(Writing a short stub in case i forget it again)

Estonian mappers may have already noticed how this year Land Board’s imagery is still missing. Previously new orthophotos were captured in March-April, preliminary release was in May-June and TMS layers were available in OSM editors by around September, then this year there are no images.

Turns out on 31st of March 2025 someone filed a complaint to Chancellor of Justice, that their garden hose can be identified on the imagery. On 27th of November chancellor’s response was published and public broadcaster published few small news:

• EST: https://www.err.ee/1609869541/oiguskantsler-palub-kaaluda-kaardirakenduste-eraelulist-detailsust
• EST: https://www.err.ee/1609870686/maa-ja-ruumiamet-plaanib-geoportaali-andmeid-uldisemaks-muuta
• ENG: https://news.err.ee/1609869930/land-and-spatial-board-to-make-publicly-available-map-data-less-detailed
• Original source documents:
  • EST PDF: https://www.oiguskantsler.ee/sites/default/files/2025-11/Orto-%20ja%20kaldaerofotode%20avalikustamine.pdf
  • Sample images: https://adr.rik.ee/okk/dokument/18175002 (asice is basically zip file, you’d need digidoc4 to open it).
    • Mirror at Land Board’s registry: https://adr.envir.ee/et/document.html?id=8c7c0dd4-17c5-463b-a00c-57c6019ea8d8
  • Original complaint (restricted access): https://adr.rik.ee/okk/dokument/16914665
  • § 26 of constitution which according to chancellor prohibits aerial images: https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/ee/521052015001/consolide/current#para26

Why this matters to OSM?

At least 90% of OSM’s data originates from Land Board’s imagery, either through imports or via usual imagery tracing. Esri and Bing are also using using Land Board’s data for Estonia.

… See full entry

Today, i wear a T-shirt printed with Medan’s road network, based on OpenStreetMap data.

Every time i glanced down at those tangled lines, a quiet curiosity crept in. I kept wondering who mapped this exact line segment I’m looking at right now, which contributor traced it, corrected it, or patiently aligned it to reality. It’s a strange and comforting thought, carrying a small piece of someone else’s mapping work on fabric, a reminder that this map is made of countless individual moments of care.

Irpavi 2 South Route

The city of La Paz, Bolivia, has the Puma Katari public transportation service, which covers the 9 macro districts and is currently deployed through 10 routes. Since its launch, this service has been a great promise, offering benefits such as preferential treatment for people with disabilities, children and the elderly, in addition to allowing the transport of bicycles in the front compartments of the buses, thus encouraging the use of this means of transportation. ecological. We are often traveling to different places in the city to carry out our field work. We know that some visitors or even people who know about this transportation service face difficulties because they do not know which route to take or where the stops are, especially when trying to reach peripheral areas.

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Over the past year, I made a lot of contributions to Regina’s OSM. Since snow has made surveying difficult, I felt a retrospective on those contributions were a good idea. Many edits came through the StreetComplete app, though more intensive projects have called for desktop editing. Creating a separate network for sidewalks and starting to make indoor maps for a couple buildings are the items I’m most excited about. The changes made to the Regina Wiki page on OSM were pretty large but hopefully will give a good overview of where active mapping projects are at. Creating a wiki page for Regina Transit will hopefully help to make updates to it easier to coordinate.

You can read more on my blog post here: https://www.malleyeno.com/Blog/Winter-Retrospective-2025—OpenStreetMap-for-Regina

In the ancient days, OSM was much simpler. You had the streets and roads. A crossing was considered a barrier along the way for road users (i.e. cars), so one would place a node with highway=crossing where the crosswalk is located. The routeplanner would apply a time penalty, the rendering engine shows a little icon, and done.

With an extra attribute (namely crossing_ref) a more precise type and the type of markings was indicated.

Then, someone figured out they could also shove in information about the traffic signals. This kind of works for simple crossings, but breaks down for bigger intersections. crossing=unmarked, crossing=uncontrolled and crossing=controlled were added. And crossing=zebra, cause zebra crossings are so common. And crossing=marked, which was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike ~~tea~~ crossing=uncontrolled.

In the mean time, people started mapping cycleways and sidewalks/footways separately, giving rise to a second way of tagging crossings: along the way; as highway=footway with footway=crossing.

Some ported over the traffic signal metadata over on the way, as they were used to doing on a node. Others starting mapping the traffic lights separately, often as barrier at the precise location where the pedestrian/cyclist/car driver has to wait.

This gives the potential of having the traffic light metadata on three separate locations:

1) Once on the point where the road and the footway meet 2) Once on the footway, marked with crossing 3) Once on the traffic light node on the footway

In other words, the current tagging is a clusterfuck.

Why do I care?

… See full entry

Place: Nor Yungas, Yolosa, Bolivia – Senda Verde Animal Shelter

Senda Verde is a refuge dedicated to the rehabilitation and protection of wildlife in the Amazon rainforest of Bolivia. Unlike a conventional tourist destination, its main mission is to provide care and rehabilitation to rescued animals, many of which have been victims of illegal wildlife trafficking, mistreatment in captivity, or have been affected by the burning of their habitats. Although it welcomes visitors to support its operations, educate, and raise awareness about conservation, Senda Verde primarily focuses on animal welfare and promoting responsible wildlife practices.

Illegal wildlife trafficking consists of the illicit commercialization of wild species that are stolen from their natural habitats. In Bolivia, alarming cases of illegal wildlife trafficking have begun to occupy a prominent place on the media agenda.

Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary is a charity dedicated to improving the lives of rescued native Bolivian wildlife by providing medical care, food, and housing. Their mission is to save and protect rescued wild animals from cruelty and suffering, as well as to inspire people to care for wildlife.

… See full entry

Last night, I added Arbela, MO, and some geometry in the immediate vicinity. It’s the next village west of Granger, MO.

Today, I did a quick walk for a GPS trace, and then I came home and added some more geometry around Arbela. Unfortunately, I managed to get JOSM into a bad state before uploading, and I decided to start this evening’s changes over again. Alas. It’s almost bedtime, but I was able to redo the buildings and the driveways I’d done before. The water will have to wait until tomorrow.

Merry Mapmas!

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We haven’t had a London pub meet-up in a while. I probably could’ve organised something, but got waylaid by Dundee, and preparing a talk for Dundee, and recovering from all the excitement of Dundee. But of course we need to squeeze a pub meet-up before Christmas…

The Xmas OSMLondon pub meet-up is TONIGHT!

Dundee? I mean State Of The Map EU in Dundee of course. Great fun was had by me.

Here’s me at the kick off session, not quite managing to do my usual mega-cheerful grin, because I had to get up a bit too early off the sleeper train. More of a normal smile. And I’ve slapped some photos on instagram.

• Day 1 fun
• Day 1 sessions
• Day 2 fun
• Day 2 sessions

Instagram isn’t a proper way to do these things, but they’re not really proper photos. Just my crappy snaps. The official photographer shots will appear somewhere better I hope. Maybe the wikimedia commons category. OK I’ll photobomb that with one of mine :-)

Update: The official photos are appearing on the offical website

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I’m kicking myself for not celebrating Mapmas, since I apparently signed up on December 1st. :) Alas.

Well, I’m retconning it, so Merry Mapmas 2025! I know, the staunch Anglicans in the crowd would (rightfully) say: “But shouldn’t it be Mapvent?” And they would be right! But I’ve already typed the title and these two paragraphs, so on we go!

Remote work

I added Granger, MO last night and this morning. It’s the next village to the west after Luray, MO, which the delightful UnmappedSmallTownUSA bot posted the other day. Someone had already done Luray, but there are several municipalities nearby that are unmapped, and Granger was the first one I saw.

This was my first time adding an entire place, and from imagery, too. Some of the buildings were skewed, so I had to trace roof outlines and then position them correctly to correspond to where they ought to actually be. Granger is also quite wooded, and there were areas where I wasn’t sure if it should count as natural=wood or not. I used my best judgement there.

There might be one or two structures or ponds outside of the official Granger boundary that I’ve missed, so I’m going to check on that tonight or tomorrow. Then, I’ll map Arbela, another village directly west of Granger.

I’ve really enjoyed getting out in the sun and mapping stuff in my own community, but it was nice and zen to hang out with a friend late last night and trace buildings and ponds in Granger.

In-office

I took a couple GPS traces today. Old Towne Orange in particular is missing most of its sidewalks, it seems. Once I convince myself that I’m not going to misplace a bunch of them, I plan to add them in, with appropriate crossings and such. While still doing doorbells. And I should add some more fire hydrants soon… There really aren’t enough hours in the day heh. If only I could get paid to wander around town all day mapping things. That might actually be the dream.

Merry Mapmas!

Bell Island, Newfoundland has now been practically fully mapped. There were some features that I was not able to fully map since it would have required local knowledge, however I’m happy with the extent of what was able to be mapped based off of satellite imagery alone.

With some reflection I think the scope of this project was quite large but still manageable since I didn’t put any strict timelines on myself. In the future I’ll likely choose slightly smaller scale projects where the whole thing can be wrapped up within a couple of months. In the interim I’ll probably map some of the smaller islets around Conception Bay.

Recently, I started adding a large number of roof:colour tags to buildings that had previously lacked this information. I started in Colorado Springs for no particular reason, but I plan to expand this activity further. For reasons I will explain later, starting and then continuing with American suburbia is easier than mapping other regions, but in theory, my approach would work world wide. For this mapping activity, I developed my own processes along with some little software helpers, that people on the OSM World Discord were interested in when I mentioned them. So without further ado, here is everything you need to know about my roof colour related activities.

Motivation

So why am I doing this to myself? The most honest answer would probably be “more data, more better”, which is mostly why I do any of the things I do on OSM, but there are two more concrete possible applications for the data I add: Art and science.

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Today is the first day of the AFRIGIST Alumni OSM TRAINING program. I serve as the assistance surveyor of the Redeemed Christiane Church of God

The AFRIGIST Alumni International Network Online Training Workshop on “OpenStreetMap: From Global Action to Local Impact – Leveraging Open Map Data for the SDGs” was successfully delivered, with over 30 participants and trainees joining from different AFRIGIST alumni beneficiary countries across Africa. It was a 2-days workshop held on 15th and 16th December,2025.

The training was facilitated by Dr. Victor Ndubuisi Sunday, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Geography & Environmental Management, University of Port Harcourt, and National Coordinator, Unique Mappers Network, who served as the Resource Person for the programme.

🔹 Training Highlights

Day 1 focused on core concepts and foundational skills, introducing participants to OpenStreetMap (OSM) as a global, open, community-driven geospatial platform and its relevance to local development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Sessions covered OSM account creation, OSM Diary use, hands-on mapping with the iD Editor (roads, buildings, POIs), the Map My Village / Map My Community campaign, the HOT Tasking Manager, and best practices in data quality and validation.

Day 2 emphasized advanced and applied workflows, exposing participants to:

Downloading OSM data using Geofabrik and QuickOSM

Loading and managing OSM layers in QGIS

Map visualization and styling

… See full entry

What a treat -30.6743046,26.7295793 http://conville-farm.com/

It was a nice day. I think I just added more cameras. I also saw several cats, and a very excited dog who ran over to the fence to jump up and say hi. A nice day, indeed.

I also noticed that one of the house numbers on the north side of E Culver Ave seems to be out of order with the rest. The house numbers go: 537, 543, 555, 605, 569, 577. 605 is between 555 and 569, which doesn’t make sense. 618 is across the street, and starts the even-numbered 600 houses. Was it meant to maybe be 565 and some clerical error happened? Is it even a mistake at all or is this something deliberate? I have no idea, but it definitely threw me. I wonder if they struggle to receive packages.

I have to mapping projects I’m doing here. The first one, the one that has most of my focus is my home community of Fairview, California. The other is Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. For both projects I rely on a variety of tools:

• the Bing visual
• Google maps
• County GIS records

While Google has good data most of the time, I have spotted a couple dozen errors since I’ve started on these projects. When I can easily submit a correction to them, I do. When I can’t, I make sure my work better reflects what the county map tells me.

A few kilometers from the town of Luncavița in Tulcea County, tourists visiting the Măcin Mountains National Park can stop off in Cetățuia hamlet — a paradise for beekeepers who have brought bees to the linden forests (that define this hamlet) and for tourists who want to stay in a quiet place, next to the mountains, as this is the only locality in Tulcea County that resembles a mountain village. However, it didn’t have detailed OpenStreetMap coverage, until now. We have mapped this area in detail and are pleased to announce that the map is complete. You can view the before-and-after images below.

Before detailed mapping

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Orange is pleasant to walk around. The houses are unique and interesting, the people are friendly, and sometimes there are dogs outside you can say hi to (and I say hi to every single one). Even in the quieter neighborhoods, it’s still a lively place. At least, during the day.

At night, it’s perfectly quiet and still. Because of this, I like to walk around at night; sometimes to help digest a large meal, sometimes just to think a bit before bed. Despite the solitude, I don’t feel entirely alone, because I’m being watched by a network of doorbell cameras. Some of them are set far enough back that I’m pretty sure they can’t see me. Others are close enough that they come alive and emit a faint glow when I walk by. Can they see in the dark? Does someone get a push notification alerting them to my presence? I’m not breaking the law, but it feels like I am.

I’m interested in privacy rights, and how technology makes it easy to surveil entire groups of people, always without their consent. I believe that people have a right to know when they’re being watched, and by whom, at least as long as recording in public remains legal. To that end, I’m starting to map doorbell cameras.

I did some research beforehand to see what the community thinks of mapping private objects. I’m still new, and I want to make sure I contribute in a way that is welcome and helpful. The Good practice page also reads: “Be brave in what you add…”

I read the Mapping private information wiki page. As far as I can tell, nothing there explicitly prohibits doorbell camera mapping. I believe I can also satisfy verifiability requirements: someone with a reasonably up-to-date prescription could stand on the same sidewalk and verify that these devices exist at a given location.

I also found a forum thread with some lively debate. The arguments I read in favor were convincing. Then, I checked the map, which had 1,121 camera:mount=doorbell tags, some of which go quite far back.

… See full entry

Peta Bencana Banjir Kabupaten Aceh Tamiang

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