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I've been using OSM data for a side project I've been working on (an app to find "green" running routes, avoiding busy roads and preferring trails/rivers/parks,

I've been using OSM data for a side project I've been working on (an app to find "green" running routes, avoiding busy roads and preferring trails/rivers/parks, and optionally meeting some minimum target distance). It just would not have been possible without OSM's data, full stop. The tag data associated with each road ("way" in OSM parlance) is invaluable, as is the ability to work with all of this information on a planet-scale in a single database (I use osm2pgsql to import the whole planet into a single box with 256GB RAM, and have plenty of headroom to run my app on top of that too). The APIs provided by Google Maps and Apple Maps do not provide the functionality I want, even if I could pay their massive fees. Additionally, Google Maps' mapping of trails is much worse in my experience. Whilst the data is far from perfect in some areas, I am still extremely grateful that OSM exists, and will now make a donation via https://donate.openstreetmap.org/ https://donate.openstreetmap.org/

carstenhag 7y ago
Not sure if you already know this, but you could also use data on whether the streets are lit or not. OSMAnd uses this for example
- samcrawford 7y ago
  Funnily enough, that is one of the features it already supports (avoiding unlit streets). Another one is avoiding especially hilly routes.
  - asdf21 7y ago
    Is "hilly" a simple binary indicator on each street (or section of road) or is there an entire layer of elevation data included in the world data?
    - samcrawford 7y ago
      In my app, yes, it's a binary flag. But in the underlying data you can get detailed elevation data for every section of road worldwide that is readily usable in open source routing engines. GraphHopper supports STRM and CGIAR (two different data elevation data sources, available globally and free to use).
      - pastage 7y ago
        SRTM is pretty bad, but good enough until height data is easier to work with.

carstenhag 7y ago

Not sure if you already know this, but you could also use data on whether the streets are lit or not. OSMAnd uses this for example

samcrawford 7y ago
Funnily enough, that is one of the features it already supports (avoiding unlit streets). Another one is avoiding especially hilly routes.
- asdf21 7y ago
  Is "hilly" a simple binary indicator on each street (or section of road) or is there an entire layer of elevation data included in the world data?
  - samcrawford 7y ago
    In my app, yes, it's a binary flag. But in the underlying data you can get detailed elevation data for every section of road worldwide that is readily usable in open source routing engines. GraphHopper supports STRM and CGIAR (two different data elevation data sources, available globally and free to use).
    - pastage 7y ago
      SRTM is pretty bad, but good enough until height data is easier to work with.