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Has anyone used or contributed to OpenStreetMap? (coeus.sbs)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've tried using it over the years but I never liked it because there was no information. So last night I looked at my local city and there is almost no information at all. I spent a few hours last night adding buildings and restaurants and removing incorrect items. It was actually kind of fun and therapeutic and I plan to do more of it tonight. My girlfriend thinks it's dumb and I'm wasting my time because Google maps and Apple maps and Bing maps exists but she just doesn't understand open source.

Edit: Apologies, I just realized this question is not Linux specific.

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[–] [email protected] 93 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I've been editing OSM for years. (896,339 edits in 3,427 changesets, apparently!) For me, it's all about the free data. I once got a thank you note from someone who worked for a city with a particularly large municipal park. I'd added almost all the trails to the park and other information, and they'd used it to produce a printed map for the general public. Exactly the kind of thing I'd hoped for!

Personally, I do a lot of dualsport motorcycling and most backcountry maps around here are subpar. I map tons of trails and 2track and put them on the Garmin so I know where I'm going.

OSM is also great in lots of Europe--tons of detail.

JOSM is great.

Someone just recommended Organic Maps for the phone--it's way snappier than Google Maps, but still not great with finding addresses.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What an awesome story to hear. I've been playing around with Organic Maps on my phone. I'll have to look into JOSM.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah josm is a lifechanger when you get used to it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’ve tried putting osm maps on my Garmin with limited success, how can I go about doing that?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There's a list of ready-made providers of gmapsupp.img files.

I've had the best luck with BBBike and OpenMapChest for getting pre-built map files.

Basically you have to get one of these files with all the data you want in it and then stick it on your SD card on the GPS. (The GPS should mount like a thumb drive. If you already have a gmapsupp.img file on there, you might want to back it up in case things go sideways.) Some GPSes support multiple gmapsupp.img files, but a lot don't. Here's a thread on merging .img files.

When I needed super fresh data, I'd download raw OSM data from Overpass and use mkgmap to build the gmapsupp.img.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks a lot!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

That's really cool to hear about the parks. Most of the parks around here are pretty well mapped out. Presumably the local community is pretty strong.

I really want to produce something for my city's NET and BEECN emergency response programs. They already have a few different maps, but not one unified map. My ideal is a map that could be taken offline or printed to spec.