Activities of Local OSM Chapter in Slovakia

The following post was written by Freemap Slovakia, one of the OSM Foundation Local Chapters.

OpenStreetMap is represented in Slovakia by Freemap Slovakia (NGO Freemap) which was founded in 2009 and became recognized as Local OSM Chapter in 2021.

We have 13 regular and 4 registered members. Apart from the organized members, there are several hundred active mappers in Slovakia.

Over the time, we contributed to OSM in many ways and we continue to do so.

Community

General OSM discussion forum related to Slovakia

We maintain osm_sk google group, available to everyone, where all OSM contributors that deal with Slovakia in OSM are welcome to ask questions and discuss ideas.

Mapping Parties

Once, or twice a year we organize mapping parties, one of which serves as a meeting for our NGO. The parties are always held at different places in Slovakia.

Outdoor photograph of Freemap SK members, holding large "Freemap.sk" and "OpenStreetMap" banners.

Facebook

Our community page can be found here.

Data Imports

Buildings and Addresses

In an effort that has been going for several years we continuously perform supervised bulk import of buildings and addresses from the Cadastre of Real Estate of Slovakia. For this purpose we built a JOSM plugin that allows users to visually inspect batch-imported data and upload it subsequently into the OSM database.

Marked Hiking Trails

Slovakia is a mountainous country and has one of the most elaborate systems of marked hiking trails in the world with more than 100 years of history (shared with Czech Republic).

We cooperate with the Klub Slovenských Turistov (Association of Slovak Tourists) which maintains the physical trails and markings, to make sure all changes are captured in OSM as soon as possible.

Cycling Infrastructure

Slovakia enjoys steady growth of cycling infrastructure, both in physical means (e.g. dedicated cycling paths) and in terms of trail marking. We make sure the latest changes in the “physical world of Slovak cycling” are captured in the OSM database.

Rivers and streams

Rivers and streams are hard to be properly mapped by “survey”, therefore we imported most of the waterways from the Cadastre of Slovakia, open data sources of Slovak Cartography Office of Slovak Republic, INSPIRE dataset and recently from more precise Aerial Laser Scans of Terrain performed by the Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Authority of the Slovak Republic.

Software & Hardware

Freemap.sk Web Portal

We develop and maintain web portal freemap.sk that provides a number of features:

serving our own map tiles
route finder
photo gallery
and many more

Source code of the portal, backend servers and many utility repositories are Open source.

Custom Map Styles and Renderers

Due to the specific appearance of the hiking trail marking in Slovakia, we developed several custom map styles which we also render and provide publicly as tiles.

Legacy Hiking Style

This raster map style was used for many years until we developed a more recent, hi-res “outdoor style”. Some people still consider this legacy style a pinnacle in terms of balance between colours, information and general aesthetics, and therefore the style is still available in the portal.

Recent Outdoor Style

A new hi-res raster map style has been in development since 2019, with a more “busy” appearance, as it displays hiking, cycling, cross-country skiing and horse riding marked trails all at once.

On more detailed zoom levels, we blend terrain profile into the map using data from the Aerial Laser Scans of Terrain.

The source code of the map style and renderer is freely available.

Photo Gallery

We empower users of freemap.sk to upload and view photos. Our photo gallery contains almost 300 000 photos, including more than 10 000 photos of hiking and cycling guideposts.

Rendering Maps and Hosting Tiles

We render our own map styles and expose the map tiles for public use. This way, anyone can easily use our raster map tiles in their websites, or smartphone apps.

We also provide offline vector maps for the Android smartphone app Locus and other devices:

Garmin Exports

Twice a week we export the freemap-style map into a format suitable for Garmin devices.

Other

Printed maps

We create custom vector maps for large prints on information boards. Freemap.sk users can also easily export their own raster maps in print quality through the Export Map feature.

Photo of an information board, which shows a map, photos and text.

OSM License Compliance

Maps generated from the OSM data are frequently used by various NGOs in Slovakia on information boards and printed maps. When we encounter OSM-based maps missing appropriate attribution, we communicate with creators of those maps to make sure the text is included. In almost all cases such the situation is caused by lack of knowledge and not by malicious intent and the problem is usually resolved by adding a sticker to the board containing the attribution text.

Awards

The Openstreetmap Foundation Greatness in mapping award was granted to our member Martin Ždila in 2016.

Funding

Our largest expenses are for hosting the freemap.sk portal and the map rendering servers. These costs are covered with income from annual fees paid by our members, by donations, and via the Slovak government-run 2% income tax donation schema.

Vision for Upcoming Years

In the near future we will be busy with the following:

we believe that as a community, we succeeded in creating the best outdoor map of Central Europe, with an unmatched level of detail, precision, and frequency of updates. We plan to continue in this effort
grow the OSM community in Slovakia and make the existing tools more accessible for non-English speaking mappers.
as mostly technology-centric group of people, we realize the need for recruiting new members, who could help us put a more human face on our effort through social media, or by organizing mapping-propagating events for lay people
continue importing data into the OSM database from datasets published by various Slovak government agencies. This also includes cleanup of data that was previously imported from less precise datasets.
work on further development of the freemap.sk web portal, the outdoor map style and a custom routing service, most likely based on GrapHopper
try to raise more funds, which would allow us to grow the area covered by our map even further

If you would like to contact us

Write us via osm_sk google group, or through Facebook page, or send us an email to freemap@freemap.sk

Do you want to translate this and other blog posts in another language..? Please send an email to communication@osmfoundation.org with subject: Helping with translations in [language]

The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project, is financially supported by membership fees and donations, and organises the annual, international State of the Map conference. It has no full-time employees and it is supporting the OpenStreetMap project through the work of our volunteer Working Groups.

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Call for Translators – SotM 2021

SotM 2021 will be a virtual conference just like last year. It will take place from 9 to 11 July 2021. We will provide one main track with classic talks for three days. Around that classic program there will be workshops, panels, breakout sessions and more.

All talks will be held in English as English is the conference language. But this year we want to try something new: we want to provide live translation to other languages! And so we will be experimenting with Mumble as a live translation platform and see if we can find enough volunteers to do these translations.

Technical Background

The technical background of this idea is that we will use a Mumble server with channels for each language. The translator is the only person who can speak in that channel. All visitors of the channel are muted, but they can listen to the live translator. Attendees watching a talk will be shown a list of available languages and will have to access the Mumble server, if they wish to listen to other languages while watching.

About volunteering to be a translator

Before the day of the conference, translators will have the chance to watch the pre-recorded talks and choose which presentations they want to translate. This will give you time to prepare and take some notes to be able to effectively provide live translation on your Mumble channel during your prepared talk. The Organizing Team will also provide onboarding about Mumble to help you familiarize with the platform.

We need you!

It depends on the activity and engagement of the OpenStreetMap community how far we can offer this service at SotM. Just like everything else at SotM! So the question is: Are there any volunteers who want to support SotM as live translators? All intensity and amount of support is welcome. As soon as the program is published (beginning of June is the estimation) you can choose the talk or the talks you want to support with translation.

Please contact us via email at sotm@openstreetmap.org on or before 28 June (2 weeks before the conference) so we get enough time to onboard you in the Mumble platform. Send us some information like which language do you want to offer. All languages are welcome. We anticipate that there will be most demand for French and Spanish, but also all other languages will be great!

SotM Organising Committee

Sign up for event updates and follow us @sotm!

Do you want to translate this and other blog posts in your language…? Please email communication@osmfoundation.org with subject: Helping with translations in [your language]

The State of the Map conference is the annual, international conference of OpenStreetMap, organised by the OpenStreetMap Foundation. The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project. The State of the Map Organising Committee is one of our volunteer Working Groups.

OpenStreetMap was founded in 2004 and is an international project to create a free map of the world. To do so, we, thousands of volunteers, collect data about roads, railways, rivers, forests, buildings and a lot more worldwide. Our map data can be downloaded for free by everyone and used for any purpose – including commercial usage. It is possible to produce your own maps which highlight certain features, to calculate routes etc. OpenStreetMap is increasingly used when one needs maps which can be very quickly, or easily, updated.

SotM 2021 – Call for Posters

Our first virtual poster exhibition during SotM 2020 was a great success. Thank you to everyone who participated. Building on this and previous State of the Map culture, we love to hear and see what have been done with OpenStreetMap, so we invite you to participate in our poster exhibition for the virtual State of the Map 2021.

Your poster could show how well your home region is mapped, or it could be a beautiful new style or map. It might focus on a community project, academic research or statistics, or a poster explaining and inviting people to OpenStreetMap. Everything about and related to OSM is always welcome! For inspiration, see SotM 2020 posters – https://2020.stateofthemap.org/posters/

Rules for submission:

Poster should be for A0 size (841×1189 mm)
Poster should be related to OpenStreetMap
Poster should be open, innovative and transparent (no-copying)
Poster must be your own work (individual, team or institution)
Poster should be under open licence (CC-BY-SA 3.0 or later recommended or CC0 🙂 )
Maximum 2 entries per person, team or institution

How to enter

Upload your poster via https://files.osmfoundation.org/s/QJ9ewPRdDscpwoo
File size maximum 30-40 MB
Format: PDF
Please email sotm@openstreetmap.org with a description of your poster, for the example the background of the project or whatever you find important to mention in the context of the poster – all what you would tell people if you show them your poster. We will publish this text together with the poster at the SotM website.
Please mention also the filename of the uploaded poster in that email, so that we could know which of the uploaded posters is yours.

Timeline

Deadline: 27 June 2021

The SotM team hopes to shortlist up to 20 posters that will be published on our website and some other SotM channels under CC BY SA 3.0 (or later)

SotM Organising Committee

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State of the Map 2022 – Call for Venues Open

The Call for Venues for State of the Map 2022 is now open!

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_2022/Call_for_venues

Read the guidelines and selection criteria on the OSM Wiki page and start planning your application for next year’s conference venue. Build a team, shape your idea, and submit your proposal specifying your city as the host for SotM 2022!

This early call gives you the greatest flexibility over dates you can pick in 2022. Please observe when other OpenStreetMap-related events (like FOSS4G and local SotMs) will take place in order to avoid possible clashes with other relevant conferences for the community.

The deadline for venue proposals for SotM 2022 is 15 August 2021, the selected host will be announced in October 2021.

Looking for some help? The SotM Working Group is available for any fruther clarificication! We encourage you to contact us on sotm@openstreetmap.org as early as possible so that we can provide guidance, if required.

SotM Organising Committee

Sign up for event updates and follow us @sotm!

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Joint statement from Quincy Morgan and the OpenStreetMap Foundation’s Board, regarding iD development

After two and a half years developing iD, Quincy wishes to pass the torch on, for personal reasons. Together with the OpenStreetMap Foundation, he will hand over iD to good hands; the Foundation is now starting the process of finding a replacement by consulting the OSM community about a planned paid position serving iD users.

To ensure continuity, Quincy will be part of an OpenStreetMap Foundation working group – a privileged environment to pass his knowledge as his successor ramps up in mastery of iD.

The OpenStreetMap Foundation remains fully committed to robust support of the editor through which 80% of OpenStreetMap users contribute to the common edifice.

The Foundation thanks Quincy for his great work on iD.

Celebrating Earth and Space in Maps

April brings two international commemorative days that offer fun ideas for mapping. Earth Day on April 22 demonstrates support for environmental protection, and the less well-known International Day of Human Space Flight on April 12, which was created by the United Nations fifty years after Yuri Gagarin’s first human space flight.

These celebrations are intricately intertwined in the famous “Earthrise” image, which helped spark global environmental consciousness and led to the first Earth Day in 1970. The increasing availability of earth observation imagery since then has directly helped OpenStreetMap for the entire globe.

There are plenty of opportunities for mapping related to Earth Day. You could map natural areas, reserves and parks, recycling facilities, and many other kinds of features mentioned in the Environmental OSM project.

And for the International Day of Human Space Flight, while OSM doesn’t map in outer space (yet), you can map terrestrial features related to space flight, like launch sites, space-related facilities, historic sites and museums, or even just things named for outer space.

Mapping Earth

The Environmental OSM project has a lot of great ideas, from the local to the global.

You could take a look at recycling-related tags and features, such as public recycling bins or recycling centres, and see if any are missing around you.

You could help map your favorite green space or natural area, whether it’s wilderness, a park, or something else. National parks and nature reserves are among many included in boundary=protected_area, or you could try mapping land use, wetlands, or mangrove forests. There are also clean energy facilities like wind power — are there any near you that aren’t mapped? Other ideas include cycling and hiking trails, or you could look to see if any polluting industries near you need to be mapped.

The Tasking Manager also has projects from various nonprofits related to environmental issues, such as mapping places with climate change-related risk.

Or you can take a look at places related to the environment: the United Nations Environment Programme is headquartered in Nairobi, Greta Thunberg’s first School Climate Strike took place at the Swedish Riksdag, and there’s even an Earth Day monument in Orlando, Florida.

Mapping Space Flight

There are many Earth-bound options for mapping space flight! OSM has tags for spaceports and launchpads and Wikipedia has a list of rocket launch sites including latitude and longitude coordinates. There are spaceports around the world too (via Overpass). You could take a look at some near you and make sure everything is mapped and tagged properly around them — or see if any are missing around the world. (Make sure to follow local tagging guidelines, though.)

You also could make sure planetariums or space museums near you are mapped.

And there are some more amusing spaceflight-related places: for example, the Fremont Rocket sculpture in Seattle, USA and pubs like the Rocket in London and in Jena, Germany.

And of course, there are planty things related to non-human space flight, such as the UFO incident in Roswell, New Mexico, USA where there’s the International UFO Museum & Research Center, the Rendelsham Forest UFO landing sites in the UK and the flying saucer-shaped water tower Nave do ET (ET’s Ship) in Varginha, Brazil.

Let us know what you map — and tell us about any upcoming days you think would be interesting for an OSM blog post.

Photo credits:

Earthrise: William Anders/NASA, public domain
Windmill: © Hans Hillewaert / CC BY-SA 4.0
Space Shuttle: NASA, public domain
Fremont Rocket: damnitgetmybeer/Mapillary, CC BY-SA 4.0

Call for participation in moderation subcommittee

Volunteers from across the OpenStreetMap community are coming together to improve how we communicate in our central spaces, and we want your help! The Local Chapters and Communities Working Group Moderation Subcommittee invites your participation in the process.

The subcommittee has created a Scope of Work to help you understand what work is being undertaken and an Implementation Plan that outlines a step by step approach, including how you can get involved and the different types of contribution that community members can sign up for.

Please take a minute to share your ideas and any interest in participating in the process via this form. And help spread the word! Please share this form with anyone who might be interested. Form closes April 10, 2021. Thank you!

Academic Track Call for Abstracts – State of the Map 2021

The call for abstracts for the Academic Track for State of the Map 2021 is now open!

This year’s State of the Map conference will feature the fourth edition of the Academic Track – a full day of sessions dedicated to academic research about, and with, OpenStreetMap (OSM).
The Academic Track sessions provide a bridge to connect members of the OpenStreetMap community and the academic community through an open passage to exchange ideas, communication and opportunities for increased collaboration. We expect empirical, methodological, conceptual, or literature-review-based contributions addressing any scientific aspect related to OSM, in particular, but not limited to, the following:

Extrinsic or intrinsic quality assessment of OpenStreetMap data
Analysis of contribution patterns in OpenStreetMap
Generation of new and scientifically valuable datasets from OpenStreetMap
Assessments of data import procedures and their impacts on data and community
Integration between OpenStreetMap and other data sources (authoritative, user-generated, or otherwise valuable to OSM)
Analysis/comparison of available software for scientific purposes related to OpenStreetMap
New approaches to facilitate or improve data collection and/or data quality in OpenStreetMap (e.g. through gamification or citizen science approaches)
Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning and OpenStreetMap (e.g. AI-assisted mapping)
Open research problems in OpenStreetMap and challenges for the scientific community
Cultural, political, and organizational aspects of data production and usage practices in OpenStreetMap
Studies using OpenStreetMap data in scientific domains
Reviews of any scientific aspect connected to OpenStreetMap

Guidelines for submission:

Abstracts should be between 800 and 1200 words and are to be submitted online in plain-text format (no images or figures).
Abstracts must be scientifically rigorous and the content should be logically structured as follows (without the need to include subsections): introduction/background, where the problem addressed is introduced; main aim or purpose of the study; brief description of the methodology and findings achieved; final discussion highlighting the scientific contribution of the study and its practical benefits/implications.
Submission should be done using the dedicated Pretalx submission system (https://pretalx.com/sotm2021-academic/cfp)

Submission deadline
25 April 2021, 23:59 (UTC)

Abstracts will be evaluated by the scientific committee. Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to deliver an oral presentation during the Academic Track sessions at the online conference or to present a poster (in case a virtual poster session will be organised).

Submit your proposal today! https://pretalx.com/sotm2021-academic/cfp

Learn more about the requirements and the scientific committee (https://2021.stateofthemap.org/calls/academic/#committee) on the official State of the Map 2021 website: https://2021.stateofthemap.org/calls/academic/

State of the Map Working Group

Do you want to translate this and other blog posts in your language…? Please email communication@osmfoundation.org with subject: Helping with translations in [your language]

The State of the Map conference is the annual, international conference of OpenStreetMap, organised by the OpenStreetMap Foundation. The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project, and you can support it by becoming a member. The State of the Map Organising Committee is one of our volunteer Working Groups.

Call for talks, workshops and panels: SotM 2021 Online

For the second time, State of the Map will be virtual, SotM 2021 is scheduled to happen from July 9 – 11, 2021.

*SotM 2020 Selfie mosaic of Cape Town from SotM 2020 Closing*

SotM can not happen without talks, workshops and panels based on the knowledge and experiences of the whole OSM community, it is in this regard that we are calling on the global community to submit proposals in various categories but no limited to the following:

OSM Basics, talks dedicated to newcomers taking their first steps in the OSM environment
Community and Foundation, track where it is possible to share community experiences, discussing also about the vision of OSM Foundation or reflecting on diversity and inclusion
Mapping, a place where you could present your projects or goals all about mapping, surveying, data collection, tagging
Cartography for sharing with the community all your ideas on how to create a beautiful, fun, quirky and out-of-this-world map!
Software Development, focused on talks by or for developers of applications that make use of OSM data
Data Analysis & Data Model, a track dedicated to analysis of OSM data quality, reflections about enhancing the data model or discussing the way the OSM data is accessed through the API
User Experiences for presentations about examples of usage of OSM data in different contexts
Art & Creativity, a creative space to present projects that use OSM data or theme

Deadlines:

Talks and workshops submissions: ~~4 April 2021 23:59:59 UTC~~ 11 April 2021 23:59:59 UTC..
Panel submissions: 6 June 2021 23:59:59 UTC.

For more information on these categories, on submission requirements and rating criteria, please visit https://2021.stateofthemap.org/calls/general/

Submit a proposal today! Visit:

https://pretalx.com/sotm2021/cfp

State of the Map Working Group

Do you want to translate this and other blog posts in your language…? Please email communication@osmfoundation.org with subject: Helping with translations in [your language]

The State of the Map conference is the annual, international conference of OpenStreetMap, organised by the OpenStreetMap Foundation. The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project, and you can support it by becoming a member. The State of the Map Organising Committee is one of our volunteer Working Groups.

SotM 2021 Website and Logo! Thank you!

The State of the Map Working Group is grateful to everyone who submitted a logo as part of Call for SotM 2021 logos.

In total, we received 20+ submissions with outstanding and inspiring graphic designs, but we can only have one logo as the face of SotM 2021.

Congratulations to Julie Mattelaer for submitting the winning logo!

Contours, Julie Mattelaer (CC-BY-SA 4.0)

As you might already know, the SotM branding, website, stickers, T-shirts, is highly inspired by the colours of the logo. So, it’s time to launch the official website for State of the Map 2021!

Take a virtual tour of our home on the internet for SotM 2021, a place where you will find all the useful information about the conference, its deadlines for applications and main communication channels to stay updated about the next steps of the organisation.

State of the Map 2021 website

Thanks to all the creative minds that participated in the contest and shared with the community their original idea about the spirit of this year’s global conference!

State of the Map Working Group

Do you want to translate this and other blog posts in your language…? Please email communication@osmfoundation.org with subject: Helping with translations in [your language]

The State of the Map conference is the annual, international conference of OpenStreetMap, organised by the OpenStreetMap Foundation. The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project, and you can support it by becoming a member. The State of the Map Organising Committee is one of our volunteer Working Groups.