March 10th, 2014 – March 24th, 2014
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

• The OSM project has been recognized by the Free Software Foundation Europe with the Document Freedom Day Award 2014.
• The HOT has an emergency request to map Guinea Conakry – Gueckedou, Macenta, Kissidougou. You can read more in the initial mailing list post and on the OSM wiki page.
• Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) has published an “Open data for resilience initiative – Field Guide” and mentioned the important role of OSM and HOT for disaster management.
• A new version of MapRoulette has been launched. It is a gamified approach to fixing OSM bugs that breaks common OSM data problems into micro tasks.
• mkmap, who created OSM Garmin maps, received a major routing upgrade. Read the full announcement.
• OSM iD editor usability study: Looking for test persons.
• The upcoming FOSS4G-Europe conference will take place at the Jacobs-University in Bremen, Germany.
• OSM Switzerland created its own OSM map style which is also available on github.
• Severin Menard is a new member of the HOT OSM board and he wrote a blog post about his latest activities.
• Richard Weait wrote a blog post about “Courtyards! Multipolygon Relations in OpenStreetMap“.
• OSM contributor Stalfur described how he mapped Botswana via Facebook.
• The weather radar screens at the Melbourne Formula1 Grand Prix used OSM.
• OSM contributor RoadLessTraveled reviewed different tools for “Quickly Mapping Stores & Street Numbers w Android“.
• Felix Butzbach created a Pacman-style game based on OSM maps for Android. Give it a try.

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

February 24th, 2014 – March 10th, 2014
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

• The U.S. Department of State wrote a blog post about the “MapGive” campaign which makes “it easier for new online mappers to learn & get involved creating open map data for humanitarian & development causes.“
• “Six months on from SotM 2013” and “how you are getting on with your pledges to OSM”?
• A new version (6891) of the JOSM OSM editor has been released and allows HTTPS access to the OSM API. The JOSM Mappaint Style Coloured Streets 2.0 has been updated too.
• The Geofabrik extended their free OSM “Point of Interest” (POI) shape file downloads.
• OSM contributors AndiG88 and vvoovv about “SPAM” problem in the OSM contributor diaries and how to solve it.
• Simon Poole blogged about the “Current work on vespucci“. What is Vespucci? An OSM-Editor for Android. Vespucci also supports the tag name suggestion function which is already implemented in the OSM iD editor.
• OpenLoveMap: A project for more love. (German) blog post by contributor thomersch.
• OSM contributor dalek2point3 wrote a summary about the fixing progress of the imported TIGER data in the US. He also wrote a blog post about “What parts of the US are well taken care of by OSM Contributors?” with some interesting analyses.
• “OSM provider CloudMade shuts its doors on small users“, blog post by Eric Jiang.
• IBM Business Analytics Proven Practices: Using OpenStreetMap In IBM Cognos BI Reports.
• The OpenRailWayMap has a new server, give the services a try here.
• Just in time, the OpenSnowMap can create individual resort mapping incentives.
• OSM contributor bdiscoe wrote a blog post about “JOSM scripting plugin: be a power user!“. Please be careful when doing “mass-edits” and read OSM’s “Mechanical Edit Policy” wiki page!
• A new open-source 3D city platform (ViziCities) that uses OSM data has been released on GitHub.
• A new release of the (open-source) FlightGear Flight Simulator that uses OSM data has been released.
• There is a new mailing list that covers topics such as: “Outdoor sports, wilderness and natural features mapping, everything from scuba diving to paragliding, from undersea volcanoes to Mount Everest, related software and talk.“
• Robin Lovelace tested and compared web map APIs: Google vs OpenLayers vs Leaflet.

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

February 10th, 2014 – February 24th, 2014
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

• First ideas for this year’s OpenStreetMap 10th Anniversary Birthday party are summarized in the OSM wiki. We’ll be partying at several locations around the world!
• The OSM sys admins have enabled encryption (SSL) to all openstreetmap.org websites which enhances user privacy.
• Commercial OSM users can show their support and join the OSM Foundation (OSMF).
• Generate revenue for OSM by using dedicated links when shopping at Amazon.
• Jochen Topf announced that Taginfo (a system that finds and aggregates information about OSM tags) has been moved on an OSMF Server. Harry Wood provides some additional information in his OSM blog post here. Jochen is also working on a data repository where you can test your developed OSM applications.
• A study by the Red Cross stressed that armchair-mapping can not replace on-the-ground mapping for the assessment of destroyed buildings.
• DaCor wrote in his “iD Newbie friendly feature request” post about adding IRC functionality to the OSM iD editor.
• Saman Bemel Benrud and “Randomness in map design“.
• OSM contributor SK53-OSM wrote a comprehensive blog post about the (in)correct OSM tagging of “wood, … or is that forest“.
• OSM contributor igeopr about his “Project: 2014 Puerto Rico Roads Update“.
• OSM Spain has a nice (Spanish) campaign to bring a friend to the OSM project. Similar to the famous “Best of OSM“, they created a “Best of OSM Spain“.

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

January 27th, 2014 – February 10th, 2014
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

• Wired.com: “At Sochi Olympics, Crowdsourced OpenStreetMap Trounces Google Maps“, but Zverik clarified: “Sochi was not mapped for the Olympics“.
• Grant Slater provided some information about two new OSM servers (Clifford und Ascalon).
• The Congo Mapping (#mapcongo) party will take place on Febrauray 15th, in Berlin (Germany). Come and help improve the map!
• The next Karlsruhe (Garmany) OSM hack weekend will take place on Saturday, 15th. They are also planning some activities for the #mapcongo mapping party.
• The next Berlin hack weekend will take place directly after the FOSSGIS conference on March, 22nd-23rd 2014. More information in the wiki.
• Pascal Neis created a new website which can filter OSM changesets by a specific comment.
• Rodolphe Quiédeville created some real-time charts of OSM edits.
• Blog post by Derick Rethans about “Hunting for Postboxes in the UK“.
• Mikel Maron and his “HOT Year“.
• OSM contributor 51114u9 created several HOT OSM tasks for the Bolivian floods.
• Pascal Neis and Dennis Zielstra published a new publication about “Recent Developments and Future Trends in Volunteered Geographic Information Research: The Case of OpenStreetMap“.
• If you trace objects from areal imagery, please be aware of the imagery offset. You can find important information in the wiki. JOSM has a plugin for the offsets correction.
• The OSM contributor svimik created some up-to-date statistics about OSM Estonia.
• OSM US has some “scholarships specifically targeted to women” for the State Of The Map US conference in Washington D.C.

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

January 13th, 2014 – January 27th, 2014
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

• Richard Fairhurst wrote some code that adds routing to the main OSM webpage. Code and Running Demo, click “Get Directions”.
• Sticker: “We’re On The Map!”
• The OSM contributor cosmicpop created the 20,000,000th changeset.
• More than 100,000 map notes have been reported by now. Some statistics.
• The Humanitarian OSM Team (HOT): Support Haiyan/Yolanda Reconstruction – Contribute Public Use UaV (Drone) Imagery.
• Harry Wood published the slides, notes and an audio recording of his “Typhoon Crisis Mapping ODI talk“. He also wrote a blog post for the HOT website with “Some editing stats from the Typhoon Haiyan response“.
• The Google Crisis Map for Tacloban City now also supports OSM.
• Richard Weait wrote a blog post about the quite interesting topic of mapping for the OSM render engine.
• Serge Wroclawski about „Edit Wars in OpenStreetMap“.
• Tom Chance used OSM data of London for strategic planning.
• Frederik Ramm published a webpage that calculates the number and size of map tiles of a given bounding box.
• Node-tileserver has been published. It is a lightweight tileserver using NodeJS. It can serve bitmap and vector tiles and is designed as a fast and easy-to-install tileserver that renders OpenStreetMap data.
• Rail routing worldwide based on OSM data.
• How to make an OSM wallpaper.

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

December 30th, 2013 – Januaray 13th, 2014
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

• Buenos Aires (Argentina) will host the next State of the Map (SotM) 2014 conference.
• Why the World Needs OSM.
• Goodbye 2013, Hello 2014!
• OSM: A Year of Edits 2013.
• Mappy New Year! What are your plans for 2014 and for the 10th anniversary of OSM?
• OSM UK: What should we do this year?
• Attribution and all that (a rant).
• How many mappers are there in Switzerland?
• A report of the Salvador (Bahia, Brazil) mapping party.
• HOT Activation in Central African Republic: Review of current progresses.
• The next Karlsruhe (Germany) hack weekend will take place on February 15th/16th, 2014.
• Changes made in the OSM Kort game are updated in the OSM database now.
• OSM routing with GraphHopper and Java on Raspberry Pi.
• Badita Florin published the first edition of state of the map Romania 2013.

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

December 16th, 2013 – December 30th, 2013
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

• The call for presentations for the upcoming State of the Map Europe (SotM-EU) is available here.
• A new version of the JOSM OSM editor has been published. For Windows users switching to JAVA version 7 is recommended.
• Simon Poole updated the “Street Name Completeness Statistics” for Switzerland.
• SK53 wrote a blog post about mapping off-piste OSM ski routes for freeriding.
• Steven Vance wrote a blog post about his work to ensure a proper bike routing in the Chicago Bike Guide.
• The Hiking and Trail Riding map got a small redesign and is now again available in English. Give it a try here.
• OSM contributor MorbZ published an iOS app for displaying and editing opening hours of OSM shops, bars, restaurants and more.

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

December 2nd, 2013 – December 16th, 2013
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

• The next State of the Map Europe (SotM-EU) will take place June 13-15, 2014 at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences (Germany).
• The next State of the Map United States (Sotm-US) will take place April 12-13, 2014 in Washington DC.
• The next US Winter Editathon 2014 will be on January 18-19, 2014. Find your location here.
• The next Berlin (Germany) OSM hack weekend will take place on January 24-25, 2014.
• Bluehost.com donated two new OSM tile servers.
• An additional OSM database server has been added to the main OSM infrastructure in December 2013.
• Simon Poole published some new OSM contributor statistics.
• A blog post about the collaboration between the British Red Cross, the American Red Cross and the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team project during the Typhoon Haiyan response.
• A blog post by Kate Chapman about “OpenStreetMap and Yolanda: A Report from Manila“.
• Richard Fairhurst and others created a new bike map for the UK.
• Andy Allan wrote a blog post about the OSM elevation tag with its value of ’0.00000000000′ and broken OSM imports.
• Aaron Lidman created a name-suggestion-index which helps with correct spelling and tagging in OSM. This new functionality has also been integrated into the iD OSM editor.

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

November 18th, 2013 – December 2nd, 2013
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

• A redesign of OpenStreetMap.org is live since the beginning of December, 2013. You can find additional information in a blog post here.
• A set of improvements has been pushed to uMap. With uMap you can create a map with OpenStreetMap layers within a minute and embed them into your website.
• Seth Vincent wrote an introduction to leaflet. Additionally, Chris Hill published a tutorial (1 & 2) on using leaflet. Leaflet is an open-source JavaScript library for mobile-friendly interactive maps.
• During the #hackess hackathon in Paris, a route planning prototype for wheelchair users has been implemented based on OSRM and OSM data. A demo is online here.
• A number of Spanish video tutorials showing how to use the OSM JOSM editor.
• A blog post by Peter Karich on how to set up your own OSM graphhopper routing service.
• OSM France started a quality study around French OSM administrative boundaries.
• Rafa Gutierrez wrote a blog post on how to create GoPro video maps.
• OSM contributor Belecker published a new JOSM plugin (Tracer2) to extract areas, with focus on buildings from graphics (no photos). Read more in the OSM wiki.
• Adam Jordanek created a website which shows bars, pubs, restaurants and other facilities with their corresponding opening hours. Give it a try here.
• SK53 wrote a blog post about the last OSM hack weekend in London.

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

November 4th, 2013 – November 18th, 2013
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

• Several articles have been published about the OSM post response activities in the Philippines (Nextgov, The Guardian, The Atlantic or The New York Times). In addition several photos of printed OSM maps that were used during the field work have been shown. After 15 days overall more than 1,500 OSM contributors from almost 80 countries created nearly 3.8 million map changes! Live changes can be seen here. Several blog posts have been written about the Mapathons: London, Sevilla, Valencia, Graz, Heidelberg and many more … A website visualizing OSM before and after the typhoon is online here.
• A beginner’s guide to getting involved with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT).
• “The work of the OSM Foundation” and its working groups has been presented at the State of the Map 2013. A video of this talk is online now.
• Marguerite Feenstra about “The future of OpenStreetMap“. The artcile includes several statements from Simon Poole (chairman of the OSMF), Eric Gundersen (Mapbox) or Kate Chapman (OSMF & HOT).
• Frederik Ramm wrote an interesting blog post about why the cluster size matters in the case of “map-on-a-stick”.
• Wille wrote a tutorial on how to create a map with markers based on OSM data. Malenki presented an alternative approach using Overpass API.
• Martijn van Exel improved his TIGER vs. OSM battle grid.
• Jim McAndrew wrote a blog post about “OpenStreetMap and the Public Domain“.
• The OpenSnowMap has a new map style and legend.
• The pgRouting project is asking for support to implement Highway Hierarchies.
• Cyclistic is a new webpage that computes bicycle routes in Denmark based on OSM data.
• Free Garmin OSM maps for the Alps (German webpage).
• A new version of Leaflet has been released. You can find additional information and plans for the future in this blog post.
• “Mapbox Vignettes” enables the possibility to create static country map images by name. Tom MacWright showed how hexagons can be used to illustrate point files. He also released a script that converts GeoJSON to KML and published “A free open introduction to geo“.
• The KortGame won the ITG innovation award. The web-app uses a mobile gamification concept to motivate users to fix OSM data.

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