We recently paid in all the little donations which came in via the micro-donations platform flattr.

Before that we also received $5000 from Inquiron creators of Mapsdata

Thanks to all of you. Nearly there now!

• Lokku and Mapbox made large donations to the OSM Server Funding 2013. Thanks guys. You can also donate here!
• Three OSM related projects of the Google Summer of Code have been accepted: OSM: Cached API proxy, Surveying mobile application for OpenStreetMap mappers (Field Papers-like) and The creation of a stable and improved OpenTripPlanner Android client for pedestrian, cyclist, and transit routing based on OpenStreetMap and GTFS data.
• The registration for the State of the Map Baltics 2013 is open.
• Frederik created some stats about densely mapped areas in OSM (per sqkm).
• Pascal, Dennis and Alexander published a new research study titled: “Comparison of Volunteered Geographic Information Data Contributions and Community Development for Selected World Regions“. They compared OSM data for twelve areas around the world.
• Nelson Minar wrote a blog post about “American river map: a vector tile tutorial“.
• The Drone Adventures Project shows how it uses drones for mapping tasks in Haiti.
• Simon Poole added turn restriction support in the Vespucci editor.
• The Cyclestreets project published a new app for Windows Phone 8 and Blackberry 10.
• The OpenFloorPlan project uses the OSM iD Editor to create SVG floor plans. The OpenFloorPlan project is a set of open source JavaScript libraries that can be used to manipulate and interact with SVG-based floor plans in HTML5 or NodeJS.
• A slideshow about the new OpenLayers 3. OpenLayers is an open source JavaScript library to load, display and render maps from multiple sources on web pages.
• Vladimir Agafonkin published some slides about Leaflet: “Leaflet: Past, Present, Future” and “High Performance Data Visualizations in JavaScript“.
• A new plugin adds a button to any Leaflet map that lets users jump to the OSM edit page. Example.
• Tom MacWright’s “CartoCSS” slides of the Foss4g 2013.

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

MapBox provide tools for designing and hosting stylish maps using OpenStreetMap data. They’re bringing our maps to an impressive range of customers and end users. Meanwhile MapBox developers have driven progress in several important open source development efforts within the OSM ecosysem including of course the recently launched iD editor. They’re also big supporters of OpenStreetMap.US and the SOTM US conference. If you’re attending this (in just a few days now) you can thank them in person for this donation pledge.

Ever played one of those games where completing a task brings up an “Achievement Unlocked” message? Well, MapBox’s donation pledge is contingent on the fund raising goal being reached. So our task is to raise the remaining 30% and unlock the funds for OpenStreetMap’s new hardware.

donate.openstreetmap.org

For any questions around larger contributions, please contact the OpenStreetMap Foundation.

Why do we need this new database server? Simply because the growth in OpenStreetMap contributions is outpacing what our existing machines can handle – it’s a good problem to have. The new machines will handle our explosive growth for at least the next 12 months, giving our hard-working, dedicated operations volunteers time to plan for continued growth in the future.

You can read more on the MapBox blog

Photo Frances Schmechel CC-BY-SA on flickr

State Of The Map is the international annual conference of the OpenStreetMap foundation. There’s a lot of excitement about stateofthemap.us taking place in San Francisico in just over a week’s time. This is shaping up very nicely, and registration is still open. It is organised by OpenStreetMap U.S., and is followed by SOTM Baltics in August. Various other local chapters are running their own local conferences. ….but the main event….

State Of The Map is taking place in Birmingham, England. 6-8th September. A few months away, but book early to avoid disappointment (and save a bit of money). Register now!

There’s also an upcoming deadline for the call for presentations. A great opportunity to reach out to the OpenStreetMap community. Get your presentation ideas submitted there. We’d love to hear from you.

We’ve just received our first large donation from Lokku, pushing us forwards to the tune of £2500 . Thank you Lokku!

Perhaps this will be the first of many larger donations from supporting companies. We’re very grateful to Lokku for kicking things off, and for all their support over the years. Lokku are the people behind Nestoria, #geomob london, and also (coming soon) OpenCage Data. You can catch up with them at the U.S. conference SOTM US, and OSMPlus.

If you would like to make a donation head over to…

>>> donate.openstreetmap.org <<<

There is additional information on the wiki about our plans for these funds, but essentially with the money raised, we’ll be making some new hardware purchases which are important and necessary to keep things running smoothly as we continue to see astounding growth of our community. More mappers contributing, and more end users seeing our maps.

• The OSM project started a fund raising project for a new server. You can support it with a donation here.
• The release of the new OSM editor iD has recently been mentioned in several online (tech) press articles, such as theverge, thenextweb and TechCrunch. After the launch, the OSM project experienced a strong increase in newly registered members. Also the roadmap version 1.1 has been published.
• The well-known wheelmap.org project webpage has a new design. The main purpose of the project is to provide an online map to search, find and mark wheelchair-accessible places.
• Mapbox developed a new Open Source Vector format. You can find some more information here. Furthermore you can find a great tutorial about vector maps here.
• The new Geochat JOSM plugin enables a chat in the JOSM OSM editor between mappers in your area.
• The OSM KortGame, which is a mobile web-app which helps to fix OSM data, is asking for your feedback, you can leave it here.
• You can find a JOSM map style specifically tailored for the HOT project here.
• How can you use data stored in a Google spreadsheet and visualize it on an OSM map?
• An OSM map with rCharts, Leaflet and Leaflet-geoCSV.
• An article describing how you can create interactive OSM maps with Inkscape.

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

OSMF: Geospatial Content Organisation of the Year 2012

The Geospatial World Leadership Awards Jury has conferred the OSM Foundation with the “Geospatial Content Organisation of the Year 2012″ award. This award on earlier occasions has been presented to both Google Earth and Bing Maps and is given out by Geospatial Media based on nominations by the Geospatial World Magazine.

According to their statement, the jury “was convinced and felt overwhelmed with vision and capabilities of the Foundation in developing, maintaining and making available, the voluminous, exhaustive and constantly updated geospatial data.”

The award was received by Henk Hoff, board member, on behalf of the OSMF, during the Award Night of the Geospatial World Forum. Henk thanked the organisation for the award and with that recognizing the project as a reliable source for global open geo-data. He continued with: “The real success behind OpenStreetMap is it’s community. A community of more than a million volunteer contributors around the world. I would like to dedicate this award to them.”

• The newly developed OSM editor, named iD, has reached version 1.0 and is now online at the main OSM website. Also the main OSM website has a new feature: Add a note!
• The Call for Papers for the upcoming State of the Map (SotM) in the UK is out. The registration is open too and the fee for community members is 60 Pounds – Early Bird.
• The next OSM Hack Weekend in Karlsruhe (Germany) will be at June 1st and 2nd.
• The Humanitarian OSM Team (HOT) is searching a senior field coordinator for Bangladesh (Sri Lanka). Further, Mikel asks for help to write an HOT Activation Protocol.
• An article on the OSM US blog tells you more about “OSM’s Growing Use in U.S. Government“.
• Amir and “How to say: No…This is not a bug!” in OSM.
• Pascal created a website with some statistics and contributor rankings of the latest OSM “Add a Note” feature.
• Humberto Yances wrote about the “La Boquilla Project“: “including the use of OSM maps for mangrove conservancy, social inclusion and community strength”.
• Martijn van Exel wrote a blog post about the Chicago Hack Weekend.
• A blog post by Eric Fischer about “Visualizing the Progress of OpenStreetMap Around the World“.
• Marco Antonio shows his first previews of OSM 3D on a smartphone.
• “Mapping the history of San Francisco street names“, great visualization by Noah Veltman.
• A useful script that can be applied in JOSM allows you to download errors detected in OSM that need to be fixed. You can find more information in the OSM wiki.
• The open source POI+ editor still needs some translations. You can help here.
• Tom’s “Hexbin Edits on OpenStreetMap” website is available at github.
• The Planet.osm website by bbbike.org has been updated. You can export OSM data in a variety of data formats (e.g. Garmin OSM or ESRI’s shapefile) for your individual area of interest. They also published a free of charge iPhone Bike app.
• A new version of RTKLIB, an open-source software package that allows accurate positioning, was released on April 29th. You can find more information in the OSM wiki.

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

The new editor, codenamed ‘iD’, boasts an intuitive interface and clear walk-throughs that make editing much easier for new mappers. By lowering the barrier to contributions, we believe that more people can contribute their local knowledge to the map – the crucial factor that sets OSM apart from closed-source commercial maps.

To accompany the expected growth in OSM’s contributor base, the OpenStreetMap Foundation is launching an appeal to fund new hardware for the project. The appeal aims to make the editing experience more resilient, so that the OSM community can continue producing the most extensive and up-to-date map of the world.

You can donate online at donate.openstreetmap.org.

“OpenStreetMap’s growth in the past two years has been phenomenal,” explained Simon Poole, chairman of the OSM Foundation. “We’ve seen an explosion in the amount of local knowledge our mappers contribute to the map. This has encouraged more and more big-name websites and apps to switch to OpenStreetMap, while also enabling map hackers and geo enthusiasts the world over to build startling, imaginative visualisations from our open data.”

“Now, with the new editor and our plans for new hardware, we’re stepping up another level to make OpenStreetMap, not Google, the default choice for mapping and map data.”

The new editor

The new iD editor is a pure HTML5 experience, using the cutting-edge D3 visualisation library. Behind the clear design and intuitive interface is a sophisticated back-end that automatically recommends the most popular ‘tagging’ conventions used by the OSM community.

Development began as a community project in July 2012, and has since been taken forward thanks to a $575,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, with development being co-ordinated by MapBox - one of several companies which offer commercial services on OpenStreetMap’s open data.

From later today, new OpenStreetMap users with a modern browser will automatically use the new iD editor. Users can switch between this and the existing Flash-based Potlatch 2 editor (which is being refocused as a tool for intermediate users) using their settings page or the drop-down ‘Edit’ menu. Advanced desktop-based editors are also available.

The editor software is entirely open source, with code available on github under an ultra-permissive licence.

The funding drive

The funding appeal will pay for additional server infrastructure at the heart of OpenStreetMap – where the geographic data and edits are stored – and other key hardware upgrades to improve reliability and performance.

The new server will greatly increase the reliability and performance of OSM’s website and editing service, such that the editing database continues to be available even if one server fails, and providing a more responsive experience when users upload their changes to the map.

OpenStreetMap’s volunteer-led operations team has put a lot of work into designing the new server for maximum performance. Together, these investments will lay the foundation for the continuing growth of OpenStreetMap over the years to come.

You can contribute directly to the appeal at donate.openstreetmap.org, or contact the OpenStreetMap Foundation for more information about sponsoring. Technical details are available on the OpenStreetMap community wiki.

Update 13 May 2013: Bitcoin Donation? Our Address is 1J3pt9koWJZTo2jarg98RL89iJqff9Kobp

For the first time, anyone viewing the map can suggest a correction – such as a renamed business, a missing footpath, or a changed road layout – without learning to use map editor software.

The corrections will be picked up by OpenStreetMap’s million-strong army of volunteer mappers. A local mapper can visit the location to check the suggested information, and then update the map.

OpenStreetMap’s data is used by some of the biggest mapping names on the web, including Foursquare, Craigslist, Wikipedia, Mapquest, and Apple’s iOS Maps app. It is also extensively used in humanitarian operations, most famously after the Haiti earthquake of 2010.

The new feature is part of a drive to open up OpenStreetMap contributions to more people – so that everyone can add their local knowledge to the map. Later this spring, an all-new HTML5 map editor will be coming to openstreetmap.org; its intuitive controls and clear walk-throughs will encourage more map users to take the plunge and become map editors.

“It’s the detailed local knowledge of our contributors that makes OpenStreetMap so much in demand from web and app developers,” explained Simon Poole, Chairman of the non-profit OpenStreetMap Foundation and a Switzerland-based mapper himself.

“By making it even easier to add to the map, we’re increasing the amount of on-the-ground knowledge we can capture – further distancing OSM from the traditional map data companies and their lack of local expertise.”

To add a note or correction to OpenStreetMap, find your area on openstreetmap.org and click ‘Add a note’ in the bottom right corner.

Background information

Notes are freeform natural text, read by other people, making this is a very simple way to communicate any problems we notice about the map without needing to get to grips with OpenStreetMap and its tagging system. Although this functionality has been available for a while on the third party site OpenStreetBugs, adding it to the main OpenStreetMap site brings it to a much greater audience.

Although it is not necessary to have an OSM account to create a note or comment on it, registered users can see all the notes they have created or commented on, and will receive automatic email notifications if the status of a note changes. OpenStreetMap’s enthusiastic community is its greatest strength, and these notifications facilitate an exchange between the original reporter and experienced mappers.

A full API is available for the notes so that third party sites or apps can query existing notes, create and comment on them – opening up possibilities for mobile bug reporting and fixing. The system is expressly designed for high-quality reports from individual users, not automated error checks or ‘bots’.

OpenStreetMap takes copyright very seriously. Registered users agree not to copy from other maps when signing up, and are requested to verify each suggested correction from non-registered users using ‘on the ground’ information. OpenStreetMap is a map for the people, by the people, and made with personal local knowledge.

Further details are available on the OpenStreetMap community wiki.