navigation more accessible and user-friendly, reducing stress and improving the overall experience.

The high level implementation overview of this project is available here

Landmark Based Navigation Project - Github

Now let’s dive into the details!

Implementation Details

In simple terms, this project enhances Valhalla’s routing capabilities by bringing in landmarks as navigation support. We pull Points of Interest (POIs) from PBF files and store them as landmarks in a special intermediate storage. Then, we associate them to the map’s edges and store them into graph tiles. When clients call Valhalla services, these landmarks become part of the route directions and make navigation easier.

About Landmark Itself: Data Source and Selection Criteria

POIs are naturally supported in OSM PBF Format (“Protocolbuffer Binary Format”), a sort of digital map format. OSM uses “tags” in the form of “key=value” to describe places and things on the map. One special key, “amenity”, helps us find places that are useful or important for folks like visitors and residents. We use this key to select landmarks.

… See full entry

Tracé du parcours de “Les Cortots” à Fontaine-lès-Dijon

Par ici osm.org/way/1210508694

Mais toujours pas visible sur la carte OSM… :’( Peut-être un jour… il y aura une mise à jour qui permettra aux visiteurs de voir ces informations…?

Des infos par ici https://www.discjonctes.fr

… See full entry

Why and How I Mapped all the Landcover in Belize

I joined OSM in 2016 when my friend suggested I do something useful. He knew I was interested in geography as I was trying to map on Google. But then a year later Google shut down mapping for users because of an Android pissing on Apple incident in Pakistan.

I then became really interested in OSM and started mapping. I had a desire for all the landcover to be mapped. I first started around my town of Spanish Lookout, then decided to do my entire district of Cayo.

It was slow work, but I persevered. After I completed the second and third districts of Stann Creek and Toledo, I learned a few tricks of mapping. By that time it was the year of 2022. The mapping tips I learned were so useful that by September of 2023 I had completed the other 3 districts, Corozal, Orange Walk and last of all Belize district.

There were a few other mappers that helped, but I did roughly 92% of the entire country. And in that time I would estimate that about 99% of roads and 97% of buildings have been mapped as well.

Going Forward

Going forward I’m planning on keeping the country up to date and continuing to map all buildings, power lines, speed bumps, etc.

And also I’m thinking of mapping all surrounding districts of Mexico and Guatemala, which we’ve started already.

Percentage of Landcover in Belize

Type	Area Sq. Km.	Percentage
Wood/Forest	14,813	64.5%
Meadow/Grassland	2,366	10.3%
Wetland	1,470	6.4%
Scrub	1,381	6.0%
Farmland	1,053	4.6%
Water	782	3.4%
Orchard	295	1.3%
Residential/Ind/Com	224	1.0%
Beach/Sand	2	0.0%

Today is Saturday

I haven’t been very active on OSM in the past weeks and months - other than work-related reasons this was mainly because of orienteering: competitions almost every weekend, and when I did map, I mapped for orienteering, mainly features that are of no interest to OSM (cf. last blog post).

One orienteering competition, though, caused an OSM edit. The venue was a typical German sports ground consisting of a football pitch, a running track around it, a pavilion building and not much else (no bleachers, no grandstand). Mapped in OSM was the outline of the racetrack, tagged leisure=stadium.

This inaccuracy is quite frequent (a few years ago refining sports grounds was my main pastime in OSM), partly because sports grounds in German villages are often aggrandizingly called “Stadion”.

About its fence: I have to admit that I was never really strict about One feature, one element. But the OOMapper, does not interpret, for instance, “leisure=pitch barrier=fence” as fence filled with open land, which made me realize that it would be clever to abide by the OFOE rule.

So it’s (in JOSM) Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Alt+V to duplicate the area, then tag the new way barrier=fence. Where the entrance is, there is a node which I tagged entrance=main and barrier=gate. In the German Telegram group it was suggested to maybe have entrance=main on leisure=sports_centre only and barrier=gate on barrier=fence only, which I think is somehow logical but I decided against it. Maybe I’ll change my mind after looking at more examples.

Oh, and one more tip for sports mappers: When there is a short track like for 100m or long jump only and you map it as an area, don’t forget to add area=yes, because otherwise it will be interpreted as a rectangular track along the outline of the actual track.

Happy mapping everybody!