Category Archives: Uncategorized

Project of the Week: Railway station

They are a point in a daily commute of countless people. Utilitarian,
they must provide for efficient movement of people in crowds.
Seemingly vacant at one minute and then teeming the next, with the
hustle and bustle of those determined to get from here to there. The
ordinary and repetitious trip of a commuter can lead to blank faces,
seeming drones programmed to catch the 7:15 without interaction with
others, without emotion.

Yet they have also been the scene of emotional hellos and goodbyes. A
backdrop to tears and embraces, an important goal in a departure or a
return.

The Project of the Week is to map your local train station, bus depot,
or other public transit center. Learn more about this Project of the
Week on the OpenStreetMap wiki:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Project_of_the_week/2010/Dec_01

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 contributing a Project of the Month.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Project_of_the_week/Proposals
Goodbye train photo by Till Krech http://www.flickr.com/photos/extranoise/
is licensed CC-By http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Microsoft Imagery details

“Microsoft is pleased to announce the royalty-free use of the Bing Maps Imagery Editor API, allowing the Open Street Map community to use Bing Maps imagery via the API as a backdrop to your OSM map editors.

Bing Maps imagery must be used in accordance with the API Terms and Conditions [see PDF below] – although this is not legal binding advice, and you are encouraged to read the TOU itself, in sum the TOU says: you are only granted rights to use the aerial imagery, you must use the imagery as presented in the API, you cannot modify or edit the imagery, including the copyright and credit notices; you cannot create permanent, offline copies of the imagery, all of your updates to OSM arising out of the application must be shared with OSM, and the OSM map editor must be free to end users.”

 

If you have a question, I’m at steve@asklater.com or you can chat to people live at http://irc.openstreetmap.org/ Richard Fairhurst and others have already been working on the code to use this stuff with potlatch etc. You should see it go live soon!

OpenStreetMap editor Potlatch 2 launched

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You may have noticed something new in your OpenStreetMap editing
today. Potlatch 2 has now gone live on OpenStreetMap.org. Potlatch 2
is a complete rewrite in ActionScript 3 using the free Flex 3
compiler. Potlatch 2 rendering uses MapCSS and RichardF’s halcyon
rendering library. It’s new. It’s Open Source. And it’s on
OpenStreetMap.org

But, why didn’t I notice it?

That’s a fair question. You might not have noticed Potlatch 2 on the
main OpenStreetMap.org web site because it is now an editor option.
That’s right. If you hover over the Edit tab, you can select from
Potlatch or Potlatch 2. JOSM is also an option if you have JOSM open
with the remote control plugin active. You can set a default editor
in your API user preferences. [Support for the Merkaartor remote
control plugin is coming soon.]

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Potlatch 2 may not be the right editor for everybody. There will be
bugs discovered, and removed as development continues. Consider
adding Potlatch 2 to your editing arsenal, and be sure to report any
bugs you find.

The amazing team behind Potlatch 2 and this update to the web site
includes some of the same people who keep OSM running and have been
making OpenStreetMap great for years.

Richard Fairhurst http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Richard
Andy Allan http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Gravitystorm
Tom Hughes http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:TomH
Dave Stubbs http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Randomjunk
Matt Amos http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Matt

And thanks extend to many others including all of those who keep OSM
running day to day, all of the Potlatch 2 testers, documenters, and
MapQuest for sponsoring Andy’s development time over the past few
months.

You can see a graphical representation of the development of the
Potlatch 2 code here:

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Congratulations to the entire Potlatch 2 team and thanks for this new editor!

Developers wishing to contribute to Potlatch 2 will find the code in
svn and can hack on it with the Open Source Flex compiler.

http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/editors/potlatch2/README.txt

Open an editing session in Potlatch 2

http://www.openstreetmap.org/edit?editor=potlatch2

Image of the Week: OpenStreetMap data in svg layers

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A screenshot of Illustrator showing a SVG file produced by Maperitive.
This new functionality is available in the newest release of
Maperitive.

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 of 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 #3

11/21/2010 – 11/28/2010

Every week a lot of things are happening in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) world. It can be hard to keep track of all the different communication channels and don’t miss any important news. That’s why we’ve created a short summary of all the news here. Enjoy!

For more news, especially regarding new tags and wiki pages, you can check-out the community-updates over here.

Authors: PascalJonas, Matthias & Brice.
We missed something? You want to help us collecting the news for next week’s issue? 
You can contact us via mail or Twitter.

 

 

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team: Proposal for Knight News Challenge

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The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team includes OpenStreetMap
contributors who are particularly interested in the intersection of
OpenStreetMap and humanitarian relief. HOT is applying for a Knight
News Challenge grant. And the grant-writers among them seek feedback
from the larger OpenStreetMap community.

Since the greater OpenStreetMap community has been such a
part of mapping in Haiti before submission we want to get your
feedback. Please look at it and let us know what you think.

Read the full text and their proposal here:

http://hot.openstreetmap.org/weblog/2010/11/hots-proposal-for-the-knight-news…

Project of the Month: Wheelchair accessibility

Navigation, maps and accessibility extend beyond the shortest drive to
a shop and the opening hours. The Project of the Month for December
2010 is to include wheelchair accessibility information as part of
your mapping. Learn more about how to map your maps more accessible
or the project page.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Project_of_the_week/2010/Nov_24

This is the a Project of the Month. Project of the Week returns
next week, while PotM will continue until January. 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
obession by contributing a Project of the Month.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Project_of_the_week/Proposals

Steps and chair photo by Tim Parkinson
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timparkinson/
is licensed CC-By http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Image of the Week: OpenStreetMap more prominent on Wikipedia

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OpenStreetMap from the no:Operahuset i Oslo Wikipedia page, showing
no:Kontraskjæret as a pop-up link. Screenshot of the Wikipedia page.
See the full size image on Wikipedia or here,

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 of the OpenStreetMap project.

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

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

OpenStreetMap founder Steve Coast joins Bing

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When Steve Coast, founder of OpenStreetMap and co-founder of CloudMade
announced in October that he was leaving CloudMade there was no
expectation that he would be idle for long. In the interim he decided
to revolutionize transit data by founding http://transiki.org/ took
some hang gliding lessons and by the way co-organized a great
geo-unconference in Denver last weekend.

But what else has Steve done lately?

He’s decided to revolutionize Bing Maps.

As announced today on his blog Steve Coast will be joining Microsoft
property, Bing Maps as Principal Architect on Bing Mobile.

And Microsoft is donating their global aerial imagery to OpenStreetMap
contributors for use in improving OpenStreetMap.

You will certainly want to read the complete announcement at the following link.

http://blog.stevecoast.com/im-working-at-microsoft-and-were-donating-ima

Update, further information on the Bing blog, here,

http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/maps/archive/2010/11/23/bing-engag…

Congratulations, Steve!