July 30th, 2012 – August 13th, 2012

A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) world.

• On August 18th, 2012 the OSM project will celebrate its 8th anniversary.
• A new version of Leaflet (version 0.4) has been launched and includes a lot of new features. Leaflet is an open source library for interactive web maps. A new plugin allows the creation of animated cluster marker groups. Another nice example shows an “Interactive Choropleth Map” for the USA.
• Pascal Neis published a new journal paper about active contributors of the OSM project. The paper can be downloaded here.
• The “Humanitarian Hack Box” is a VirtualBox image with a number of humanitarian server applications. Read more about it here.
• You will find a summary of the work by the “lost mappers task force” here. Their plan was to contact as many contributors as possible who didn’t respond to the license change yet.
• The Royal Mail of Great Britain uses an OSM basemap for their “Gold Postboxes Finder“.
• Martijn van Exel created a redaction map for the entire USA.
• Frederik Ramm and his ideas “About Leadership” of the OSMF.
• A presentation by Ed Freyfogleabout “What’s next in online mapping?“
• The Quadratum WordPress plugin shows all Foursquare checkins on an OSM map.
• The Barnes & Noble Nook tablet will support OSM basemaps. Read more in this article.
• The Map Compare website at bbbike.org increased the number of maps that can be compared. In total there are 52 maps to choose from now. Check it out here.
• A new version of Maperitive has been launched. Read about all the new features and about MBTiles support here and here.
• A “how to” on displaying OSM relations in OpenJump can be found here.
• A new repository for OpenBuildingModels has been launched.

Did we miss something? You can contact us via weekly.osm@googlemail.com

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)

July 16th, 2012 – July 30th, 2012

A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) world.

• The State of the Map (SotM) schedule, which is going to take place in Tokyo (Japan), has been announced.
• The automated redaction bot process is complete, you can read more here.
• The OSM Inspector (a web based debugging tool for OSM users) has a new layer which shows the data which has been edited by the license redaction bot.
• A request of the Humanitarian OSM Team (HOT) to “Help mapping non-mapped areas of Tajikistan“.
• The latest version of osmconvert (a tool to convert and process OSM data) can create csv files. Read more about the tool and several other options in the wiki.
• A new website shows in which areas members are looking for new OSM contributors. You can create your personal contributor feed too. You can also find the latest OSM contributors of the last two and seven days per country here.
• A step-by-step tutorial for rendering SVG maps from OSM data.
• Nathaniel Kelso created a plugin to load the Stamen maps into the QGI. Read more in the following blog post.
• MapBox introduce a new Open Source Javascript API to create your own browser maps.
• GraphHopper is a new and open source routing engine for OSM road networks. You can find the project on github.

Did we miss something? You can contact us via weekly.osm@googlemail.com

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)

July 2nd, 2012 – July 16th, 2012

A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) world.

• The ODbL redaction process has been running since Wednesday, July 11th. Past Sunday the bot started working on Western Europe. You can find a really nice webpage, created by Harry Wood, with more information on the current status here.
• You can find a new OpenGoeData blog post about “Building a friendly editor for OpenStreetMap in JavaScript” by Richard Fairhurst here.
• Martijn van Exel developed OSM “Staleness” Maps. More information can be found here.
• The new RSS feed, created by Pascal, informs you about new Mappers in your area. You can check it out here.
• The fastest OSM route planner supports alternative routes now too. Try it out here.
• MapATag is a new OSM tagging game for smartphones: Read more about it here.
• Jan March developed “OSM Buildings“, a JavaScript library that visualizes 3D OSM building data on interactive maps. You can find his source code on github.
• The current weather as an overlay on an OSM map: http://openweathermap.org
• A new blog post by flickr: “Making a Better Map: four months of @OpenStreetMap with @MapBox & @foursquare“. Also a blog post about “Designing an OSM Map Style“.
• GDAL has an OGR driver that can read OSM data from *.osm and *.pbf files. Read more about it here.

Did we miss something? You can contact us via weekly.osm@googlemail.com

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)

June 18th, 2012 – July 2nd, 2012

A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) world.

• 165 terabyte of new aerial imagery has been released by Microsoft/Bing. You can read their announcement here. You can also find some more general information in our wiki.
• Flickr increased their implementation of OSM map tiles for a few cites. Read the full blog post here. Their map styles are available at github.
• The “Pirate Map” is a new special mapstyle provided by MapBox and created by AJ Ashton.
• The “Swiss OSM Association” was founded during the GEOsummits 2012 in Bern.
• The OSM Mapping project „Via Alpina 2012” has been traveling for 18 days now. They created a blog and a hiking map to keep everyone posted.
• The Android App “KeypadMapper”, which can be used to recording addresses, has been updated. Check out the wiki page.
• The new version 2.12 of Openlayers has been announced. Please be sure to check your current map-pages, since the new version might cause some problems.

Did we miss something? You can contact us via weekly.osm@googlemail.com

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)

June 4st, 2012 – June 18th, 2012

A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) world.

• Bing released new aerial imagery for some parts of the world. Read more here.
• “Wheelmap goes London and you can help us with your ideas”
• OSM Germany has its own OSM-podcast now. Well done guys!
• A nice animation about „A day in the life of Nice Ride bikes“ based on OSM data.
• You can compare up to 35 maps on the webpage “Map Compare“.
• Create your own OSM shoes. Pretty cool!
• Keepright.at (an OSM Quality Assurance tool) has a new layer („doubled places“) to find duplicate POIs.
• The Humanitarian OSM Team (HOT) is searching for an “Acting Project Director“.
• The imposom project repository has been moved to github. With impososm you can import OSM data into geo-databases.
• New base layer (experimental) to show OSM admin boundaries.
• Peter Batty wrote an interesting article about “Apple Maps: Predictions and Questions“
• An interesting article about “Open licensing and databases”. You can find the full text here.

Did we miss something? You can contact us via weekly.osm@googlemail.com

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)

May 21st, 2012 – June 4st, 2012

A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) world.

• Jochen Topf published a new webpage titled: OpenStreetMapData.com. You can find several datasets there, such as water- and land polygons or coastlines, which are based on OSM data. Read more in his blog post.
• During a mapping experiment for the Horn of Africa, more than 10 refugee camps with more than 600,000 people have been mapped within almost 48h.
• A blog post about “OpenStreetMap at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative Disaster Simulation“.
• An open position for the Humanitarian OSM Team (HOT) in Indonesia.
• Video of the “Shoreditch Mapping Party” process by Derick Rethans.
• Pascal Neis created an OSM-GPS-Grid-Map based on all OSM-GPS-Points and TileMill. Read more in his blog post.
• The new version of the CycleStreets webpage supports more OSM tags now (e.g. surface quality, barriers or lighting). Also, their mobile client has been judged as one of the „Best Application Designs“.
• The official webpage of Paris uses OSM data for their cycle route planer.
• You can get a free vector based cyclemap for Android-Phones here.
• openMarkers is reborn and starts with OSM now. Read more about this project.
• How can you display tweets on an OSM map? You can find an interesting solution here.
• TomTom published a blog post about Open Source Maps. Some responses by Henk Hoff and Richard Fairhurst.

Did we miss something? You can contact us via weekly.osm@googlemail.com

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)

May 7th, 2012 May 21st, 2012

A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) world.

• The latest news about the rebuild progress at the “Rebuild” can be found here and here.
• The OSM Foundation introduces the Ulf Möller Memorial Fund und Award.
• A Kickstarter project by Kate Chapman for the „First Free Haitian Creole OpenStreetMap Book“ can be found here.
• The International Committee of the Red Cross (IRRC) is asking for help to trace aerial imagery of Tierralta, Colombia. Read more here.
• The HOT have some new aerial imagery for Mali, Niger, Bangladesh, Colombia and South Sudan which can be used for mapping.
• Tom MacWright explained in a blog post how the new State of the Map US website works.
• Will White writes about the technology which Mapbox uses to create maps.
• Taking the Hackerbus to the mapping party.
• A Step-by-Step introduction to QGIS, PostGIS, and TileMill for Windows.

Did we miss something? You can contact us via weekly.osm@googlemail.com

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)

April 23th, 2012 – May 7th, 2012

A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) world.

• The latest news about the license change and the data rebuild-process.
• The OSM project has more than 600 000 registered members now. Pascal created a new webpage which shows the latest active members. You will find the blog post here.
• Apple’s new iPhoto attributes the OSM project as a source now.
• The State of the Map US will take place in Portland on October 13th and 14th, 2012.
• Six OSM projects have been accepted for this year’s Google Summer of Code.
• The next Wherecamp Berlin will take place on June 22nd and 23rd. You can already register here.
• „What we can learn from Wikipedia“ a new blog post by Frederik Ramm.
• Dan Stowell wrote a blog post about how he made a nice map handout from OSM.
• An online cycle map of Oxford was developed based on OSM data and created with Maperitive.
• The “Worst Of OSM” webpage shows some failed OSM mapping or import efforts.
• The new HOT Technical Working Group will start their first IRC Chat on Thursday May 10th at 3pm GMT. Read more here.
• The “Waymarked Trails: Hiking” webpage is available in seven new languages now.
• The new Maperitive version can create its own Walking papers now. You will find a description here.
• A new version of the Overpass API is available. You can find all changes and new features here. For all new readers: The Overpass API is a read-only API that serves up raw XML encoded OSM map data.
• A new plugin for the Leaflet open source library enables a feature to display GPX or KML overlays or a Google layer. You can find the code on github.

Did we miss something? You can contact us via weekly.osm@googlemail.com

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)

April 9th, 2012 – April 23th, 2012

A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) world.

• You can register for the State of the Map (SotM) conference in Tokyo, Japan now.
• An OSM Hackweekend will take place on June 2nd and 3rd 2012 in Karlsruhe (Germany).
• YOU (OSM) are GREAT!
• The HOT project is looking for mappers for Bogor, Indonesia. Read more here.
• A new version of MapOSMatic has been published. MapOSMatic is a free web service that renders city maps based on OSM data.
• Several results of OSM length calculations for a lot of countries.
• The fastest OSM routing project has a worldwide coverage now.
• The new version of CartoDB supports the import of OSM data now.
• Blog post by Artem Pavlenko about some new Mapnik features. A transcript of Young Hahn’s „Rendering the World“ presentation. 
• „OSM & ESRI Tools“ – Webinar recording available here.
• How can you link your addresses with OSM coordinates? Watch the Google Refine Youtube video.
• WheelMap.org published a Ruby OSM-API-Client on Github and is looking for developers.
• Chad Lawlis wrote an easy tutorial on how to show your OSM contributions on a map based on TileMill.
• With the OpenSource iOS SDK by MabBox you can easily integrate OSM maps into iOS apps. You will find the whole introduction here.

Did we miss something? You can contact us via weekly.osm@googlemail.com

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)

March 26th, 2012 – April 9th, 2012

A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) world.

• The OSM database is back in read and write mode since last Thursday. Thanks to the Admins for their incredible work to move everything to the new server! The changes that will be made to the dataset due to the license change will take place in the coming days and will be running in the background. Also, you can find the last CC-BY-SA OSM planet file here.
• “All I Want for OpenStreetMap is …“? Some thoughts and wishes from Mikel and Kate for OSM.
• The organization Development Seed would like to create some new contribution tools for OSM. You can help here!
• Which JOSM version do you use?
• Frederik released a JOSM plugin to record and store data in a separate database. Read more about it here.
• A new Humanitarian OSM Team (HOT) project report from Indonesia.
• A blog article about tracing OSM data in the Sahel.
• Almost all videos and slides of the German FOSSGIS & OSM 2012 conference are online. You can find them here (of course in German).
• Pascal wrote a blog post about the geographical distribution of the newly released OSM GPS points. Further Steven created a really nice HeatMap from all points.
• A new blog post by Martijn about “Detecting Highway Trouble in OpenStreetMap“.
• Cyclestreets published an “OpenStreetMap community mapping guide – for Cycling Scotland“.
• After the OSM 3D workshop in Garching (Germany), the first 3D Map (OSM2World) has been published. You can read the announcement here.
• With Comapp you can create your own OSM web maps with an audio marker. Try it out here.
• A Youtube video about an indoor evacuation simulation based on MATSim and OSM data.
• With YAPIS (Yet Another Point of Interest Submitter) a further web site to add POIs to OSM is online.

Did we miss something? You can contact us via weekly.osm@googlemail.com

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)