Greetings from the State of the Map US 2019! This year’s conference comes from the Twin Cities, on the campus of the University of Minnesota. I was stoked to have 2 presentations this year - the first, a talk on the history of imports in Hampton Roads, the other, a beginner workshop entitled Bring Your Own Infinity Gauntlet.

Hampton Roads - A Million (or so) Buildings Later

This talk walked attendees through a series of imports i’ve done for the Hampton Roads region. The highlight of the talk are a series of maps that feature a statistic of the imported features.

Slides from the talk are available at:https://www.jonahadkins.com/slides/sotmus-2019-hrva/#0
And the interactive map is available at:https://www.jonahadkins.com/hrva.html

Watch the talk!

Build Your Own Infinity Gauntlet

This workshop was focused on the beginner, and is pretty much a world tour of my safari bookmarks. Based on some feedback from last year’s conference, attendees would welcome some beginner focused content. The workshop uses the infinity gauntlet as an analogy for creating an awesome list of OSM tools to use on a regular basis. I broke down the following 6 categories of OSM tools:

Editors

• iD: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=10/37.1041/-76.5121
  • do the walkthrough!
  • Participate
    • Name Suggestion Index: http://osmlab.github.io/name-suggestion-index
      • Like This: https://github.com/osmlab/name-suggestion-index/commit/05bfc34547b637925347315cf1bc1d478ac46c52
    • Community Index: https://community.osm.be
      • Like This: https://github.com/osmlab/osm-community-index/commit/564f55bf96239920028a40779f2de235ea33a769
    • Editor Layer Index: https://osmlab.github.io/editor-layer-index/
      • Like This: https://github.com/osmlab/editor-layer-index/commit/0b9b252c6cbe88ee524a92f64ec8381a4a2e60b4
• JOSM
  • Download: https://josm.openstreetmap.de
  • Walkthroughs: https://learnosm.org/en/josm/start-josm/

Extracts

• BBBike: https://extract.bbbike.org
  • Make your own extract (<512mb, <24m sqkm). Supports many export formats (shapefiles!)
• GeoFabrik: https://download.geofabrik.de
  • Continent extracts daily. No user info or changeset info.
• Interline IO (Mapzen): https://www.interline.io/osm/extracts/
  • Free (with account) localized extracts in multiple formats.
• Planet OSM: https://planet.openstreetmap.org
  • The ENTIRE OSM database

Query

• Overpass Turbo: https://overpass-turbo.eu
  • A great tool for quick, directed queries and exports of OSM data.
  • Good cheat sheets:
    • https://github.com/datadesk/overpass-turbo-tutorial
    • https://mapsaregreat.com/geographic-data-mining-and-visualisation-for-beginners/overpass-turbo-tutorial.html
• OSM Tag Stats: https://github.com/mapbox/osm-tag-stats
  • A command line tool for querying an .mbtiles file of OSM data. Uses Mapbox filter expressions and exports to GeoJSON.
    • Mapbox GL Filters: https://docs.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/style-spec/#other-filter
• QGIS
  • A full featured open source GIS desktop. Reads and converts between most geospatial formats. Does SO. MUCH. MORE.
• GDAL (ogrinfo)
  • the command line tool for all your geospatial needs.
  • Good cheat sheets:
    • https://github.com/dwtkns/gdal-cheat-sheet
    • https://headfirst-gdal.readthedocs.io/en/latest/gdal-cheat-sheet.html
    • https://www.northrivergeographic.com/gdalogr2ogr-shortcuts

Tags

• THE TAG WIKI: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Map_Features
  • The Wiki page for map features with links to sub-classes and additional info.
• OSM Tag Info: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org
  • Great info about usage of a tag, or combination of tags. Sometimes it’s best to go with what’s being used the most.
• Ask the community!
  • There’s a large community of OSM mappers (Lists, Slack, Twitter, etc.), and there’s usually someone who’s an expert in mapping a particular feature. Just have to ask!
• Explore the map!
  • Sometimes the best way to figure out the best way to tag a feature is to browse the map and see how others are doing it.

User Tools

• OSM Fight: https://osmfight.neis-one.org
  • Fun way to compare contributions between 2 mappers
• How Do You Contribute to OSM: https://hdyc.neis-one.org
  • Get your mapping stats for all-time. Includes charts & data the sum up your entire contribution history.
• OSMUS Slack: https://osmus.slack.com/
  • Great community of OSM users with local and niche channels for specific conversations.
• OSMCha: https://osmcha.mapbox.com/
  • Awesome tool visualize and query edits. Save preferences and filters.

Other Utilities

• Add Weird Basemaps: https://ags-proxy.openstreetmap.us/
  • Add ESRI MapServer URLS & Trace in ID, JOSM
• Make Your Own!: https://github.com/jonahadkins/commonwealth
  • Build a cooool list of all your go-to data sources and share it!
• Field Papers: http://fieldpapers.org
  • Easily print maps for field markup, then add them back to trace in ID, JOSM
• HOTOSM Tasking Manager:https://tasks.hotosm.org/contribute
  • map for those in need!
• OSM US Tasking Manager: https://tasks.openstreetmap.us/contribute?difficulty=ALL
  • Directed editing tasks.
• Learn OSM Guides: https://github.com/hotosm/learnosm/wiki/English-Learning-Guides
  • Great place to learn OSM info and workflows.
• Error Inspector: https://www.keepright.at/
  • Shows common map errors, and provides quick access to fix them.
• Map Roulette: https://maproulette.org/browse/challenges
  • Directed map editing challenges. Allows for super quick editing of features.

Got questions or comments? Feel free to email me or hit me up on twitter.