Author Archives: Richard Weait

Toronto OpenStreetMap Developer Weekend

Come one, come all, to the Second Canadian OpenStreetMap Developer Weekend, eh? 

As last year, Ryerson University is providing a dry roof overhead, lots of space, and rock solid wifi for the software development portion of event. 

There will also be a public event, possibly an expert panel, Friday afternoon at Ryerson.  Details to follow.

Also as last year, there will be a ton of socializing and meeting and greeting with the local OSM community Friday night and Saturday night. 

Last year, attendees travelled to Toronto from England, The Netherlands, USA and even the Toronto suburbs.  Join the fun!  See you in Toronto. 

Sign up now on the wiki so we can plan for your arrival and the requisite Red Carpet.  

And there are sponsorship opportunities!  Want to sponsor a core developer who could otherwise not participate?  Want to buy the coders dinner and a few drinks?  Let me know. 

Songs about maps

Play

What is the best song for your music player while you survey data for OpenStreetMap? Can you keep yourself entertained and inspired with a great playlist while you survey, or is the music too distracting? Are there songs that remind you of mapping? In past, some have suggested specific songs as anthems for mappers.

The following songs each have the words open, street, and map in them, though not in the string we prefer.

  • Map of Tasmania – Amanda Palmer
  • Soldier – Destiny’s Child
  • Movies – Lil’ Boosie
  • Home to Me – Jimmy Robbins
  • My Crew – Jean Grae

Are there more songs with the words Open, Street, and Map in them?  Which songs or music would you suggest as a mapping anthem, or to inspire and motivate your surveys? Use the comments below to discuss. I’ll add some CanCon suggestions tomorrow.

New aerial imagery – South Africa

A small sample of the South Africa aerial imagery provided by CD:NGI, the mapping agency of the government of South Africa.

OpenStreetMap contributors in South Africa have negotiated with the South African government to arrange the donation of some aerial imagery to be used in creating and editing data for OpenStreetMap. Chief Directorate: National Geo-Spacial Information, or CD:NGI, part of the South African Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, have provided aerial imagery and OSM contributor Grant Slater, has prepared it for use in our editors. There is 3TB of imagery and covers all of South Africa.

Thanks as always to the many people who helped make this happen: the fine folks at CD:NGI, the OSM contributors who carried the data between continents, and the mappers who continue to make OSM data better, more up to date and accurate every day.

You can find more information about this aerial imagery in the thread on the talk-ZA mailing list.

Do you want to donate aerial imagery or other data to OpenStreetMap? Contact the OSM Foundation Communication Working Group for more details. communication@osmfoundation.org

The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organization, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data and to providing geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project. You can support OpenStreetMap by donating to the OpenStreetMap Foundation.

New Tile Server in Pau, France

Thanks to generous donations and active members of the OpenStreetMap community, OpenStreetMap infrastructure continues to grow.

A new tile server, Lurien, has been added to the OSM tile cache network. Located in Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, Lurien is currently serving tiles to IP addresses from France, Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Gibraltar, Italy, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican.

Lurien, highlighted.

Map tiles are delivered to users based on their GeoDNS location. The OpenStreetMap Foundation seeks additional distributed tile servers. If you would like to donate a tile server and hosting, please see the Tile CDN requirements page on the wiki.

We would like to thank PauLLA with support of Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour (UPPA) for the server and connectivity and Communauté d’Agglomération de Pau Pyrénées (CDAPP) for the data centre hosting. We would also like to thank OpenStreetMap contributor Christophe Merlet for arranging the donation.

The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organization, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data and to providing geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project. You can support OpenStreetMap by donating to the OpenStreetMap Foundation.

Operation Cowboy

A guest post from German OpenStreetMap contributor Matthias.

Mapping 24hrs in the US

You remember the Night of the living maps, right? NO?!? Well that was the first virtual global mapping party, where >200 mappers contributed from over 14 countries. As people asked again and again if we could do another 24h party, we do so at the end of November: Operation Cowboy

This time, we book a whole weekend (23.-25.11.) to let everybody decide, when you like to start their local 24hrs mapping sprints. Yes, you heared right, it’s not that virtual, as it consists of local parties, where teams of the community meet, to chat, to train newcomer and to work of course 🙂

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Operation_cowboy/join Maybe you already know that this time we picked the **USA as working area**. Mainly, because it’s build up very similar (from an aerial point of view) and has still some problems with [unfixed imported data. Our US members work hard in bigger cities, but most of this nation lacks still in some details. But as we are a really great community, a lot can be fixed by everyone of us 🙂

Yes, only using armchair mapping isn’t what we all understand as ‘true’ mapping, as you can only map the reality, when you go out and see what is at a certain place. But currently we just haven’t enough people in America on the ground, so the best what we all can do is, to encourage this users by mapping obvious details (as buildings, landuse, …) and helping them fixing imported data. Maybe, this will attract new users, if they can contribute further more details, just by clicking an OpenStreetBug.

Sounds like an interesting event before the busy Christmas time starts? The first local parties in Germany are already announced, so how about your local chapter? Time to meet your OSM buddies again 🙂

New Tile Server in Moscow

For the second time this month, the OpenStreetMap Foundation has a generous donation of OSM infrastructure to announce.

A new tile server, gorynych, has been added to the OSM tile cache network.

We would like to thank Yandex for providing the new tile server in Moscow. We’d also like to thank the local OpenStreetMap community, especially Dmitry, who was instrumental in the Yandex donation.

Map tiles are delivered to users based on their GeoDNS location. The OpenStreetMap Foundation seeks additional distributed tile servers. If you would like to donate a tile server and hosting, please see the Tile CDN requirements page on the wiki.

Yandex is the leading internet company in Russia, operating the most popular search engine and the most visited website. Yandex also has demonstrated support for Open projects by hosting a mirror for Linux distributions and other F/LOSS projects and a jabber server.

The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organization, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data and to providing geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project. You can support OpenStreetMap by donating to the OpenStreetMap Foundation.

Discount registration for SotM-US in Portland

Martijn tells us about the latest in OpenStreetMap local conferences:

Prices are set to increase for State of the Map – US, in Portland after this Sunday, 16 September 2012, so register now for just $80 ($50 for US Local Chapter members). The conference is right around the corner, happening on October 13-14. It will be great to keep the energy going from Tokyo.

The program is shaping up, with more then 50 sessions in the works.

Some highlights include:

  • Steve Coast, the founder of OpenStreetMap, will kick off the conference with a keynote presentation.
  • Trimet, Portland’s public transportation service agency, will talk about how OpenStreetMap data powers their trip planner.
  • Foursquare and Flickr will talk about how and why they use OpenStreetMap.
  • The World Bank will talk about its work using OSM to help build more resilient communities.
  • The National Park service will show off its new basemap.
  • Community leaders working in Portland, Macon GA, and Indonesia will present on their communities and what they’re doing locally.

The full schedule is due out in the new few days. Watch @sotmus and stateofthemap.us for updates, and be sure to register now to not miss out on the lowest rate possible. Excited to see everyone in October!