29 ms·

Openstreetmap, a global map for worldwide insight

518 points by liotier 6y ago

m-app 6y ago
The last time I looked for an alternative for Google/Apple Maps some months ago, I couldn't really find a decent OSM (or even Mapbox)-based app for iOS. Any recommendations from anyone? I really like the web-based Openroute Service [1] that was shared here recently, but AFAIK this doesn't have an app version. [1]: https://maps.openrouteservice.org/directions https://maps.openrouteservice.org/directions
- globular-toast 6y ago
  Maps.me or Osmand. The latter is more powerful and not just a "Google maps replacement".
  - zelphirkalt 6y ago
    I found OSMand to be terribly slow on my old phone and maps.me sort of OK-ish in performance. My phone is quite old. Searching locations in both of them is not perfect. One sometimes needs to know how to search for things and treat the UI carefully, patiently waiting till it has finished showing results.
    - globular-toast 6y ago
      Searching locations (geocoding) is never perfect. Google seems to be the best at it, though. Probably because they've put significant effort into doing that specifically and they simply have access to more data than any other organisation. OSM isn't about geocoding, it's about building a geographic database of the world. Geocoding is just one application and not one that seen a great deal of attention, relatively speaking. Personally I often use Google maps for geocoding if I have to but most of the time I already know where I'm going on the map so have no need for it.
  - madvoid 6y ago
    +1 for maps.me, it's my goto app when traveling
  - gnufx 6y ago
    Unfortunately, Maps.me on android is either replete with trackers or now basically doesn't work (the f-droid expurgated version), though the question wasn't about android. At least that was the case with f-droid fairly recently -- due to changes in how the maps are now distributed as far as I remember.
- japanuspus 6y ago
  I think the issue is that for the mass market, OSM is a technical detail that the apps only mention in passing, if at all. The best iOS apps with OSM I have found are [Guru maps] (formerly Galileo) and [Pocket Earth]: Have been using paid versions of both for the last 5 (?) years, switching back and forth. Currently on Guru after they added contour maps and offline routing a while back. Haven't checked if Pocket has this yet... [Guru]: https://gurumaps.app/ https://gurumaps.app/ [Pocket Earth]: https://pocketearth.com/ https://pocketearth.com/
- pella 6y ago
  Comparison of iOS applications https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_iOS_applications https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_iOS_applic... Comparison of Android applications https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Android_applications https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Android_ap...
- Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
  Depends on your use case, but for outdoor mapping, I really like MapOut.
- mac1ek 6y ago
  Personally, I use Maps.me for simple tasks like finding street, shop or other POIs. OSMand is my favorite tool when navigating during cycling trips because of far more advanced rendering options. Both apps are great.
  - berkes 6y ago
    Osmand, as the name implies, is Android only, though. Not a problem for me, since I use the fdroid version, but OP was specifically asking for an iOS app. EDIT: as below, I stand corrected. Please ignore my false statement above.
    - bpye 6y ago
      It’s not (anymore)! I was pleasantly surprised when I found it on the App Store [0]. [0] - https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/osmand-maps-travel-navigate/id934850257 https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/osmand-maps-travel-navigate/id...
- Numberwang 6y ago
  Windy
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  mapy.cz is a great app, especially for hiking/cycling. It shows hiking and cycling marked routes and contour lines, has offline maps. I have never used it for car-based navigation, so I am unsure is it working well.
- ohples 6y ago
  Depends on what you definition of OSM based map is. Technically Apple Maps is, since its using data from them, as well as others: If you click the info box in Apple Maps underneath the Tom Tom logo it says © Openstreetmap contributers and other providers Full list: https://gspe21-ssl.ls.apple.com/html/attribution-156.html https://gspe21-ssl.ls.apple.com/html/attribution-156.html
- nikisweeting 6y ago
  I like Cartograph Maps 2, it supports OSM among other layers, and works on all the platforms.
INTPenis 6y ago
I tried making an app that would leverage OSM late last year and was disappointed at the amount of false or stale information in there. I went into the experience thinking it was the wikipedia of maps. But it's not, wikipedia has much better content control than this. My theory is that it's too easy for random people to enter data into OSM. It should require some sort of validation of the contributor. And each contribution should have a discussion, just like wikipedia talk pages. I know that sounds like a lot of talk pages but I believe some of those contributions require community discussion to improve.
- rathel 6y ago
  Examples, please. There is bad info here and there, but it's minority (if you want 100% accuracy it's delusional, even Google Maps has a ton of crap, starting from skylights that AI recognized as buildings [3] to businesses you can't even tell they exist). Also, for a long time now each changeset can be discussed. [1] I have a hunch you may be from a country where the community has not took up too much [2]. These tend to have more dubious data. [1] https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2014/11/02/introducing-changeset-discussions/ https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2014/11/02/introducing-change... [2] https://osmstats.neis-one.org/?item=countries https://osmstats.neis-one.org/?item=countries [3] https://goo.gl/maps/knpT8eRR4YhB6Sm86 https://goo.gl/maps/knpT8eRR4YhB6Sm86 - look at the shopping mall in satellite and map view
  - ucosty 6y ago
    Not OP, but I'm in the UK and find the OSM data to be not all that useful. The streets themselves seem mostly accurate, but there is almost no building data. If you had to rely on OSM data to get around, your best bet would be to live and work in northeast London, within the circular.
    - Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
      YMMV really. OSM in the UK has orders of magnitude more cycling and walking data than Google, for example, but fewer buildings. I don't generally find I need buildings in my day-to-day mapping needs but everyone's different I guess.
ximeng 6y ago
The conference this is advertising is rather buried in this long article. It's tomorrow, online and free, and the talks sound interesting and varied. Schedule below: https://2020.stateofthemap.org/ https://2020.stateofthemap.org/
- yagurastation 6y ago
  Thanks - lol, hopefully this comment doesn't get buried as well. mapbox, ESRI, Geotab, and Grab will have "sponsor booths" as well. See https://2020.stateofthemap.org/#sponsors https://2020.stateofthemap.org/#sponsors
- blinding-streak 6y ago
  Nice. This is how I prefer ads to be done. Relevant, unobtrusive, useful, timely, and not in your face.
- lioeters 6y ago
  Sweet, it's in Cape Town - well, all online, but I happen to be in the same timezone (opposite hemisphere), and the times of the talks are perfect for catching them during the day this weekend.
ionwake 6y ago
If I develop an app that uses openstreetmap do I need to pay a subscription to be able to download the map tilesets etc?
- Heliosmaster 6y ago
  OSM is a dataset. That's free and open. There are different tile servers (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tile_servers https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tile_servers) but they each have a different policy (https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/ https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/) In a nutshell: you can't just use them in production for your app. Development shouldn't be a problem. What you're talking about is precisely the commercial service that Mapbox offers. OSM (+ some extra stuff). Alternatively, you're free to spin up your own tile server. That way you don't pay anyone else (but you pay your server).
- speedgoose 6y ago
  No, but you can consider donating and if your app is popular, you should probably switch to a commercial tileserver such as mapbox. https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/ https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/
- bhdzllr 6y ago
  Not necessarily, but it might be faster. Basically you need map data (in form of tiles) and you need a way to show and interact with your map (e. g. Leaflet). Here is a summary and one way to do it: https://switch2osm.org/the-basics/ https://switch2osm.org/the-basics/ Tiles can be images or vector based. I also recommend having a look at https://openmaptiles.org/ https://openmaptiles.org/ if you want vector based tiles. You can generate your own tileset with this (output is a mbtiles SQLite file based on a open source schema; the schema describes which information go into the database and later can be shown) or download a set of tiles (because e. g. for the world it will take a lot of ressources and a long timeto generate a tileset). There are also servers (like tileservergl or tileservergl-light) that can serve the tilset - not only as vector tiles but also as graphical image tiles. Raw OSM data can be downloaded for free from https://download.geofabrik.de/ https://download.geofabrik.de/
- 6y ago
tarsinge 6y ago
A confusion that I had at first before going further into the Openstreetmap ecosystem: OSM is not a ready to use app and some alternative to Google Maps the app, it's a lower level database on which front-ends renderings with a tileset can be built to serve different usages. If you go to openstreetmap.org you will not see much, but click on "Edit" and zoom in close and you'll get a better idea of the data layer. Edit: to further clarify the stack, Mapbox is a collection of tools for creating maps from OSM data.
- alphaomegacode 6y ago
  As someone new to mapping and who wants to learn in a React or JS/web context, are there any articles,tutorials, books or videos you would suggest?
  - tarsinge 6y ago
    I think starting with Leaflet and building from that should give you a good understanding of the building blocks for web mapping: https://leafletjs.com/examples.html https://leafletjs.com/examples.html
- mtmail 6y ago
  https://benmaps.fr/ https://benmaps.fr/ is an example of using mapbox components (which in turn use OSM data) to create a Google Maps app.
  - Krasnol 6y ago
    That's a really sexy map. I like the traffic switch.
- lukeqsee 6y ago
  Correct. OSM has spawned many companies, Mapbox being the most well-known that offers general services.
- teambayleaf 6y ago
  A really cool frontend for OSM is https://mapscii.me https://mapscii.me. You can try it out via: $ telnet mapscii.me (Use arrow keys to move, and a/z to zoom in/zoom out) I was totally blown away when I first connected to it.
kristopolous 6y ago
Let me plug OpenLayers, which uses OSM and is way harder to use than google maps but once you stop hating on it you realize it can do a bunch of things that google maps really can't and is more versatile in numerous ways - ymmv as always. (https://openlayers.org/en/latest/examples/ https://openlayers.org/en/latest/examples/). I've found it more useful for specific applications that I build because it's far more customizable. The map truly feels like it's part of the app and not just some mapbox or leaflet thing sitting on top of gmaps. Again, these aren't hard facts, just stylistic preferences on my part. The ES6 is not really a dealbreaker if you're using something more traditional. I just make my own "map.js" that exposes the interfaces I need, then I transpile it and include it like anything else. I know that sounded really complicated, but my package.json is 10 lines, that's it. This way you can use it in a much more conventional classical way without jumping the whole project over to ES6 syntax.
- veza 6y ago
  I feel like this is the story of open source tools. Way harder to use but once you know the tool the power and freedom is much greater, and even the pleasure of using it. I'm also thinking of cli vs gui here. Sounds like delayed gratification.
- 7952 6y ago
  I find that if you need more complex mapping features then OpenLayers is really good. It can do an amazing amount straight out of the box, but it does take time to get used to the API. It is more like an actual mapping or GIS program. But for building functionality outside of the map I tend to use Leaflet instead due to the ease of use. You can treat the map more like a black box and the API is easier to use.
  - kristopolous 6y ago
    Absolutely. If you want something that's no hassles there's a lot of great options. Heck I'll just do the straight Google maps api often, it's really easy. OpenLayer is like vim/emacs, some people think the hassle is worth it.
geokon 6y ago
Just wondering if I could get some suggestions from the community I've been asked, preliminarily, by the lab I work for to produce an application that will overlay daily/weekly water quality measurements on a map. I've got no idea where to start as I've never done anything GIS - but I do like keeping things open source. Would this be something to integrate with OSM? The problem seems simple and generic enough that I'd expect it can be done with zero programming. I just need to find the right place to feed in a table of coordinates and measurements I know the problem spec is a bit vague, but what's a good place to start? And if I do need to write an app, is there any way I could stick Clojure/JVM?
- punnerud 6y ago
  https://leafletjs.com https://leafletjs.com ? If there is a lot of data, you have to take the zoom-level into consideration and aggregate the data on the server side. Most news papers I have seen use LeafletJS, and Wikipedia are using it
- mtmail 6y ago
  https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/ https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/ for quick table->map creation.
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  > Would this be something to integrate with OSM? Likely you will use OSM map as a background map. Remember to include a clearly visible attribution!
- berkes 6y ago
  For more complex GIS-data exploration, visualisation and research, I'd suggest QGIS. https://www.qgis.org/ https://www.qgis.org/ It is not the most userfriendly (aimed at GIS professionals) but it does have a large, open and friendly community around it, making lots of tutorials, manuals, introductionary material and so on. Edit: especially your type of "problem" is what qgis is good at: you have a CSV, maybe a postGIS database, some old scans of maps maybe; a government provided shapefile of the waterways and so on. And with qgis you can all project them over Google/OSM/Bing/Mapbox maps, mix, mash, filter, extract and so on. It is a desktop software, so publishing your result would probably mean "make some PDFs" or "render a set of PNGs" or so.
faemir 6y ago
This is a little tangential, but does anyone have a strong recommendation for a good ios osm based app? Strong cycling capabilities are extra appreciated.
timonoko 6y ago
downvoted
- Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
  OSM has only been running since 2004; tiles have never been served from d.tile.openstreetmap.org; and just because a volunteer-funded project doesn't want to provide you with unlimited free ponies/tiles doesn't mean the project is dying. The "rules and regulations" are at https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/ https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/ . The solutions are there at "Alternative OpenStreetMap Tile Providers".
- tobias3 6y ago
  The indication that it is "dying" is that they are blocking your server/app? They state pretty clearly that you should use your own tile server or use a commercial tile service if you are a heavy user: https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/api/ https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/api/ https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Commercial_OSM_Software_and_Services https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Commercial_OSM_Software_...
lukeqsee 6y ago
For anyone looking to migrate to an OpenStreetMap-backed map and location data provider, https://switch2osm.org https://switch2osm.org has a good overview of how, why, and who is offering services. I’m partial to my own (in bio), of course, but I would be happy to answer questions for anyone looking to switch. Respond or email me (also in bio).
- fouc 6y ago
  Why is it hard to setup our own tile "provider" ?
  - rburhum 6y ago
    Because it is not just installing various server side software components and setting up client software to consume it - you also have to deal with processing data to do it. Once you have done it a few times it is quite easy, but the amount of details for the beginner can be overwhelming.
  - ohgodplsno 6y ago
    Rendering tiles for a single country at most levels is a massive database and a few days of processing. Then, network costs are insane.
  - lukeqsee 6y ago
    The difficulty depends on what size of market you're trying to serve at what reliability target with geographic constraints, how often you want to update your data, and how many map tiles / second you want to serve. Consider a few different scenarios: 1. If you're trying to serve a single website and map style, with limited traffic in one region, this fairly easily accomplished using a single map tile server using one of the established methods (something like 8 cores, 32GB of RAM, and a few hundred GBs of disk will get you most of the way there). The difficulty is mostly determine how you want to set it up and then provisioning the server to do it. This process will probably take you a few days. Updates will be infrequent, map data will be stale, and speed will be tolerable in your targeted geographic region. 2. Let's say you take a step up. You need to serve global traffic with one style, but only a few requests / second. You can still do this via a single tile server, but now you need a CDN to make it fast. Cache misses will be slow since it has to render and then send the tile to the CDN (up to 500ms of latency due to geographic constraints and cache fill times). 3. Let's say you now need multiple styles, global traffic, 10s of tile requests / second, and good reliabilty. Now you need to distribute your servers, so you'll probably need three or four servers of at least the above mentioned specs, you need to keep them in sync. 4. Now let's say you need multiple styles, global traffic, and up-to-date data. You'll need to keep the OSM data stored locally so you can update it (minimum 500GB in Postgres + PostGIS). You need to distribute this all around the world. You need to handle updates, but do them in sync. All of these are short of actually offering a commercial service for multiple companies, since in that case you need a global service structure, a CDN that's pretty efficient, enough tile servers to handle spikes in demand (pretty common in map tile services), and probably a couple layers of cache to keep everything moving smoothly. There are a few projects that make this easier. For instance, openmaptiles.org is what our solution was modeled after (and we still use their schema, mostly unchanged), but in the end it's hard because it's a lot of data, that requires a lot of compute (either up-front or at a moments notice) to be responsive, and requires a lot of orchestration to keep it all well-oiled.
lihaciudaniel 6y ago
You really believes this holds any competition against Google maps?
- detaro 6y ago
  Yes. not for everyone and everything, but yes. Especially if on foot or bike, but in my area it generally feels like the better map. (and in reverse I'm sure there's areas of the world where OSM is lacking in detail) I basically only use GMaps to search for businesses. And of course I can use OSM data in many ways I can't use Google data.
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  Car navigation? Locating shops? Generally no, and overtaking Google Maps is hard in this fields. Hiking, cycling - Google Maps is not usable, at least in places that I visited, while OSM was great. Doing anything interesting with data, like making own map, making map-based decorations (I made some laser-cut maps), research involving geodata, data analysis and anything more interesting - it requires access to data. OpenStreetMap is allowing to do things completely out of scope of Google Maps, so in many cases it is not even competing. But if you are individual driving car and you are not trying to eliminate Google from your life? Then Google Maps app is often superior.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  I rely on Openstreetmap instead of Google Maps for a few things. Most notably, Google extremely de-emphasizes rail infrastructure (except in Japan). In addition, Openstreetmap also does a better job of laying out political boundaries for more minor polities than Google.
- yarrel 6y ago
  Yes https://opensource.com/osm https://opensource.com/osm
charliebrownau 6y ago
Shame OSM dropped its map system and swaped to apple
devill285 6y ago
I would highly recommend to use http://maptiler.com/maps http://maptiler.com/maps, they provide easy way, how you can customize your own map. You can also host it on their cloud. Really neat.
canistel 6y ago
One feature that has impressed me is that maps are exportable as SVG. This does comes in handy once in a while...
nanna 6y ago
Anyone able to suggest a free approach to pull up GPS coordinates based on an address search for an OSM/leaflet.js based app?
- berkes 6y ago
  Are you looking for something self-hosted? Because there are tons (and tons) of SAAS "geocoding" services around already. If self-hosting, have a look at this https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Search_engines https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Search_engines overview. I'm biased (I help with the development and build my latest project on top of it), but I love mimirsbrunn https://github.com/CanalTP/mimirsbrunn https://github.com/CanalTP/mimirsbrunn. Mostly because it is fast, small and relatively easy to deploy (courtesy to Rust). It uses an old (2.x) elasticsearch as backend, so that is a major downside.
0ld 6y ago
as long as they show part of my country as part of another country, i’m not touching it with a stick
- aembleton 6y ago
  Go and edit it!
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Users that repeatedly edit contested boundaries are blocked from editing. So that doesn't help with the objection.
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  OSM is mapping reality as it is, not as it should be. Is this part of country controlled by the other country?
- mapmeld 6y ago
  Is this an https://openstreetmap.in https://openstreetmap.in issue or Crimea or ?
markstos 6y ago
The last three or four backpacking trips I've gone on, I found the OSM data wasn't completely accurate or complete. In each case I went in and fixed it based on other data sources like Strava Heatmap, primary source maps or firsthand GPS traces. OSM is good, but it's not magic. For critical uses, check a second data source!
- berkes 6y ago
  But that goes for any map. Maps are, by definition, outdated. They will have mistakes. They will have abstractions of our messy world that go awry at some point. OSM is in some areas by far the most accurate and up-to-date source (which is als othe reason why for several areas, both Bing maps and Apple maps use OSM as source). In others it is not. I often give talks about OSM and always use this: "Google, for example, wants to make profit, their maps are just another canvas to put ads on. This is not bad. But it does mean, that in places (I pull open a map of Tjad where Google maps show large areas of Nothing; Tjad, is a lot of nothing -sand, really- but it is obvious Google has no interest in making that map anything good) where there is no money to be made, Google won't drive around with streetview cars, they won't buy datasets to merge, and they won't spend effort improving or validating the maps there."
maelito 6y ago
And this is my attempt at ranking the big french cities by pedestrian area : https://villes.plus/piétonnes https://villes.plus/piétonnes
gen220 6y ago
OSM is a really cool idea, and a fantastic dataset! For people curious about what it's like to use OSM in a huge company, a couple engineers from facebook were recently on a podcast discussing it: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2020/04/17/facebook-openstreetmap-engineering-with-saurav-mapatra-and-jacob-wasserman/ https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2020/04/17/facebook-ope... Some interesting tidbits: FB are hyper-conscious of "graffiti-edits" that can sometimes sneak into OSM, so they built a system to self-host the OSM data, which periodically and selectively merges chunks of data from upstream, using fancy algorithms to flag "suspicious" edits upstream.
alec_kendall 6y ago
I’ve actually been creating a monetization strategy for my online website that lets users purchase map skins in the game.
amachefe 6y ago
I have contributed heavily to google maps but have recently tried to do same in OSM. However, that proves to be very difficult
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  I am quite curious what was the main blocker.
rendaw 6y ago
OSM is also one of the few remaining websites on the internet that allows bring-your-own OpenID 2.0 login! I put together a tiny personal OID server (plug: https://gitlab.com/rendaw/oidle https://gitlab.com/rendaw/oidle) and OSM was one of the only public places I could test it...

518 points by liotier 6y ago

The last time I looked for an alternative for Google/Apple Maps some months ago, I couldn't really find a decent OSM (or even Mapbox)-based app for iOS. Any recommendations from anyone? I really like the web-based Openroute Service [1] that was shared here recently, but AFAIK this doesn't have an app version. [1]: https://maps.openrouteservice.org/directions https://maps.openrouteservice.org/directions

globular-toast 6y ago
Maps.me or Osmand. The latter is more powerful and not just a "Google maps replacement".
- zelphirkalt 6y ago
  I found OSMand to be terribly slow on my old phone and maps.me sort of OK-ish in performance. My phone is quite old. Searching locations in both of them is not perfect. One sometimes needs to know how to search for things and treat the UI carefully, patiently waiting till it has finished showing results.
  - globular-toast 6y ago
    Searching locations (geocoding) is never perfect. Google seems to be the best at it, though. Probably because they've put significant effort into doing that specifically and they simply have access to more data than any other organisation. OSM isn't about geocoding, it's about building a geographic database of the world. Geocoding is just one application and not one that seen a great deal of attention, relatively speaking. Personally I often use Google maps for geocoding if I have to but most of the time I already know where I'm going on the map so have no need for it.
- madvoid 6y ago
  +1 for maps.me, it's my goto app when traveling
- gnufx 6y ago
  Unfortunately, Maps.me on android is either replete with trackers or now basically doesn't work (the f-droid expurgated version), though the question wasn't about android. At least that was the case with f-droid fairly recently -- due to changes in how the maps are now distributed as far as I remember.
japanuspus 6y ago
I think the issue is that for the mass market, OSM is a technical detail that the apps only mention in passing, if at all. The best iOS apps with OSM I have found are [Guru maps] (formerly Galileo) and [Pocket Earth]: Have been using paid versions of both for the last 5 (?) years, switching back and forth. Currently on Guru after they added contour maps and offline routing a while back. Haven't checked if Pocket has this yet... [Guru]: https://gurumaps.app/ https://gurumaps.app/ [Pocket Earth]: https://pocketearth.com/ https://pocketearth.com/
pella 6y ago
Comparison of iOS applications https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_iOS_applications https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_iOS_applic... Comparison of Android applications https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Android_applications https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Android_ap...
Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
Depends on your use case, but for outdoor mapping, I really like MapOut.
mac1ek 6y ago
Personally, I use Maps.me for simple tasks like finding street, shop or other POIs. OSMand is my favorite tool when navigating during cycling trips because of far more advanced rendering options. Both apps are great.
- berkes 6y ago
  Osmand, as the name implies, is Android only, though. Not a problem for me, since I use the fdroid version, but OP was specifically asking for an iOS app. EDIT: as below, I stand corrected. Please ignore my false statement above.
  - bpye 6y ago
    It’s not (anymore)! I was pleasantly surprised when I found it on the App Store [0]. [0] - https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/osmand-maps-travel-navigate/id934850257 https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/osmand-maps-travel-navigate/id...
Numberwang 6y ago
Windy
matkoniecz 6y ago
mapy.cz is a great app, especially for hiking/cycling. It shows hiking and cycling marked routes and contour lines, has offline maps. I have never used it for car-based navigation, so I am unsure is it working well.
ohples 6y ago
Depends on what you definition of OSM based map is. Technically Apple Maps is, since its using data from them, as well as others: If you click the info box in Apple Maps underneath the Tom Tom logo it says © Openstreetmap contributers and other providers Full list: https://gspe21-ssl.ls.apple.com/html/attribution-156.html https://gspe21-ssl.ls.apple.com/html/attribution-156.html
nikisweeting 6y ago
I like Cartograph Maps 2, it supports OSM among other layers, and works on all the platforms.

INTPenis 6y ago

I tried making an app that would leverage OSM late last year and was disappointed at the amount of false or stale information in there. I went into the experience thinking it was the wikipedia of maps. But it's not, wikipedia has much better content control than this. My theory is that it's too easy for random people to enter data into OSM. It should require some sort of validation of the contributor. And each contribution should have a discussion, just like wikipedia talk pages. I know that sounds like a lot of talk pages but I believe some of those contributions require community discussion to improve.

rathel 6y ago
Examples, please. There is bad info here and there, but it's minority (if you want 100% accuracy it's delusional, even Google Maps has a ton of crap, starting from skylights that AI recognized as buildings [3] to businesses you can't even tell they exist). Also, for a long time now each changeset can be discussed. [1] I have a hunch you may be from a country where the community has not took up too much [2]. These tend to have more dubious data. [1] https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2014/11/02/introducing-changeset-discussions/ https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2014/11/02/introducing-change... [2] https://osmstats.neis-one.org/?item=countries https://osmstats.neis-one.org/?item=countries [3] https://goo.gl/maps/knpT8eRR4YhB6Sm86 https://goo.gl/maps/knpT8eRR4YhB6Sm86 - look at the shopping mall in satellite and map view
- ucosty 6y ago
  Not OP, but I'm in the UK and find the OSM data to be not all that useful. The streets themselves seem mostly accurate, but there is almost no building data. If you had to rely on OSM data to get around, your best bet would be to live and work in northeast London, within the circular.
  - Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
    YMMV really. OSM in the UK has orders of magnitude more cycling and walking data than Google, for example, but fewer buildings. I don't generally find I need buildings in my day-to-day mapping needs but everyone's different I guess.

ximeng 6y ago

The conference this is advertising is rather buried in this long article. It's tomorrow, online and free, and the talks sound interesting and varied. Schedule below: https://2020.stateofthemap.org/ https://2020.stateofthemap.org/

yagurastation 6y ago
Thanks - lol, hopefully this comment doesn't get buried as well. mapbox, ESRI, Geotab, and Grab will have "sponsor booths" as well. See https://2020.stateofthemap.org/#sponsors https://2020.stateofthemap.org/#sponsors
blinding-streak 6y ago
Nice. This is how I prefer ads to be done. Relevant, unobtrusive, useful, timely, and not in your face.
lioeters 6y ago
Sweet, it's in Cape Town - well, all online, but I happen to be in the same timezone (opposite hemisphere), and the times of the talks are perfect for catching them during the day this weekend.

ionwake 6y ago

If I develop an app that uses openstreetmap do I need to pay a subscription to be able to download the map tilesets etc?

Heliosmaster 6y ago
OSM is a dataset. That's free and open. There are different tile servers (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tile_servers https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tile_servers) but they each have a different policy (https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/ https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/) In a nutshell: you can't just use them in production for your app. Development shouldn't be a problem. What you're talking about is precisely the commercial service that Mapbox offers. OSM (+ some extra stuff). Alternatively, you're free to spin up your own tile server. That way you don't pay anyone else (but you pay your server).
speedgoose 6y ago
No, but you can consider donating and if your app is popular, you should probably switch to a commercial tileserver such as mapbox. https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/ https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/
bhdzllr 6y ago
Not necessarily, but it might be faster. Basically you need map data (in form of tiles) and you need a way to show and interact with your map (e. g. Leaflet). Here is a summary and one way to do it: https://switch2osm.org/the-basics/ https://switch2osm.org/the-basics/ Tiles can be images or vector based. I also recommend having a look at https://openmaptiles.org/ https://openmaptiles.org/ if you want vector based tiles. You can generate your own tileset with this (output is a mbtiles SQLite file based on a open source schema; the schema describes which information go into the database and later can be shown) or download a set of tiles (because e. g. for the world it will take a lot of ressources and a long timeto generate a tileset). There are also servers (like tileservergl or tileservergl-light) that can serve the tilset - not only as vector tiles but also as graphical image tiles. Raw OSM data can be downloaded for free from https://download.geofabrik.de/ https://download.geofabrik.de/
6y ago

tarsinge 6y ago

A confusion that I had at first before going further into the Openstreetmap ecosystem: OSM is not a ready to use app and some alternative to Google Maps the app, it's a lower level database on which front-ends renderings with a tileset can be built to serve different usages. If you go to openstreetmap.org you will not see much, but click on "Edit" and zoom in close and you'll get a better idea of the data layer. Edit: to further clarify the stack, Mapbox is a collection of tools for creating maps from OSM data.

alphaomegacode 6y ago
As someone new to mapping and who wants to learn in a React or JS/web context, are there any articles,tutorials, books or videos you would suggest?
- tarsinge 6y ago
  I think starting with Leaflet and building from that should give you a good understanding of the building blocks for web mapping: https://leafletjs.com/examples.html https://leafletjs.com/examples.html
mtmail 6y ago
https://benmaps.fr/ https://benmaps.fr/ is an example of using mapbox components (which in turn use OSM data) to create a Google Maps app.
- Krasnol 6y ago
  That's a really sexy map. I like the traffic switch.
lukeqsee 6y ago
Correct. OSM has spawned many companies, Mapbox being the most well-known that offers general services.
teambayleaf 6y ago
A really cool frontend for OSM is https://mapscii.me https://mapscii.me. You can try it out via: $ telnet mapscii.me (Use arrow keys to move, and a/z to zoom in/zoom out) I was totally blown away when I first connected to it.

kristopolous 6y ago

Let me plug OpenLayers, which uses OSM and is way harder to use than google maps but once you stop hating on it you realize it can do a bunch of things that google maps really can't and is more versatile in numerous ways - ymmv as always. (https://openlayers.org/en/latest/examples/ https://openlayers.org/en/latest/examples/). I've found it more useful for specific applications that I build because it's far more customizable. The map truly feels like it's part of the app and not just some mapbox or leaflet thing sitting on top of gmaps. Again, these aren't hard facts, just stylistic preferences on my part. The ES6 is not really a dealbreaker if you're using something more traditional. I just make my own "map.js" that exposes the interfaces I need, then I transpile it and include it like anything else. I know that sounded really complicated, but my package.json is 10 lines, that's it. This way you can use it in a much more conventional classical way without jumping the whole project over to ES6 syntax.

veza 6y ago
I feel like this is the story of open source tools. Way harder to use but once you know the tool the power and freedom is much greater, and even the pleasure of using it. I'm also thinking of cli vs gui here. Sounds like delayed gratification.
7952 6y ago
I find that if you need more complex mapping features then OpenLayers is really good. It can do an amazing amount straight out of the box, but it does take time to get used to the API. It is more like an actual mapping or GIS program. But for building functionality outside of the map I tend to use Leaflet instead due to the ease of use. You can treat the map more like a black box and the API is easier to use.
- kristopolous 6y ago
  Absolutely. If you want something that's no hassles there's a lot of great options. Heck I'll just do the straight Google maps api often, it's really easy. OpenLayer is like vim/emacs, some people think the hassle is worth it.

geokon 6y ago

Just wondering if I could get some suggestions from the community I've been asked, preliminarily, by the lab I work for to produce an application that will overlay daily/weekly water quality measurements on a map. I've got no idea where to start as I've never done anything GIS - but I do like keeping things open source. Would this be something to integrate with OSM? The problem seems simple and generic enough that I'd expect it can be done with zero programming. I just need to find the right place to feed in a table of coordinates and measurements I know the problem spec is a bit vague, but what's a good place to start? And if I do need to write an app, is there any way I could stick Clojure/JVM?

punnerud 6y ago
https://leafletjs.com https://leafletjs.com ? If there is a lot of data, you have to take the zoom-level into consideration and aggregate the data on the server side. Most news papers I have seen use LeafletJS, and Wikipedia are using it
mtmail 6y ago
https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/ https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/ for quick table->map creation.
matkoniecz 6y ago
> Would this be something to integrate with OSM? Likely you will use OSM map as a background map. Remember to include a clearly visible attribution!
berkes 6y ago
For more complex GIS-data exploration, visualisation and research, I'd suggest QGIS. https://www.qgis.org/ https://www.qgis.org/ It is not the most userfriendly (aimed at GIS professionals) but it does have a large, open and friendly community around it, making lots of tutorials, manuals, introductionary material and so on. Edit: especially your type of "problem" is what qgis is good at: you have a CSV, maybe a postGIS database, some old scans of maps maybe; a government provided shapefile of the waterways and so on. And with qgis you can all project them over Google/OSM/Bing/Mapbox maps, mix, mash, filter, extract and so on. It is a desktop software, so publishing your result would probably mean "make some PDFs" or "render a set of PNGs" or so.

faemir 6y ago

This is a little tangential, but does anyone have a strong recommendation for a good ios osm based app? Strong cycling capabilities are extra appreciated.

timonoko 6y ago

downvoted

Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
OSM has only been running since 2004; tiles have never been served from d.tile.openstreetmap.org; and just because a volunteer-funded project doesn't want to provide you with unlimited free ponies/tiles doesn't mean the project is dying. The "rules and regulations" are at https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/ https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/ . The solutions are there at "Alternative OpenStreetMap Tile Providers".
tobias3 6y ago
The indication that it is "dying" is that they are blocking your server/app? They state pretty clearly that you should use your own tile server or use a commercial tile service if you are a heavy user: https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/api/ https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/api/ https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Commercial_OSM_Software_and_Services https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Commercial_OSM_Software_...

lukeqsee 6y ago

For anyone looking to migrate to an OpenStreetMap-backed map and location data provider, https://switch2osm.org https://switch2osm.org has a good overview of how, why, and who is offering services. I’m partial to my own (in bio), of course, but I would be happy to answer questions for anyone looking to switch. Respond or email me (also in bio).

fouc 6y ago
Why is it hard to setup our own tile "provider" ?
- rburhum 6y ago
  Because it is not just installing various server side software components and setting up client software to consume it - you also have to deal with processing data to do it. Once you have done it a few times it is quite easy, but the amount of details for the beginner can be overwhelming.
- ohgodplsno 6y ago
  Rendering tiles for a single country at most levels is a massive database and a few days of processing. Then, network costs are insane.
- lukeqsee 6y ago
  The difficulty depends on what size of market you're trying to serve at what reliability target with geographic constraints, how often you want to update your data, and how many map tiles / second you want to serve. Consider a few different scenarios: 1. If you're trying to serve a single website and map style, with limited traffic in one region, this fairly easily accomplished using a single map tile server using one of the established methods (something like 8 cores, 32GB of RAM, and a few hundred GBs of disk will get you most of the way there). The difficulty is mostly determine how you want to set it up and then provisioning the server to do it. This process will probably take you a few days. Updates will be infrequent, map data will be stale, and speed will be tolerable in your targeted geographic region. 2. Let's say you take a step up. You need to serve global traffic with one style, but only a few requests / second. You can still do this via a single tile server, but now you need a CDN to make it fast. Cache misses will be slow since it has to render and then send the tile to the CDN (up to 500ms of latency due to geographic constraints and cache fill times). 3. Let's say you now need multiple styles, global traffic, 10s of tile requests / second, and good reliabilty. Now you need to distribute your servers, so you'll probably need three or four servers of at least the above mentioned specs, you need to keep them in sync. 4. Now let's say you need multiple styles, global traffic, and up-to-date data. You'll need to keep the OSM data stored locally so you can update it (minimum 500GB in Postgres + PostGIS). You need to distribute this all around the world. You need to handle updates, but do them in sync. All of these are short of actually offering a commercial service for multiple companies, since in that case you need a global service structure, a CDN that's pretty efficient, enough tile servers to handle spikes in demand (pretty common in map tile services), and probably a couple layers of cache to keep everything moving smoothly. There are a few projects that make this easier. For instance, openmaptiles.org is what our solution was modeled after (and we still use their schema, mostly unchanged), but in the end it's hard because it's a lot of data, that requires a lot of compute (either up-front or at a moments notice) to be responsive, and requires a lot of orchestration to keep it all well-oiled.

lihaciudaniel 6y ago

You really believes this holds any competition against Google maps?

detaro 6y ago
Yes. not for everyone and everything, but yes. Especially if on foot or bike, but in my area it generally feels like the better map. (and in reverse I'm sure there's areas of the world where OSM is lacking in detail) I basically only use GMaps to search for businesses. And of course I can use OSM data in many ways I can't use Google data.
matkoniecz 6y ago
Car navigation? Locating shops? Generally no, and overtaking Google Maps is hard in this fields. Hiking, cycling - Google Maps is not usable, at least in places that I visited, while OSM was great. Doing anything interesting with data, like making own map, making map-based decorations (I made some laser-cut maps), research involving geodata, data analysis and anything more interesting - it requires access to data. OpenStreetMap is allowing to do things completely out of scope of Google Maps, so in many cases it is not even competing. But if you are individual driving car and you are not trying to eliminate Google from your life? Then Google Maps app is often superior.
jcranmer 6y ago
I rely on Openstreetmap instead of Google Maps for a few things. Most notably, Google extremely de-emphasizes rail infrastructure (except in Japan). In addition, Openstreetmap also does a better job of laying out political boundaries for more minor polities than Google.
yarrel 6y ago
Yes https://opensource.com/osm https://opensource.com/osm

charliebrownau 6y ago

Shame OSM dropped its map system and swaped to apple

devill285 6y ago

I would highly recommend to use http://maptiler.com/maps http://maptiler.com/maps, they provide easy way, how you can customize your own map. You can also host it on their cloud. Really neat.

canistel 6y ago

One feature that has impressed me is that maps are exportable as SVG. This does comes in handy once in a while...

nanna 6y ago

Anyone able to suggest a free approach to pull up GPS coordinates based on an address search for an OSM/leaflet.js based app?

berkes 6y ago
Are you looking for something self-hosted? Because there are tons (and tons) of SAAS "geocoding" services around already. If self-hosting, have a look at this https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Search_engines https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Search_engines overview. I'm biased (I help with the development and build my latest project on top of it), but I love mimirsbrunn https://github.com/CanalTP/mimirsbrunn https://github.com/CanalTP/mimirsbrunn. Mostly because it is fast, small and relatively easy to deploy (courtesy to Rust). It uses an old (2.x) elasticsearch as backend, so that is a major downside.

0ld 6y ago

as long as they show part of my country as part of another country, i’m not touching it with a stick

aembleton 6y ago
Go and edit it!
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Users that repeatedly edit contested boundaries are blocked from editing. So that doesn't help with the objection.
matkoniecz 6y ago
OSM is mapping reality as it is, not as it should be. Is this part of country controlled by the other country?
mapmeld 6y ago
Is this an https://openstreetmap.in https://openstreetmap.in issue or Crimea or ?

markstos 6y ago

The last three or four backpacking trips I've gone on, I found the OSM data wasn't completely accurate or complete. In each case I went in and fixed it based on other data sources like Strava Heatmap, primary source maps or firsthand GPS traces. OSM is good, but it's not magic. For critical uses, check a second data source!

berkes 6y ago
But that goes for any map. Maps are, by definition, outdated. They will have mistakes. They will have abstractions of our messy world that go awry at some point. OSM is in some areas by far the most accurate and up-to-date source (which is als othe reason why for several areas, both Bing maps and Apple maps use OSM as source). In others it is not. I often give talks about OSM and always use this: "Google, for example, wants to make profit, their maps are just another canvas to put ads on. This is not bad. But it does mean, that in places (I pull open a map of Tjad where Google maps show large areas of Nothing; Tjad, is a lot of nothing -sand, really- but it is obvious Google has no interest in making that map anything good) where there is no money to be made, Google won't drive around with streetview cars, they won't buy datasets to merge, and they won't spend effort improving or validating the maps there."

maelito 6y ago

And this is my attempt at ranking the big french cities by pedestrian area : https://villes.plus/piétonnes https://villes.plus/piétonnes

gen220 6y ago

OSM is a really cool idea, and a fantastic dataset! For people curious about what it's like to use OSM in a huge company, a couple engineers from facebook were recently on a podcast discussing it: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2020/04/17/facebook-openstreetmap-engineering-with-saurav-mapatra-and-jacob-wasserman/ https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2020/04/17/facebook-ope... Some interesting tidbits: FB are hyper-conscious of "graffiti-edits" that can sometimes sneak into OSM, so they built a system to self-host the OSM data, which periodically and selectively merges chunks of data from upstream, using fancy algorithms to flag "suspicious" edits upstream.

alec_kendall 6y ago

I’ve actually been creating a monetization strategy for my online website that lets users purchase map skins in the game.

amachefe 6y ago

I have contributed heavily to google maps but have recently tried to do same in OSM. However, that proves to be very difficult

matkoniecz 6y ago
I am quite curious what was the main blocker.

rendaw 6y ago

OSM is also one of the few remaining websites on the internet that allows bring-your-own OpenID 2.0 login! I put together a tiny personal OID server (plug: https://gitlab.com/rendaw/oidle https://gitlab.com/rendaw/oidle) and OSM was one of the only public places I could test it...