OpenStreetMap
Just Shaun and Stephen in the pub last night, but we had a good chat about various OSM ideas. I'm trying to remember them all. Ideas seem to come thick and fast after a few pints, and then I forget to follow them up.
Stephen was showing us his trackmyjourney.co.uk stuff. Today I notice that this is not mentioned on the wiki at all, and barely mentioned on the site anywhere. Stephen's hiding his light under a bushel. It's a nifty little J2ME app which he has been busily adding features to. It does GPS stats, hence the name, but also shows OSM maps, lists nearby POIs, and allows you to record waypoints with annotations suitable for later inputting into OSM.
...but what would it take to have a mobile editor submitting changes directly? Authentication seems to be the main hurdle. A simple interim solution might be for OSM to provide a basic web interface for editing/creating a node (and setting tags on it). The app could then launch a mobile web browser pointing at the URL (login and cookie session done as normal) The app already launches a browser to view read-only node data.
He was also explaining about how he had to code graphics routines to break up areas into triangles, and position lettering for road names. There's quite a few mobile apps like this which have a lot of logic which might be described as "rendering" logic. How difficult would it be to rip this out, and have it available as a standalone desktop rendering system? It'd be fun to see lots more alternatives listed on the rendering page. Apps for creating one-off map images or tile sets. Java based renderer could done as a JOSM plugin.
landuse=farm isn't currently shown on mapnik at all, which led us onto the idea: Editors should support some kind of landuse "layer". We could then aim to "complete" this data, such that there is nowhere without a landuse. In england that would probably mean a whole lot of landuse=farm, but equally in cities we would aim to create a background layer of residential/commercial/industrial areas.
...anyway
So Next time (in a fortnight) we'll be in a more central location, which might mean more people. I'm sure there will be more crazy beer-fuelled map chit chat. Get yourself signed up!
Discussion
Comment from Mappo on 13 November 2008 at 13:41
Just FYI, landuse=farm shows up on Mapnik for me, as a slightly unpleasant shade of light brown.
Comment from HannesHH on 13 November 2008 at 15:19
I really like the landuse completion project idea.
Comment from JennyH on 13 November 2008 at 15:50
I turned up to the meeting, but failed to find anyone.
I confused many people asking them if they where OSM.
Comment from Harry Wood on 13 November 2008 at 16:09
Oh Sorry to hear that Jenny! I was worried something like that might happen. Shaun wrote 6p.m. on the upcoming.org page but I didn't get there till about 6:45 due to train delays out of London Bridge... and then Shaun and Steven arrived even later.
We sat in The Marquis of Granby, probably till about 7:30, with a map on the table (I usually try to have a map or a GPS unit out, to help people find us) ...But then we moved on to the Hobgoblin because it didn't do food ...and we foolishly assumed nobody else was coming.
So I don't know if you were there before or after us. Bummer!
Comment from JennyH on 14 November 2008 at 17:05
Think I must have arrived shortly after you left.
I can't really leave work any earlier, and the posting said you'd be there all night. Oh well, these things happen.
Comment from Marlow on 14 November 2008 at 21:47
I had a look at trackmyjourney.co.uk and downloaded it to my Nokia E90, but if I use it opened up, it'll only show the right part of the map (about 20% of the full screen).
The other thing, that I found a bit annoying is, that you have to use the MapOrganiser to create a OSM map, that you then have to load. And it'll only work of that particular map-file unless you change it manually. That's at least what i figured.
Afterwards I tried to use MoM and that works a lot easier. It downloads the maps as you go, you can zoom down to 100m scale and it works open as closed perfectly on the E90. Mom has the disadvantage, that it needs GPRS/3G connected all the time and if it wants to download the mapfile while the connection is rubbish or not present, it hangs for a while. It also looks like it's logging is patchy at times, as it skips a few dots when it's either downloading a map or re-centering the screen, but that hasn't been a big issue for me, as the logging is handled by my bluetooth gps receiver. I only needed a tool, that gives me a good idea of what isn't logged yet.
Comment from smsm1 on 16 November 2008 at 00:11
JennyH: Unfortunately no one else said that they were intending on going, otherwise we would have waited, or phoned/texted you to let you know that we had moved.
Marlow: You are probably in the button 3 routing screen rather than the raster map display which is button 6. I currently have a private beta version that uses vector data downloaded online, though it does cache the map data locally (with a refetch after 7 days).
Comment from Marlow on 16 November 2008 at 22:25
smsm1: No, it's 6 alright, I was using. 3 just tells me no route loaded. In general it didn't seem to work for me very well. Mom is pretty straight forward and all I really wanted was just a view of the OSM maps, so that I know, what has been mapped and what not.
Comment from Stephen on 25 November 2008 at 23:38
Marlow, I assume that you're using maps from the TMJ 'Map Library' - these are made for phones with a max resolution of 320x320, so won't work correctly on the E90 (res 800x352) - you'll need to use the MapOrganiser on the TMJ site to make a file with tiles of at least 800x352. (There may also be issues with the E90 keypad - its very difficult writing stuff that'll work on *every* phone!!)