Last week at the Ignite Spatial: Boston event I gave a short talk – 5min, 20 automated slides, 15sec each – about OpenStreetMap and why I think it can be interesting for town administrations to look at the OpenStreetMap model. In a nutshell:
OpenStreetMap is successfully based on open crowdsourcing, a horizontal multi-directional work-flow model, to build and maintain the world’s largest free geospatial database.
Open crowdsourcing helps to collect local knowledge across your residents, improve local geospatial data, engage residents and provide a 24/7 feedback loop for them.
Wide variety of data and information distribution: OpenStreetMap allows output from raw data access for developers to print map renderings for tourists.
Built-in data interoperability: no matter how many or in what part of the world people are contributing to the project, it all fits together to one piece.
Bottom line: towns should take a serious look at OpenStreetMap and the underlying model. It’s proven to work in many places and provides some valid points town administrations can benefit from.
The tricky part of pedestrian navigation is, that it actually involves a lot of refinement work on current base maps in order to provide a good service. Using regular digital road maps, as we know them in Google Maps for instance, is just not possible. Pedestrians need different information. Most maps currently used in navigation devices are made by and for people in cars, moving at 35km/h and faster. As pedestrian you move slower, on other paths and parts of the street, your orientation senses work differently, you notice other landmarks, signs, use short-cuts, cross streets randomly and can make u-turns whenever you want to.
Nokia Maps 3.0 has some enhancements aimed to help pedestrians. I especially found the 3D-like landmark drawings on the map and the continuous reverse geocoding very helpful. I think I already mentioned in an earlier post the very well done cartography, optimized for smaller displays.
Walking directions work in most cases well. Nokia Maps knows the park next to the subway station I often use and shows me the shortest path to it.
Seems an easy task, but Google Maps, based on TeleAtlas’ road network in that area, shows some fantasy foot paths inside the park and suggests another route circling around.
OpenStreetMap shows the real layout of all foot paths in the park and provides good walking directions (by OpenRouteService) too.
The quality of the returned walking directions depend on the strength of the GPS signal in some cases. If it’s weak, Nokia Maps doesn’t dare to send you out to take a walk on a three lane street full with speeding cars.
Imagine you step out the subway station and ask Nokia Maps for the shortest way walking to your destination. If you’re lucky and the signal is good, Nokia Maps snaps you to the right street and returns good results.
Let’s assume it’s a bad GPS day and your signal is about 10m off, happens quite frequently in urban areas. Nokia snaps you on a 3 car-lane street and suggest you start walking there. Not good.
That’s what the situation looks like on the aerial. The subway station was under construction then, but there is an exit next to the containers. Anyways, a pedestrian navigation service should never propose walking on that road.
Other services I tried in that area had some problems too. Google Maps sent you on the same road. OpenRouteService basically returned a good walking route, but didn’t know that you had to jump off a 3m wall to reach the nice foot path along the canal.
A week ago Helge and I were invited to host a Digitalks session about GeoServices. Digitalks is an interesting event series in Vienna, aimed to explain recent media and technology developments to a “normal”, not so tech-savvy audience. Meral, the woman behind Digitalks, usually tries to invite early adopters or enthusiasts who are passionate about media and technology to host a session. There’s no PowerPoint in Digitalks, only live demos and hands-on are allowed, which is good and makes the presentations very lively, although it doesn’t always work as expected.
Anyways, I felt honored to be invited and talk a little about GeoServices. Helge did a brilliant job in presenting OpenStreetMap and explaining the revolutionary aspects of the project. I tried to give an overview of the grown variety of geographic applications in the internet since the first appearance of map mashups in 2005 and showing some recent location based services on a mobile device. If I’d have had a closer look at the attendees list first, I probably would’ve had chosen a few other things to demo. The ratio expert/novice of the audience was actually more leaning towards expert, so I hope it wasn’t too obvious for most people.
Thanks again to Meral for inviting us and many thanks to Luca for taping the session on video!
PS: the next Digitalks is about Microblogging, hosted by Twitter, should be interesting!
That’s pretty exciting: just came back to Vienna, spent the morning poking around in OSM and the OSM wiki to figure out who the mappers are and if there are any community activities planned and ended up reading a press release saying that Vienna is completed in OpenStreetMap.
Awesome! Big kudos to the local mapping community! The quality of the map is impressing!
As for the rest of Austria, there is a huge data import going on since Fall ’08. More information on the process you’ll find at the wiki page. People all over Austria with good local knowledge are needed to support the import process, help identify errors and improve OpenStreetMap in rural areas.
If you want to make your town visible in OpenStreetMap, sign up and start mapping. It’s very easy and can be done using nothing more than an internet browser. Even better: spread the word, host a Stammtisch, tell your neighbors about OpenStreetMap and create your own map of your village.
For interested people in and around Vienna, the next Wiener OSM-Stammtisch is scheduled for Friday Jan 23rd ’09, 2pm, at the Metalab.
Stefan Knecht, co-founder and CIO of United Maps, got in touch with me providing information about his company and their products. United Maps works hard on adding more value to existing maps, as we know them on Google Maps or in automotive navigation systems, and create digital maps for humans. Considering the increased popularity of GPS enabled mobile devices and the given potential of pedestrian navigation systems, it seems to be the right thing to do these days.
Over at Vector One and at United Maps‘ website (blog) you’ll find detailed information about their product and vision.
I took the chance and asked Stefan some more questions, see below.
Q: United Maps creates digital maps optimized for pedestrian use, a perfect addition to many mobile mapping applications. Who would United Maps consider as primary target group? Is your focus rather on the white labeled map as data product or are you working on API like services to attract individual developers for instance too?
Stefan: I’d like to reframe “target group” to something more universal like “use group”. At the time being, we concentrate on delivering what we carry in our company name: a unification of maps, attributes and use cases to enable mobile people finding their way and discovering things around them.
So the focus is on comprehensive, nationwide and B2B data products rather than on public APIs and just another mash-up. We’re not mashing-up what’s already out there — we try to drill deeper and possibly beyond what’s easily visible on the web.
Q: The OpenStreetMap foundation is currently working on a new licensing model: ODbL should basically allow OpenStreetMap features and copyrighted map features being held in the same database. Have you considered OSM-integration in United Maps?
Stefan: First of all: OSM does a great job, all kudos to them. The recently completed dataset of Hamburg is incredibly good. I wonder how OSM will perform in “flat world”, outside of larger cities and how OSM will be able to scale into less populated and geek-prone areas.
To answer the question and as far as I can judge from the ongoing debates within the OSM community: the modularity of a dozen CC license types shouldn’t be brought into ODbl. The legal situation already is far too complex – and it doesn’t become easier with just another set of derivative licenses and constraints to consider.
Q: I believe gathering detailed cadastral maps across Europe can easily turn into an exhausting process – different legislations, different mapping traditions and INSPIRE implementation has just started. Do your GIS experts consider other and maybe easier accessible sources, such as vectors derived from commercial EO data, rather than official public data to “fill the gaps” in Europe and push United Maps rollout forward?
Stefan: One of our goals is to match INSPIRE specifications on a base level to enable users of our United Maps gather and aggregate data on top. For other data sources besides federal information: any valuable source that can deliver coverage for a given set of national boundaries is welcome and might be licensed and matched with the data we already have. We’re positively testing options – and expectedly, both data availability and legal constraints change at every administrative border … or any 150 miles in Europe.
Q: Nokia Maps is probably a serious competitor for United Maps. As far as I know Nokia Maps, their approach is to provide landmarks instead of precise building footprints to support orientation or even suggest shortcuts through buildings for pedestrian navigation. Where would you see the main difference to Nokia Maps or what aspect do you think makes United Maps the better choice for pedestrians?
Stefan: It would be impudent to name United Maps as a competitor to Nokia Maps. Nokia Maps is a B2C product and naturally powered by Navteq data. For the time being, United Maps is in a B2B space.
I don’t see that precision of footprints is a real issue: it’s rather the availability and rollout of supplemental data to enhance the usage experience on Nokia Maps. If landmarks are helpful – why not integrate them? I don’t see us producing 3D-mockups for a simple reason: if you’re a human on the move, trying to orientate yourself on the 3-inch-screen isn’t really simplified by 3D-models that you rarely see in entirety in the urban jungle. If 3D-models remain picturesque building hulls they act as visual landmarks. The pedestrian shortcuts through buildings can only be produced with a topologically closed and hence routable network beyond — and this ultimately is, what United Maps does: gather content, attributes and pathways that are relevant for people outside of cars.
Q: You’re partnering with the Technical University of Munich. How important is the scientific input for United Maps? Is United Maps a research project?
Stefan: United Maps draws from the research we commissioned at TUM before we started the company. We repurpose the initial scientific results into a commercial setting and take academic aproaches onto a industrial scale. The scientific input is most valuable and will be perpetuated to specific domains and settings. We’re just developing a multimodal pedestrian routing application that seemlessly routes you back and forth through automotive traffic and mass transit alternatives.
The mother of all Q: Will there be an iPhone version of United Maps?
Stefan: United Maps does better, hyperlocal maps at large. The iPhone and all other smartphone devices will use the web for mapping and possibly web services navigation. If there’s a business case for a tailored iPhone application, we’ll do that in-house or offshore it to a partner. We’ll have Germany ready as comprehensive hyperlocal dataset in April, then Austria and Switzerland — everything beyond is subject to change and upcoming partnerships. And we’re naturally open to partnerships of any extent.
United Maps presentation at the Telematics Munich Show
This is going to be a list-post, a must-have item on blogs as I read recently.
Last week I attended Richard Weait‘s OpenStreetMap presentation at the Boston LUG. He gave a good overview on what OSM is about, why it’s so fascinating and showed how to participate. Even though I’m a bit familiar with OSM for some time now, I learned a couple of new things about OpenStreetMap:
North America is only covered superficial. It looks good on a small scale, large areas appear mapped in OSM, but as you zoom in and look at it more closely you’ll find many problems. I’m not sure if motivation would be higher if people start mapping from scratch and “create” their own maps of their places instead of working on existing data and fix errors. On the other hand, the AND data donation of Indian and Chinese road data (mostly of poor quality) helped to create awareness and interest in mapping those countries, as some people mentioned during the discussion.
Germany has the largest OSM community. Not surprising that this country is among the first ones where OSM is integrated into business models (e.g. Geofabrik, WhereGroup or GDV).
Open Database License: the idea of Creative Commons transferred to suit database licensing.
“Edit wars” taking place in Cyprus about the default place names, shell scripts vs. manual edits.
OpenPisteMap: an OSM side project for ski slopes which adds hill shading and contour lines to OSM. One might think that it’s Austria’s #1 mapping project. Well, I’m afraid that’s not the case. Apparently not many fellow citizens have ever heard of it because we look like a desert in terms of available ski slopes at OpenPisteMap. Shame on us!
If you discover OSM flaws and can’t fix them directly on the map, then just go to and add a note in OpenStreetBugs.
Another interesting OpenStreetMap routing service I didn’t know before. It even considers elevation profiles for cyclists or pedestrians where available.
The parts of Cambridge I know so far are mapped fine (was a MassGIS data donation). The only thing I’m doing here in OSM is adding bike lanes to existing streets in my neighborhood. Since I really enjoy exploring this place by bike, that’s probably the most useful map layer to me.
Another option to integrate rendered OpenStreetMap images in a GIS desktop client or web application is to add OpenStreetMap as OGC compliant Web Map Service. For the European continent such a service is now provided by the German WhereGroup.
The service is available as a free basic WMS (GetCapabilities), updated biannually, and two commercial versions, updated daily, for specific map customization needs and high performances.
OpenStreetMap is on the way to become a serious alternative map source in professional GIS environments. The question how the professional GIS community responds to Creative Commons licensing will surely open some interesting debates anytime soon.
My favorite ArcMap extension Arc2Earth got updated and brings now rendered OpenStreetMap layers into ArcMap:
Previous versions supported map tile layers import from Virtual Earth, Yahoo! or Ask. Certainly a great feature which allows easy access to good and up-to-date base maps in many regions. The only problem is that without proper licensing it’s not possible to use them for commercial purposes. I’m not a lawyer, but as far as I understand the term commercial purpose, only loading and viewing those layers in ArcMap in a business environment (e.g. at the office) can already result in a license violation. Good license deals might not be such a problem at the enterprise level, for small businesses who need those maps here and there, it is quite often an issue.
Being able to load OpenStreetMap instead of Virtual Earth, etc. into ArcMap removes a lot of those licensing headaches.
As long as attribution and share alike work for you, you can basically do whatever you want with OpenStreetMap in ArcMap – copy, distribute, print, derive, etc.
There is a long list of other new features and fixes that come with the latest release of Arc2Earth. OpenLayers as additional viewer for exported map tiles is one of those which caught my attention.
…preferable in OpenStreetMap as Helge from the NGO Laafisuggests and support development in Africa with unrestricted access to free public maps.
Google basically asks for the same thing, with one small difference: your edits go to Google, and not to Africa:
… By submitting User Submissions to the Service, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display, distribute, and create derivative works of the User Submission. …
Yesterday, after reading the post about routeable OSM data, I discovered the download section of CloudMade. By country they offer OSM data in various file formats. Shapefile is one of them. I downloaded the Austrian OSM data as Shapefile (still, after decades, the unbeaten #1 file format when it comes to geodata interoperability btw). There are 3 filesets included: highways, POI and natural.
After loading them into QGIS and having a quick look at the data, I must say that I’m impressed by the data quality and level of detail. Recently I proposed that our public national mapping agency should support projects like OpenStreetMap and provide parts of their road network data to the OSM community. Hereby I take this proposal back, I should’ve had a look at recent OSM updates first. The OSM road network data is, after some initial checks, better than what I’ve seen so far from our national mapping agency for general mapping purposes.
Dear mapping agency,
I’m afraid some of your departments are obsolete by now. You simply missed the train. The community has taken over your job and does it with friendlier, and probably more sustainable, licensing.
What I’ve to figure out now is a simple process how to send data edits on the Shapefile back to the OSM database. There is a good chance that we, while using the data in projects, will work on and maybe improve attributes or features. A smart tool to bridge desktop GIS and the OSM database would be very helpful here.
Another thing is to create more awareness about CC licensing and what community based work means. I’m quite often confronted with share-unfriendly attitudes like “pull down what you can get but don’t give anything in return”. There is very little understanding that sharing your work and data, base data to build individual projects on, creates a bigger benefit for all parties. I guess it’s a relic of times where geodata has been the most precious treasure you had to hide…
