Weekly OSM Summary #12

02/24/2011 – 03/09/2011
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world:

  • Registration for the SOTM.EU is now open. Early bird tickets are 60€. The organizing team announced, that they’ve confirmed Steve Coast as a keynote speaker. The Call for Papers was also extended till 20th of March.
  • MapQuest enabled bicycle and pedestrian routing for the whole world. Transit routing is now available for six cities in the US.
  • The OSM User Groups Map got a new domain http://usergroups.openstreetmap.de/.
  • A map of the highway status in France http://beta.letuffe.org/ (from red to blue)
  • poi.openstreetmap.nl provides a POI-Export function for Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg.
  • A neat data visualization video showing public transport in Rennes using OSM data donated by the city of Rennes.
  • ITO World is working on ITO Map, a future map rendering service.
  • The 100,000,000th way was recently added to the database.
  • The OSM History Viewer has been repaired and is working again.
  • For South-East Asia there (German) is a visualization available, which shows unmapped streets and waterways. In the map you can find objects which are only available in Google and not in OSM.
  • Walking Papers is testing some new print features and needs your help.
  • Jochen Topf has developed a tile server for Tirex using Node.js
  • Christoph Eckert is generating preprocessed OSM maps for MoNav on the German dev server.
  • “OSM2World is a converter that creates a three-dimensional model of the world based on OpenStreetMap data. The model can be exported to different formats.”
  • OpenStreetMap is planning to participate in the Google Summer of Code again this year. Ideas will be collected here.
  • The developers that worked on some awesome new features during the OpenLayers Mobile Code Sprint are looking for people to test of the new stuff.
  • The Google Sketchup Plugin has its own wikipage now.
  • The Firefox-plugin “Operator” extracts so-called mikroformat-information of websites (for example addresses). User:FrViPofm has extend the tool for OSM and is searching for further active developers now, who are willing to translate the French tool into several languages.
  • A new build of Maperitive supports SRTM1 and custom digital elevation models (DEMS) now.
  • pyTrainer is a tool for Linux with a focus on ForeRunner. It can display GPS-tracks in graphs, maps and uses OSM in its current version. An article about this topic can be found here HanBlog.net (German).
  • The company Omniscale announced a free OSM parser (imposm.parser).
  • OpenTrail, an Android OSM app for walkers and hikers, has been released.
  • With the new version of the “Open GPS Tracker” Android app, you can now upload GPX files directly to the OSM server.
  • Fixing things in the OSM database without actually knowing what you’re doing is always a bad idea – here’s a recent example.
  • An iPhone app was causing several outages and periods of slowness last week due to an abusive breach of our tile usage policy.

Authors: Pascal,Jonas & Dennis
Did we miss something? Do you want to help us collecting the news for next week’s issue?
You can contact us via mail or Twitter.

Working Group Summary

These summaries do not replace the formal minutes of the working groups, they are intended to be a quick and easy summary of recent topics before the working groups.

Communication Working Group

31 January 2011 – The CWG continued minor improvements to the OSMF blog web site. SotM was announced for Denver. CWG seeks OSM contributors who would like to translate materials for the OSMF web site.

Scheduled CWG meetings on 14 and 28 February 2011 were canceled due to scheduling conflicts.

License Working Group

01 February 2011 – Mike and Diane from Creative Commons joined the call and learned more about the OSM license upgrade to ODbL. Reviewed draft of CT v1.2.4 and started translation for international versions. An informal poll regarding per-changeset re-licensing was created. AND indicated their support for ODbL. Initiated contact with several web sites, etc. using OSM without the required attribution. Refer to Creative Commons community for guidance re OSM map in TV program.

08 February 2011 – LWG notes guidance from the board that waiting two or more years for Creative Commons to publish an acceptable data license is not in the best interests of OSM. Minimal response to the per-changeset re-licensing poll; 2 for; 2 indifferent. Translations of CT v1.2.4 are pending. Continued to pursue other attribution issues with contacts at several sites. No response from Creative Commons Community on CCBySA materials within TV shows or ads.

15 February 2011 – French translation of CT v1.2.4 in progress, information regarding the Italian translation is pending. Only five respondents to the per-changeset re-licensing poll; three for; two indifferent. LWG will not recommend creating tools to help manage this data. DWG has offered to help the individuals who wish to remove their questionable data and accept CT/ODbL. Extended poll to talk-gb for additional feedback. Geocaching.com has OSM options on their beta site and have improved their attribution, though a few lingering typos remain. SimpleGeo.com use OSM on a beta site. Attribution was corrected after contacting them. Still no reply for Ben Last / Nearmap regarding discussion in January. LWG decided against permitting revocation of CT acceptance.

22 February 2011 – French translation still in progress, information regarding the Italian translation is still pending. Coding for CT v1.2.4 is complete and pending review. CloudMade aware of their clients with attribution deficiencies; their tools ship with attribution on by default. GeoCaching.com aware of typos and fixing asap. SimpleGeo.com missed attribution on their live site as well and fixed it when notified. A new attribution / license deficiency came to the attention of LWG. CapeTownBicycleMap.co.za “didn’t use OSM but did look at colours for inspiration.”

01 March 2011 – adding decline button to CT page is in progress. CT v1.2.4 is live on http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/Contributor_Terms and pending on OSM.org. Other attribution deficiencies are in progress. Report of an iPhone app with correct attribution that was later removed.

Strategic Working Group

04 February 2011 – Further review of budgeting process; could be simpler. Review and revisions to tile policy and scorecard. Routing services scorecard and policy to follow.

11 February 2011 – Draft budget work flow document to be simplified further. Review tile policy and score card. Recommended the draft tile policy and score card to board for acceptance. Review of wikimapia use for discussion next week. First review of routing score card and policy.

18 February 2011 – Review simplified budget documents. To be referred to board for acceptance. Feedback from board on tile policy, “Clarify preference for non-commercial tiles.”

25 February 2011 – Budget recommendation forwarded to the board. Clarified “non-commercial” section of tile policy. Tile policy to be returned to the board for acceptance. Discussed Wikimapia and referred to the board without comment. Mikel to miss upcoming meetings due to travel; Henk to chair in the absence of Mikel. The SWG notes the withdrawal of Milo van der Linden from SWG and thanks him for his contributions.

04 March 2011 – Chaired by Henk Hoff. Steven to revise budget docs based on board feedback and discuss next week. Response on revised tile policy pending. Wikimapia was referred to board. Discussion routing services, particularly the merits of public facing routing service vs quality tool for mappers. Discussion to continue on mailing list and next week.

Project of the Week: Stationery shops

Would you pass me the quill and inkpot please?

A stationery shop may seem outdated in a paperless, electronically
connected world. There is something more formal about getting a card
or letter in the mail, something joyful in the anticipation of opening
an envelope, thick with greetings and dreams, from an old friend.
Let’s put the local stationery shop on the map.

What goes into a well-mapped stationery shop? Find out on the Project of the Week: Stationery shop page.

This is your Project of the Week. Make suggestions. Inspire other
mappers. What is it about contributing to OpenStreetMap that
interests you? Postboxes? Bowing alleys? Share your OpenStreetMap
interests by suggesting a Project of the Week.

The current Project of the Month: Bridge and Tunnel continues until the end of March.

Stationery photo by Simon Pearson is
licensed CC-By-ND.

Scientific American: Mapping the food desert

Scientific American has just published an article Amateur Cartographers Map Local ‘Food Desert’ by Francie Diep on urban
food quality.

A volunteer effort to map all the food stores in Brooklyn,
New York, is an example of two rising trends: citizen mapping and
increasing scrutiny of urban Americans’ access to healthy
food

Brooklyn Food Coalition are using OpenStreetMap to present their data
on the web.

Media_httpiimgurcomz6_hahjv

Deli photo by Catherine is licensed
CC-By.

Image of the Week: OpenSeaMap and weather

Media_httpwikiopenstr_wtkrs

OpenSeaMap showing weather information for a storm in the North
Atlantic ocean on 14 February 2011

OpenSeaMap web site

This is a Featured image, which means that it has been identified as
one of the best examples of OpenStreetMap mapping, or that it provides
a useful illustration related to the OpenStreetMap project.

If you know another image of similar quality, you can nominate it at

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Featured_image_proposals

Weekly OSM Summary #11

02/14/2011 – 02/24/2011

A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world:

  • The True Offset web service is available since last week. True Offset aims to create a database of correction data for aerial imagery offsets.
  • The call for papers for this year’s SOTM.EU in Vienna is still open till the 28th of February. All the accepted speakers will get a free ticket to the conference. The organizing team is also looking for sponsors for the conference.
  • Travel Discounts for the SOTM conference in Denver are now available.
  • JOSM (latest) now supports MapCSS, a CSS like map style language this is also used by Potlatch 2.
  • ScanAerial is the successor of the JOSM plugin “Fuzzer” for the automatic tracing of seas and other water areas. The developer is looking for people to test the plugin and report bugs.
  • Forum user kendzi has developed a JOSM plugin that displays the scenery in 3D.
  • User:vvoovv has found a way to use Google Sketchup as an OSM editor.
  • OSMembrane is a new java application that offers a graphical user interface for Osmosis, the popular command line tool for manipulating large quantities of OSM data.
  • KeyPadMapper is an Android App specialized for mapping of house numbers.
  • The new MapQuest Android App has a dedicated OSM mode.
  • TileMill is a new open source map designing studio.
  • A chart visualizing “the most prolific contributors in the region and how contribution volume (not to be confused with quality!) changes over time.”
  • Maxim Dubinin has created some stats about the OSM community in Russia.
  • A new import is starting in Georgia.
  • DIY-StreetView is yet another initiative to make an open street view.
  • MapQuest is looking for projects that use its open services and could be presented at SXSW.
  • Everyone who missed the HOT conference call can listen to a recording of it and look at the notes here.
  • Steve Coast is looking for someone to take over future development of Transiki.org.

Authors: Pascal, Jonas & Dennis
Did we miss something? Do you want to help us collecting the news for next week’s issue? 
You can contact us via mail or Twitter.

 

Project of the Month: Bridges and tunnels

Bridges and tunnels assist travel. They span barriers that otherwise
impede travel such as mountains and ravines. They also reduce the
interaction between travelers in cases such as grade-separated railway
crossings, and motorway interchanges.

The Project of the Month is to add local bridges and tunnels to the map.

See the bridge and tunnel project page for more details and results.

This is the a Project of the Month. Project of the Week returns
next week, while PotM will continue until the end of March. These projects
inspire mappers to contribute data they might not have considered
previously, and allow us to be inspired by the projects of other
mappers.

This is your Project of the Month. Make suggestions. Inspire other
mappers. What is it about contributing to OpenStreetMap that
interests you? Postboxes? Bowing alleys? Share your OpenStreetMap
interests with other mappers by contributing a Project of the Month.

Photo of Millau viaduct by Philiip Capper is
licensed CC-By.

Nice simple animation of OSM growth

… and some basic stats ;

“A simple way of getting an idea of the coverage expansion trends is to look at the historic data. This article aims to provide visualizations for two elements: where was the coverage expansion happening and how did it break down on a weekly basis.

Beyonav has performed a statistical analysis on over 600GB compressed (10 TB uncompressed) weekly Planet-OSM database dump files since December 30th, 2009.”


http://www.beyonav.com/sites/beyonav/osmanalytics.aspx#