5 ms·

A New Editor for OpenStreetMap: iD

130 points by rachbelaid 14y ago

Funded by a grant from the Knight Foundation, today they are announcing the launch of ideditor.com, home of the web-based OpenStreetMap editor iD currently in Alpha phase. This launch marks a stepped up involvement in the development of this editor. iD is designed to help create an even better, more current OpenStreetMap by lowering the threshold of entry to mapping with a straightforward, in-browser editing experience.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
crisnoble 14y ago
This looks amazing, props to MapBox for putting out yet another beautiful, approchable and useful tool. From the product page[http://ideditor.com/ http://ideditor.com/]: "We’re building iD in pure Javascript, using d3.js and SVG for map display." This has got to be the coolest non-graphing use of d3.js I have seen so far. Anyone who hasn't should view the demo here: http://geowiki.com/iD/ http://geowiki.com/iD/
bcks 14y ago
It runs on Node.js and is open source, too: https://github.com/systemed/iD/ https://github.com/systemed/iD/
- lxbarth 14y ago
  Sorry, no node.js here ;) The beauty of iD is that it's all client-side Javascript. No dynamic server components involved.
  - NathanKP 14y ago
    How do the maps get saved then? Or is that part of it still in the works?
    - jfirebaugh 14y ago
      It's fully functional, and you can switch over to the live OpenStreetMap database by clicking 'dev' in the lower right. Loading and saving data happens via an XHR request to the OpenStreetMap API hosted on http://www.openstreetmap.org http://www.openstreetmap.org. The API supports CORS, making direct cross-origin connections possible.
- yellowbkpk 14y ago
  I think you're seeing package.json and leaping to Node.js. I think they use the Node package management to help during build.
  - bcks 14y ago
    My bad. It also mentions node as a test harness: https://github.com/systemed/iD/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md https://github.com/systemed/iD/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
bazzargh 14y ago
Fantastic work. Love the tagging autocomplete - I find JOSM's icon menu completely counterintuitive, you have to guess what classification the tag is under before you can use it (and of course some things aren't there)
NelsonMinar 14y ago
MapBox is an amazing company. This new editor is very early alpha but already excellent and usable. Good editing tools should be a huge boost for OpenStreetMap. Funny that OSM is getting a modern editing tool before Wikipedia. The Javascript libraries they're using are interesting. D3 is a big part of it, but equally notable is that there's no conventional slippy map library like OpenLayers or Leaflet. Instead they're doing something simple with d3.geo.tile, a relatively new component. Particular attention is due to MapBox's OAuth implementation ohauth, purely client-side (no server proxy): http://mapbox.com/osmdev/2013/01/15/oauth-in-javascript/ http://mapbox.com/osmdev/2013/01/15/oauth-in-javascript/ They also use RTree (for spatial indexing), Lo-Dash (an Underscore alternative), and a few extra bits like JXON for XML, the async library Queue, and Bootstrap tooltips.
- jpatokal 14y ago
  FWIW, Wikipedia's Visual Editor has been in public beta since December, and it's arguably a much harder job because of the baroque complexity of MediaWiki's markup. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor Not that this takes anything away from MapBox's achievement, and OSM were foresighted in choosing a sanely structured data model that allows things like this.
kyledrake 14y ago
This is great! A good way for beginners to get their feet wet with OSM. I'm sure they'll add a lot of improvements eventually, but if you're looking for a more feature complete, more polished OSM editor in the interim, take a look at the ArcGIS OSM editor: http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/extensions/openstreetmap http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/extensions/openstreetmap
- lxbarth 14y ago
  JOSM is right now the most popular editor in OSM. It's desktop software and very powerful. JOSM is very much a power user tool where iD is aiming for a great experience for beginners and casual users. http://josm.openstreetmap.de/ http://josm.openstreetmap.de/
frendiversity 14y ago
I said they should rename it because iD is taken by the makers of a popular game called DooM. I have no opinion of the quality of the service but it looks good. I apologize for my snarky comment.
- tmcw 14y ago
  Point taken :), the name is quirky, hard to google, and surely used for other things. The eventual goal, though, is for it to be just 'the openstreetmap editor' with iD being a codename - so the problem will 'go away'.
LilValleyBigEgo 14y ago
Unblogspammed: http://ideditor.com/ http://ideditor.com/
dguaraglia 14y ago
Wow, this is amazing! I always wanted to contribute to the OSM project, specially because my area (Sacramento) isn't that well mapped, but I found the tools to be cumbersome and difficult to use. This changes the game.
rachbelaid 14y ago
I'm glad to see that the grant from the Knight Foundation to Mapbox, helps OSM is bringing something great. OSM really needed a new editor.

130 points by rachbelaid 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

crisnoble 14y ago

This looks amazing, props to MapBox for putting out yet another beautiful, approchable and useful tool. From the product page[http://ideditor.com/ http://ideditor.com/]: "We’re building iD in pure Javascript, using d3.js and SVG for map display." This has got to be the coolest non-graphing use of d3.js I have seen so far. Anyone who hasn't should view the demo here: http://geowiki.com/iD/ http://geowiki.com/iD/

bcks 14y ago

It runs on Node.js and is open source, too: https://github.com/systemed/iD/ https://github.com/systemed/iD/

lxbarth 14y ago
Sorry, no node.js here ;) The beauty of iD is that it's all client-side Javascript. No dynamic server components involved.
- NathanKP 14y ago
  How do the maps get saved then? Or is that part of it still in the works?
  - jfirebaugh 14y ago
    It's fully functional, and you can switch over to the live OpenStreetMap database by clicking 'dev' in the lower right. Loading and saving data happens via an XHR request to the OpenStreetMap API hosted on http://www.openstreetmap.org http://www.openstreetmap.org. The API supports CORS, making direct cross-origin connections possible.
yellowbkpk 14y ago
I think you're seeing package.json and leaping to Node.js. I think they use the Node package management to help during build.
- bcks 14y ago
  My bad. It also mentions node as a test harness: https://github.com/systemed/iD/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md https://github.com/systemed/iD/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

bazzargh 14y ago

Fantastic work. Love the tagging autocomplete - I find JOSM's icon menu completely counterintuitive, you have to guess what classification the tag is under before you can use it (and of course some things aren't there)

NelsonMinar 14y ago

MapBox is an amazing company. This new editor is very early alpha but already excellent and usable. Good editing tools should be a huge boost for OpenStreetMap. Funny that OSM is getting a modern editing tool before Wikipedia. The Javascript libraries they're using are interesting. D3 is a big part of it, but equally notable is that there's no conventional slippy map library like OpenLayers or Leaflet. Instead they're doing something simple with d3.geo.tile, a relatively new component. Particular attention is due to MapBox's OAuth implementation ohauth, purely client-side (no server proxy): http://mapbox.com/osmdev/2013/01/15/oauth-in-javascript/ http://mapbox.com/osmdev/2013/01/15/oauth-in-javascript/ They also use RTree (for spatial indexing), Lo-Dash (an Underscore alternative), and a few extra bits like JXON for XML, the async library Queue, and Bootstrap tooltips.

jpatokal 14y ago
FWIW, Wikipedia's Visual Editor has been in public beta since December, and it's arguably a much harder job because of the baroque complexity of MediaWiki's markup. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor Not that this takes anything away from MapBox's achievement, and OSM were foresighted in choosing a sanely structured data model that allows things like this.

kyledrake 14y ago

This is great! A good way for beginners to get their feet wet with OSM. I'm sure they'll add a lot of improvements eventually, but if you're looking for a more feature complete, more polished OSM editor in the interim, take a look at the ArcGIS OSM editor: http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/extensions/openstreetmap http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/extensions/openstreetmap

lxbarth 14y ago
JOSM is right now the most popular editor in OSM. It's desktop software and very powerful. JOSM is very much a power user tool where iD is aiming for a great experience for beginners and casual users. http://josm.openstreetmap.de/ http://josm.openstreetmap.de/

frendiversity 14y ago

I said they should rename it because iD is taken by the makers of a popular game called DooM. I have no opinion of the quality of the service but it looks good. I apologize for my snarky comment.

tmcw 14y ago
Point taken :), the name is quirky, hard to google, and surely used for other things. The eventual goal, though, is for it to be just 'the openstreetmap editor' with iD being a codename - so the problem will 'go away'.

LilValleyBigEgo 14y ago

Unblogspammed: http://ideditor.com/ http://ideditor.com/

dguaraglia 14y ago

Wow, this is amazing! I always wanted to contribute to the OSM project, specially because my area (Sacramento) isn't that well mapped, but I found the tools to be cumbersome and difficult to use. This changes the game.

rachbelaid 14y ago

I'm glad to see that the grant from the Knight Foundation to Mapbox, helps OSM is bringing something great. OSM really needed a new editor.