OSMBuildings VS osmand_map_creation

Maybe faux pas to reply to my own comment I made further connections with this.

I literally had cloned and was fixing OSMBuildings.org because, among other things, it wasn't clamping values correctly [1] -- it's why my charging markers are white. But I felt conflicted doing that. I was happy with what I spiked with OSMBuildings and started exploring commercial services like MapBox and a few other OSS projects.

Operating projects and companies and organizations is not easy. It sucks what happened there. I'm not a hater and actually looked to Patreon or similar Paul Norman -- and maybe the 'vector tiles' earmark literally means that? But, I'm not happy with that previous behavior of the organization...

So it's great the OSM Vector Tile service will be dramatically improved...

If any of us start doing something interesting with, will we get jacked up like OSMBuildings? Is that the stewardship of this donations? That's the rub.

[1] https://github.com/OSMBuildings/OSMBuildings/issues/230

One use of that data is creating 3d renders, like this site: https://osmbuildings.org/

The maintainer says it's not dead and the website still works, so... https://github.com/OSMBuildings/OSMBuildings/issues/252

For anyone interested, here is how you import custom maps (obf files) to iOS using the Files app without iTunes: Download an obf file, for instance, from here or use OSMAnd Map Creator to make one: https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation / https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OsmAndMapCreator

Might take a look at https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation as it pipes millions of address points into the regular map creation process, or https://shallowsky.com/blog/mapping/osmand-making-overlay-maps.html as you could perhaps paint the line features into a raster then encode the raster.

Importing data from other sources into OSM is almost always a long and complicated process. It's usually not the most accessible thing for new mappers. Try to find out where a project stalled. Maybe contact the author of the wiki page you mentioned, or get in contact with your local community (most channels should be listed on https://community.osm.be ). From your data user perspective: there's a small project called OpenSuperMap where the maintainer creates files for Osmand that contain both all OSM data and all the addresses from some official source. So you get all the usability without having to finish the import first. Have a look at https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation , maybe your region is already listed. If not, add an issue. The tool works with OpenAdresses.io so it should probably work.

For OsmAnd, /u/pnoll uses OpenAddresses to make OpenSuperMaps available as a replacement files for a limited set of geographic regions. In fact, those in covered regions can use them to work around a recent OsmAnd map data update problem.

Yes, I agree that data balkanization represents a significant hindrance for further development of openstreetmap. Fifteen or so years ago I was experimenting with importing DEM files from the US into Blender for landscaping, and finding the data was frustrating. Sometimes the data was available at a state website, other times at a federal website, sometimes also available on the website of that mapping program. Surveys within a given geopolitical constraint would be found on the website of whichever department provided the funding. I understanding that, even if ignoring legal realities, merging this data into a single "ground" (heh) truth would be a herculean task, scientifically. But there was no common database or delivery method. Some departments would link to FTP sites, other would provide arcgis downloads via an interactive web tool. I'd have to depend on user-maintained blog posts to even find the data. And the best data was always locked away behind secure portals that I couldn't get access to.

Nowadays openstreetmap is running into the same problem at the municipality level. In the US, if I understand correctly, geographic data is under copyright to whichever governing entity and not eligible for import into openstreetmap.

Take for example the excellent app Every Door (https://github.com/Zverik/every_door) with a focus on easily adding building information. In the US, openstreetmap has no address information. Either that or very little address information - but none in my area. So it'd be easy for me to add building nodes with house numbers but I won't be doing that. Not only is it a massive commitment, but the data is already available at openaddresses.io. The catch? It's "probably" license-compatible with openstreetmap. Before merging, all that data would have to be reviewed by a team of lawyers. That's not something a software developer can help with.

In existing threads here, a top complaint about OsmAnd is that lack of address information. Try planning a route without addresses, and without constantly switching to Google Maps to convert address to coordinates. Not very user friendly! Opensupermaps (https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation) is a user-maintained merge of openstreetmaps and openaddresses.io, but it doesn't integrate with OsmAnd's data update system.

And that's how data balkanization is breaking openstreetmap, right now.

While not ideal, I've found a usable solution.

This GitHub repo [1] has map files generated using OpenAddresses.

Load the appropriate one for your area and you can search using addresses in the normal format. They currently provide maps for North America, and are regenerated roughly monthly.

(Thank you pnoll1!)

[1] https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation

Try OSM. It is more reliable than google in performance now, believe it or not.

Address lookup is a shortcoming, and there's this https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation to help you get around that, and sometimes the routing algorithm used by Osmand in particular can be goofy from time to time, I can't speak to other clients. Finally, there's traffic, which is not a problem that can be resolved without collecting and processing data from all users, which I find unethical and so will live without.

There are 2 ways that address lookup can be fixed. The first is this Dev https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation/releases/tag/0.90 has a list of osm maps with address lookup built in. You download the ones you want and replace your map files with them and turn off auto update of maps. The second is an app in google play store called addresstogps 2 . You can enter the address then it gives the option to open the GPS coordinates for it in any app you choose. However it does use google as the search so its maybe not ideal for everyone.

If you use this website to supply your map source, you will be able to do the search that way.