Users' Diaries

Recent diary entries

Posted by RobJN on 7 August 2021 in English.

As of a few weeks ago, it is now possible to add Mapbox Vector Tile (MVT) layers to JOSM. I have been playing around with these to learn how to apply basic styling to the layer. For this tutorial we will use a postcodes layer in Great Britain.

Styling requires us to first create a style.json file. Copy the contents below in to a plain text file (notepad) and save as style.json. If doing this on Windows you will want to make sure it doesn’t also have a .txt extension.

{
  "version": 8,
  "name": "Postcodes",
  "owner": "Postcodes",
  "id": "postcodes",
  "sources": {
    "postcodes-source": {
      "maxzoom": 13,
      "tiles": [
        "https://api.mapbox.com/v4/robjn.3uur23nz/{zoom}/{x}/{y}.mvt?access_token=pk.eyJ1Ijoicm9iam4iLCJhIjoid0dYNkY1QSJ9.A-0lzQOawGYICYPfURsjDA"
      ],
      "type": "vector"
    }
  },
  "layers": [
    {
      "id": "something",
      "type": "circle",
      "source": "postcodes-source",
      "source-layer": "results-4326-deduped",
      "minzoom": 13,
      "paint": {
        "circle-color": "#C70039",
        "circle-radius": 6
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "secondthing",
      "type": "symbol",
      "source": "postcodes-source",
      "source-layer": "results-4326-deduped",
      "minzoom": 13,
      "layout": {
        "text-field": "{postcode}",
        "text-size": 18,
        "text-allow-overlap": true,
        "text-ignore-placement": true
      },
      "paint": {
        "text-color": "#C70039",
        "text-halo-color": "#000000"
      }
    }
  ]
}

See full entry

To all developers involved in an application which uses OSM data, either for smartphones (OsmAnd, MagicEarth, Maps.Me…) or online (Qwant maps…).

OpenStreetMap is a great database containing many type of information. All of the software I’m aware of seems to focus on explicit data (e.g. “There is a picnic table at this exact position” or “There is a rest area here”) to search for a POI, display a map or for navigation. Those explicit data come from tags directly on the POI or on a relation. But there is more to do whenever we think of what can be deduced from those explicit data to infer implicit data (e.g. “There are picnic tables in this rest area”). This would require to take into account tags on other POIs based on geometry.

What is the interest to deduce implicit data?

Imagine a family on the road looking for a place to stop: Kids will want to go to the restrooms, the driver will need some coffee and it’s time to have lunch and wait a moment we also need to refill the car. Not all rest areas/service areas propose all those services. Looking for each of those POI on a map can be quickly cumbersome (cluttering, filtering…). Now imagine if one can, when selecting a service area or rest area, have in addition to the name and opening hours of the area, a list of services available there then the decision will probably be more efficient.

Another use case is if I’m looking for a park to bring my kids. I would love to know at a single glance if a given park has some sport fields, playgrounds, toilets, ice creams… depending of what I’m looking for without zooming and panning everywhere on my map.

So how would it works?

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最近在标注西安杭州等地铁的时候,好不容易编辑好的内容总是其他人员被改坏。这主要是地铁标志规范没有得到广泛认可的规范。我参考Metro_Mapping整理了地铁标志方法。

地铁线、地铁站、停车点

  • 地铁线推荐两个方向各一条。共用一条也可。
  • 地铁站推荐使用点,在地图上会显示。部分人也在使用面。
  • 停车点需要在地铁线上,在地图上不显示,只做拓扑关系用。

基本元素

站点关系和线路关系

See full entry

Posted by arnalielsewhere on 6 August 2021 in English. Last updated on 16 August 2021.

Note: This post has been translated and available in Spanish! Thanks to Cyberjuan! (Nota: Este post ha sido traducido y disponible en español! ¡Gracias a Cyberjuan!)

At State of the Map 2018, I was lucky to be selected as one of the conference scholars (my reflections here). This year, I took the chance to be part of the SotM 2021 WG to organize SotM 2021 online conference.

I mainly worked in the Communications team. I am sharing in this diary my experience and learnings as an organizer as this might help organizers in planning their online events, among others.

Long post ahead!

1. Recruiting volunteers for SotM WG (view Call for Volunteers invitation via mailing list)

Because of the pandemic, SotM became online. Since there is no community bidding involved, SotM Chairperson invited OSM community members to join the SotM WG. She promoted this via the mailing list, and was shared by community members via social media and other community channels.

Takeaway: Clearly lay out structure of the WG (sub-wg/sub-teams), its functions and who’s leading the teams, and how to join (as simple as sending an email).

2. Organizing team structure / workflow (sync and async communication)

As seen in the invitation, there were small groups/sub-wg’s within the SotM WG for a more organized coordination.

Takeaways:

  1. Coordination: Creation of sub-teams and sub-wgs, with a way to have asynchronous communication (no-meeting required coordination) for those who could not make it to the live meetings

  2. Decision-making: We arrived at decisions by building a group consensus - this have encourage more active participation from the volunteers

3. Conference Format (3 days, online)

SotM 2021 followed a 3day-format just like a physical event.

Cons: I don’t recommend the 3 consecutive days format as this is too exhaustive in the part of the organizing team (for an online event).

See full entry

Location: Denver, Colorado, United States

Every week we get an alert from the very dedicated OSMBC group, that a new issue is ready on the site. I’m in a country where internet connectivity is expensive, and slow, and unreliable, all at the same time, so I wish to avoid opening the web site with all of its javascript and css files, and only get the information without the site software.

I’ve not been able to make the above situation considered, or understood, but I could use one of the hints I received, namely to check the RSS feed for the newsletter. This feed contains one item per week, and the latest item is the one I want to receive in my mailbox. I first simply added the feed to my Android RSS client, but since every item contains links to pictures, refreshing the feed would again clog my slow limited connection.

What I did was to write a bash one-liner which will run every Sunday on a server hosted in Europe, to which I have access. The script grabs the RSS feed, extracts the first item, and sends it to me by email. Which is what I wanted, so I’m fine now.

Should anybody want to be included in the mail, I have no problem sending them any of the OSMWeekly translations. the only limitation is I can’t send email to google.com.

the script is more or less this:

wget -qO- "https://weeklyosm.eu/feed" | sed -n -e '1,/^\]\]><\/content:encoded>/p' | sed -n -e '/<content:encoded>/,/^\]\]/p' | sed -e 's/.*CDATA.//' -e 's/^\]\]><\/content:encoded>//' | grep -v '^<p class="wp-caption-text"><img loading="lazy" src=".*alt="lead picture"' | grep -v '<p><!-- place picture here --></p>' | mail -a "Content-Type: text/html" -s "OSM Weekly" email@example.com

Digitizing individual building footprints down to smaller mapping units is a tiring task but it can be achieved if you have good cartographic/CAD skills. I am viewing all my 3D building models using F4map.com, which normally takes 48hours or so before the 3D visuals can be seen in the application. F4map performs well with OpenStreetMap(OSM) if you input the correct TAGS into appropriate fields. Colors to buildings can also bee seen if you use their correct tags as well. Thanks to all those Mappers who have been assisting in populating/digitizing maps around Papua New Guinea.

Thankyou all and lets keep improving our Maps for betterment.

想着5号线开通一个月了,就突然联想到一年前我立下的目标(osm.org/user/xhzyh1/diary/393836)。

然后还没完成……不过还算有进程。链接:osm.org/#map=15/31.3034/120.8217

一年前这里还是一片没什么数据的地方,现在已经看上去比较好了。现在也是忙东忙西,想起来就做一点,所以进展过慢hhh。

Здравствуйте! Мне очень приятно принять участие в команде “OpenStreetMap”. Надеюсь у меня хватит сил и энтузиазма, принять участие в работе остальных участников этого проекта, как можно на большее время.

Location: Грушевка, Грушево-Дубовское сельское поселение, Белокалитвинский район, Ростовская область, Южный федеральный округ, 347016, Россия
Posted by Maxwell-M-Blackman on 3 August 2021 in English.

After recently moving to the area I’ve found myself with the need to go out and do some GPS traces. A small sushi bar is what pushed me to go find out more about my local area and I found several shops that haven’t been mapped yet that I plan on adding, perhaps when it isn’t raining so hard.

Location: Wade, Westover, Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina, 27512, United States

I’ve learned quite a bit over the last few weeks, so I’m re-doing some of my earlier entries.

Notes for self and others: Based on local knowledge I’ve been able to determine that the PEMA ortho images are newer than the NYS Orthos, but not by much; these are both newer than Mapbox, but Mapbox is higher resolution/clearer.

both PEMA ortho and NY Ortho appear to be positioned pretty well in the Great Bend area, but Mapbox needs to be adjusted.

ESRI world seems to use the NY Ortho in this area and their positioning is shifted slightly to the north relative to the PEMA and NYS Orthos, but it seems to be registered fairly well overall. I would tend to believe ESRI in general, but the state Orthos may be better aligned for this area. Either way, it’s a negligable shift.

Bing: don’t bother; horrible for this rural area.

Can’t tell the vintage/date for the USGS 3DEP DEM model in this area. There is a much higher resolution Lidar dataset on the USGS website.

Location: Great Bend, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, United States
Posted by Eiim on 2 August 2021 in English.

I’ve now been editing Oxford, Ohio for over a year, with more than 15,000 edits in the area and only a handful elsewhere. I figured it was finally time to set a proper goal for my editing: “complete” Oxford by the end of May 2022. For now, “complete” refers to mapping all the buildings, highways, POIs, and landuses, with perhaps some nuance. The details for each of these:

Buildings

By my count, there’s 7 neighborhoods/groups of houses left to map. That’s the most significant improvement from when I started a year or so ago, when we probably had around four or five neighborhoods mapped and only half of the downtown/uptown area. After those, there’s just a scattering of buildings on the outskirts of Oxford left. This phase of the project is nearing completion.

Highways

I have five goals for highways currently:

  • Consistent, accurate tagging of paths around campus

A number of paths are vehicle-accessible but aren’t labeled as such. I’m not sure what the proper tagging for those is, so figuring that out is the first step here.

  • TIGER cleanup

Easier said than done, or so I hear. tiger:reviewed=no is still on most roads in Oxford. I’ll need to do some research as to what TIGER tags should be kept or removed and such. I imagine the zip tags aren’t too useful.

  • Sidewalks

There’s lots of sidewalks around Oxford. I’ll probably map these separately, with crossings. That shouldn’t be too hard, but will take a good bit of time.

  • Intersections

I’m not sure about how much work there will be to do here, but I want to check up on things like the turn restrictions and traffic lights on all the intersections around Oxford. Some of this might be survey work.

  • Parking lots

There aren’t tons of these, but where they exist they’re very inconsistently mapped. Some work will need to be done to bring these up to standard.

POIs

See full entry

Location: Oxford, Oxford Township, Butler County, Ohio, 45056, United States
Posted by SK53 on 2 August 2021 in English. Last updated on 11 August 2022.

The other day a new user was asking questions about mapping the new development of the former Royal Engineers Barracks opposite Mill Hill East tube station. I’ll write about their problems with postcodes another time.

However, this prompted me to look at the OSM map of the area, which I knew well in the 1980s. I was a PhD student in Central London (UCL), but a close friend was doing his doctorate at (NIMR](National Institute for Medical Research), and I visited fairly frequently. Over time I got to know other scientists & staff at NIMR, not least because I became an active member of the walking group which was part of the staff club (NIMROD, which still leaves a trace on OSM), but also because of scientific collaborations.

The old NIMR main building

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Location: Mill Hill, London Borough of Barnet, Greater London, England, NW7 1QG, United Kingdom

El domingo 8 de agosto, día aniversario 17 de OpenStreetMap. A las 10am (GMT -5) tendremos la oportunidad de mapear juntos.

Habrá un mapatón global por el 17 aniversario de OSM el domingo 8 de agosto:

AQUÍ LAS SESIONES HORARIAS POR PAÍS, PARA CONVIVIR: osm.wiki/Foundation/Local_Chapters/OSM_17-hour_Global_Mapathon.

Los proyectos para mapear México se propusieron temáticas: ríos en zonas inundables del país (índice municipal de CENAPRED) y picos de montañas.

Estén pendientes.

Mapatón México

Che cos’è la cartografia IGM?

L’IGM è l’Istituto Geografico Militare, ed è l’ente cartografico dello Stato italiano. Disegnano carte dell’Italia di vari tipi (topografiche, corografiche, geografiche) e in varie scale (dalla 1:25000 alla 1:1000000), e queste carte compongono, appunto, la cartografia IGM. A volte sono un po’ vetuste (la carta topografica 1:25000 della mia zona non viene aggiornata dal 1955!) ma sono di una precisione incredibile, e contengono un sacco di informazioni che è difficilissimo trovare altrove, come i toponimi locali (case sparse, aggregati rurali, ecc.), i torrenti, le sorgenti d’acqua, ecc. Non sarebbe bello riportare queste informazioni in OSM?

Come usare la cartografia IGM in iD

(e probabilmente anche in JOSM, che non amo particolarmente)

L’IGM non mette a disposizione un tile server per la propria cartografia: non solo le loro mappe sono a pagamento, anche in formato digitale, ma ve le danno in un formato tremendo (TIFF con un file a parte con le informazioni di georeferenziazione, cioè vi dovete arrangiare), e comunque le considerano sotto copyright nonostante siano il prodotto di un ente pubblico. Per fortuna, il Ministero dell’Ambiente è un po’ meno rompicoglioni: dal loro Geoportale Nazionale danno accesso alla cartografia IGM non solo dietro licenza CC BY-SA 3.0, ma soprattutto tramite protocollo WMS, che è supportato da iD

Il Geoportale Nazionale fornisce decine di layer come servizi WMS: uso del suolo, bacini idrografici, rischio sismico e alluvionale, ecc. Ma quello che ci interessa ora è “Cartografia di base - IGM 25.000” (sono anche disponibili le scale 1:100.000 e 1:250.000, ma non sono utili perché OSM si può considerare completo a quelle scale). Il Geoportale Nazionale ci dice che l’URL del servizio è:

http://wms.pcn.minambiente.it/ogc?map=/ms_ogc/WMS_v1.3/raster/IGM_25000.map

See full entry