Today I spent half the day in the forest near Bahrdorf to prepare an orienteering map in OOMapper. First I downloaded the OSM data into the app, then set out with a tablet computer as well as fieldpaper, pencil and compass to add all the features necessary for orienteering. There are of course lots of details to attend to, but I want to write about the role of OSM in orienteering mapping today.

For a forest map that I set up from scratch, OSM data come in handy because they provide a georeferenced basemap to start from. But other than that, 99% of the orienteering map is my work, and there is not much in what I do that is of interest for OSM (except the odd information board or a path that has disappeared).

Things are quite different when it comes to sprint orienteering maps, which mostly show parks and urban areas. The availability of OSM data was a real game changer here, because we used to draw all the building outlines by hand. For a quick training map, there is a webservice that renders OSM data in an orienteering map design and lets you download the map as a nicely styled pdf. Of course, this map will only contain the features that are present in OSM and cannot be edited further, so I still prefer to use the OOMapper app with downloaded OSM data, so I can add whatever features I need for the orienteering map - and more than a few of them will also be useful in OpenStreetMap.

The biggest question here is: do I add the features after downloading from OSM, or before? One the one hand, since OSM data helped save such a lot of time, it seemed only fair to give back. Moreover, if all orienteering features of a specific area were present in OSM, I wouldn’t have to bother about map backups, and every interested orienteer could download a decent o-map from the webservice mentioned above.

So this is what I brought me to OSM. Needless to say, today I spend far more time on OSM mapping than on mapping for orienteering.

There is just one problem: Even with sprint omaps, mapping for orienteering will be an extreme case of micromapping in an OSM context. I don’t want to be the orienteering equivalent of a golf mapper! This applies to paved areas in particular, because we want the exact width of roads and pavements, with parking bays and what not. So what I would really need to do if I wanted all the necessary data for orienteering already included in OSM is use area:highway throughout for the areas that are to be used for orienteering training. But even so, I would need to turn most of the polygons into bezier curves in OOMapper for a nicer appearance when printed in 1:4000.

So I cannot see an obvious solution here. I have experimented with using several road symbols of different widths and aligning the path with the road, but all that turned out to be at least as much work as drawing by hand in OOMapper, which is what I am mostly doing now.

Are there any other orienteers out there in OSM? I would love to hear from you and how you combine or don’t combine your two hobbies.