Ken Guest's online diary » openstreetmap

A new Openstreetmap API framework for PHP.

kenguest — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:38:38 +0000

So over the last while, I’ve been working on a PHP package imaginatively named Services_Openstreetmap, for interacting with the openstreetmap API. I initially needed it so I could search for certain POIs and tabulate the results; it’s now also capable of adding data to the openstreetmap database – nodes and other elements can be created, updated and so on. It will even access the details of the user that is being used to modify that data, which is one difference between it and the other single purpose OSM frameworks.

So why the big fanfare now? Well I’m happy enough with it now to let other people look at and use it and also I’ve submitted it to the PEAR Pepr process, and the grilling that entails, so it can be included in the PEAR repository.

And if this pushes more people to using Openstreetmap (or PEAR for that matter) all the better!

(Update: This article has been translated to Ukrainian, with many thanks to Vlad Brown)

Mapping Roscrea – with hindsight set to 20/20.

kenguest — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:44:21 +0000

So, I had the opportunity earlier on this week, to spend an hour or two ‘micromapping’ a portion of Roscrea town. Deciding to focus on Castle Street, Glebe View (previously not on the map), Gaol Road, Abbey Street and back up to Castle Street via Rosemary Street and some of Main Street, I’ve added quite a few POIs; including *three* fast food emporiums with the word ‘Tasty’ in their names!

Walking around with a notepad and pen, along with a little black box with flashing lights on (my gps ‘mouse’ for which I should get a spare battery) aroused some interest; between some people telling me of their favourite walks and at least one man telling me that what I was doing was very strange indeed I think, after the fact of course (hindsight always being 20-20), I should have brought a few OSM pamphlets or leaflets with me – not wanting to stick out too much I’d left my openstreetmap hi-viz vest behind in the car.

What, if anything, do you bring along when mapping – both for the act of mapping itself and for ‘spreading the word’?

OpenStreetMap posters

kenguest — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:58:09 +0000

Here’s a little list of various posters/leaflets that I’ve found for evangelizing OpenStreetMap:

Open Street Map Fast Facts
There’s the recruitment poster; with other formats at http://svn.openstreetmap.org/misc/pr_material/recruitment_poster/ – there are quite a few shops along my commute-route with this on their noticeboard
The OSM Flyer
This OSM Licence Card appeared mid-February

If there are any others please let me know so I can update the list

OpenStreetMap in the news again

kenguest — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:45:24 +0000

Spotted two new articles on OpenStreetMap recently – one on the PocketLint site: “OpenStreetMap – Crowd sourced cartography set to re-map the world“; and the other on Wired: “GPS Hackers Blaze Own Trails With Crowdsourced Maps“.
They both mention how OpenStreetMap cartography is more detailed than the alternatives produced by Navteq, Teleatlas et al and the Wired article even goes to include at least four links to various parts of the OSM wiki and mentions some of the devices that our maps can be used on such as iPhones, TomToms and so on.
What with this and more OSM ‘love’ spilling into Episode 83 of Floss Weekly – Steve Coast, founder of OpenStreetMap, was interviewed in Episode 81 it looks like activity is only going to increase.

OpenStreetMap at the Farmleigh Park Geeknic in Dublin, anybody?

kenguest — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:52:01 +0000

There’s a Geeknic (picnic for geeks if you aren’t too sure) on in Farmleigh Park, Dublin in a few weeks time (on Sunday 2nd August @ 1pm). I can’t help but notice that the OpenStreetMap map of Farmleigh could do with a bit of attention – from what I can make out there are unnamed roads on the OSM map along with ones that aren’t there – and as we all know, we can add as much detail as we feel necessary

So, anybody on for a bit of socialisin’, evangelisin’ and map making?

New Accessibility mailing list for Open Street Map

kenguest — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:13:11 +0000

Lulu-Ann posted to the general Open Street Map mailing list an announcement of theaccessibility mailing list .

From her posting, this mailing list will be focused on the discussion of

How to create non visual maps for the blind and visual impaired
New tags that allow to map objects of special interest for disabled persons
New maps that contain information about barriers like steps for wheelchair users
Special routing, like wheelchair routing or pedestrian routing for the blind
New maps that contain worthful information like theatres with subtitles for the deaf or braille writing signs or acoustic traffic lights for the blind
Data exchange to the navigation tool “Loadstone-GPS” for the blind

All very interesting.

Reorganising the WikiProject_Ireland Page

kenguest — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:53:22 +0000

I sent a post to the talk-ie mailing list wondering whether we should reorganise the “WikiProject_Ireland” page to be more useful for those of us that are interested with mapping in Ireland.

If you’re interested please chime in with your opinion so we can arrive something workable.

OpenStreetMapping Nenagh

kenguest — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:38:17 +0000

So yesterday I had a quick interview with a journalist from the Nenagh Guardian – my local paper – about this OpenStreetMap (OSM) mapping malarky.

As most of you will probably know OSM is to printed atlases from AA, Ordnance Survery etc, as wikipedia is to encyclopedias. People can contribute data to the project through a variety of activities: going out and actually mapping an area with a sat nav or gps unit [even a mobile phone with GPS in it such as an iphone, nokia n95 or whatever], tracing data off Yahoo [and other] aerial imagery, filing bugs on the openstreetbugs website or literally drawing in information via the walking papers map making website. And better again, this is about providing free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them.

Anyway…I mentioned how the OpenStreetMap map of Nenagh is more complete than even the latest commercially available maps for Garmin and Google Maps and listed off a few ways how OSM could be used commercially: by real estate agents, courier companies, how being able to pin-point where all the amenities are would be useful for tourists, and so on.

Compare the Open Street Map of Nenagh with the Google Map of the area – as you can see, there’s still quite a bit of work to be done – Millers Brook needs to be marked as such along with the various groves, avenues etc that comprise that estate. Plus all the amenities, shops [perhaps even their opening hours] and the Shannon Development Industrial Centre still need to be added – as I’m sure are some other small portions of the town that I’ve unknowingly neglected.

It’s fair to say that this will never be finished – existing housing estates will be extended, there will always be urban development plans that when implemented would also need to be included on the map.

It would also be cool to have the new “Nenagh Cycling Hub” rendered on the opencyclemap.org website.

I discovered the OpenStreetBrowser site to be a great test of the data that myself and others have entered – it’s also a great way of demonstrating just what can be done with OSM data.

If you happen to spot something that I’ve missed please either drop me a comment or use the openstreetbugs website.

On a related note: it would be good to see a PEAR/PHP based client/component for interfacing with the OpenStreetMap server so that interesting apps utilising that data could be implemented on the LAMP stack – something to go alongside the Services_GeoNames package from pear