Mapping
- ZekOwney has mapped the locations of wastewater treatment plants in the Normandy region of France using data from the French Government’s National Water Data Reference Service.
- The Delighted Women Development Initiative, together with the Association for the Welfare of Women Liberians, started to train women in open mapping on International Women’s Day 2024. The aim is to improve their geospatial skills and support women’s advocacy.
- Requests for comments have been made for these proposals:
- Charging connectors, a scheme for tagging various types of electric vehicle charging connectors.
- opened=* to indicate if objects such as doors or gates are usually in an open state.
- natural=fiery_fountain, for marking natural springs where flammable gas emerges and burns.
- biosafety_level is intended to record the biosafety level of a laboratory.
- The elevator_dimensions proposal was adopted with 22 votes in favour, 0 against and 0 abstentions.
Community
- Sven Geggus, from OpenCampingMap, has calculated that currently only 47% of the campsites listed in OpenStreetMap have insufficient tagging. This is a significant improvement from 70% ten years ago. The progress is notable as the number of listed sites has grown from 58,875 to 172,234 during the same period. More statistics will be shared once the analysis script has completed.
- A article on ШТОСМ critiqued the common perception of OpenStreetMap as merely a map or a database. Instead, it argues that OSM reflects the real world and emphasises the importance of community efforts over technological solutions. It suggests that OSM challenges traditional boundaries between data and reality.
Local chapter news
- FOSSGISeV is seeking a Linux System Administrator to manage around ten Linux servers. The servers include mail servers with mailing lists, web servers, wikis, and GitLab. The role involves collaborating with OpenStreetMap administrators and other community projects, and supporting conference organisers. The expected workload is approximately 1 to 2 days per month and compensation will be on an hourly basis.
Events
- [1] Katja Haferkorn reported on the 21st FOSSGIS conference, which was held from 20 to 23 March in Hamburg. A full recording of the conference speakers can be accessed here .
- On Tuesday 2 April, at 7 pm (Brasília time), the Brazilian community will hold its monthly virtual meeting. The March meeting was a success and the community is invited to the April meeting. Discussions will cover current and future projects.
- The Grazer Linuxtage 2024 will be Austria’s largest open-source conference. It will feature a diverse programme, including workshops, presentations, and interactive sessions on OpenStreetMap, Linux, photovoltaics, game development, and digital security. The conference is organised by volunteers at the TU Graz campus and is open to all with free admission. The theme for the conference is Wolkenfrei (cloud-free).
- Marado and Paula Simoes shared their experiences of the OpenStreetMap workshop that took place during the Open Knowledge Braga 2024 event.
Education
- SeverinGeo advocated > introducing new contributors to OpenStreetMap through field mapping, highlighting the numerous advantages, including accessibility, reduced logistical needs, and a more engaging learning experience, drawing from personal experiences and shifts in mapping practices observed over the years. He also asks communities that are already doing this to share their feedback.
OSM in action
- NewsWeek published an OpenStreetMap based map using OpenMapTiles vector tiles with users’ preferred language.
Software
- MapRoulette has temporarily disabled Challenge and Project Leaderboards to address system overload issues, but plans to prioritise their return following community feedback highlighting their importance. A survey revealed that nearly half of respondents use the leaderboards on a monthly basis, with a particular focus on viewing personal leaderboards and having access to project and challenge level leaderboards.
- Kamil Monicz provided an update on the development of OpenStreetMap NextGen, highlighting the completion of a new settings page, the seamless handling of the 180th meridian, the introduction of system applications and test users, and progress on Notes and Changesets API 0.6, as well as thanking the sponsors of his project.
- OSM Traffic Sign Tool 2.0 is a platform dedicated to the cataloguing and mapping of traffic signs within the OpenStreetMap framework, in order to improve the accuracy and usefulness of mapping for transport and navigation purposes. You can help improve this tool on GitHub.
- komoot has introduced a feature that allows users to save their home address in their profile for easier trip planning, answering a long-standing request from its community. This update makes it easier to start or end a trip from home.
Programming
- Several alternative project ideas to be included in the Google Summer of Code 2024 have been published. Members of the OSM developer community are encouraged to identify ideas for projects, and indicate whether they would be willing to act as a mentor for a GSoC contributor attempting the project.
- Raphael de Assis shared some examples of overpass queries.
Releases
- GeoServer 2.25.0 has been released, fixing several security vulnerabilities that required admin access, and is recommended for production use. This update, made in conjunction with GeoTools 31.0 and GeoWebCache 1.25.0, also introduces the JTS Next Generation polygon intersection algorithm as a default for improved performance and updates the MapML extension.
- The Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology has released openrouteservice version 8.0, named ‘Wilfried’ as a tribute to Prof. Dr. Wilfried Juling, with significant updates such as improved configuration, Docker improvements, Norwegian language support, and optimised isochrone creation.
- The Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology launched version 1.0 of their ohsomeNow stats dashboard, developed in cooperation with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (we reported earlier), for monitoring contributions to OpenStreetMap in real-time. Version 1.0 features new functionality including OSM Data Topics display, a live mode for mapathons, hashtag search, data download options, and user-specific time zones for enhanced mapping event and campaign tracking.
Did you know …
- … CartoSVG offers an elegant solution for creating interactive SVG maps that are both beautiful and lightweight? It allows for easy integration into web pages by simply copying and pasting the exported file into HTML.
- … Krata Maps? This is an open source, Figma-like GeoJSON editor. It’s a fork of the original cloud-based GeoJSON editor and map maker for quickly creating, editing, and managing geo-spatial data in one place.
- … that the main difference between the two federating Panoramax instances is the licence being applied to the uploaded images? IGN is using the etalab-2.0 licence and OSM-FR is CC-BY-SA-4.0. OSM-FR is accepting images from outside of France, so that local communities can test Panoramax with the goal of having them deploy their own instance in the near future.
Note:
If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.
This weeklyOSM was produced by MatthiasMatthias, PierZen, SeverinGeo, Strubbl, TheSwavu, barefootstache, derFred, mcliquid, rtnf.
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