Nix, you will be pleased to know that Gosmore did not have 3D in 2008. Nor did it support dragging.

The good news is that I'm working on a new version that will be a lot better.

Hello Stephan,

I haven't done anything about the bugs in trac during the last few months, but I will get to them before the end of the year.

The one big thing is the user interface. What would help is if someone can
think about replacing the 4 on screen buttons with icons and make some mock-ups. Gosmore supports transparent icons (i.e. non rectangular), but not translucence.

Perhaps add a few more buttons for Searching, "Follow" etc. Then make a table: Icon, Current (English) Name and comments about changes that are needed. I got the current icons from openclipart.org, but I think that they are too big to use on the map view. Copying icons or ideas from navit, roadmap and other opensource projects are also ok provided attribution and other requirements are met.

The map rendering styles also needs works. I need a style that only uses light colours, making the names easier to read. It will make it harder to see the ways, but I will fix the problem by add casing (thin black lines separating the inside of the way from the background). The current style is based on JOSM's mappaint.

The voice commands needs to be extended: I generated the current set with festival, but recording them with a microphone can also work. On motorways we want to tell users what exit to take, so we need "Take exit", "0", "1", ..., "9". When we reach the destination, tell him it's on his left or right. Again, copying things from navit is OK.

You see, even messages like these make me get ideas: I should allow users to customize the interface using text files, because cyclists, pedestrians, motorists and PC users all have different requirements.

Regards,
Nic

Did you get a new one already ? If not, I can loan you one. And if you need any more help, feel free to ask on the talk-za list.

Thanks for your work so far.

@malenki
Yes, I do occasionally get away and in contact with nature. Like this trip from 2006 :

First I joined all the GPX logs into one big file (many ways to do that, e.g. gpsbabel convert to csv and back). Then I uploaded it to gpsies.com and made a screen shot.

Perhaps now that GE has Wikiloc, it's LESS likely to add another community generated layer like openstreetmap.

I'm considering converting some of my POIs (shops etc) to KML and post them on the GE community layer as a way of showcasing how detailed openstreetmap already is.

You can buy a WinCE based GPS and then run Gosmore on it. If it has an SD card slot, you don't need any MS software, like ActiveSync. There's a long list of devices, many of them under GBP100 on the website at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Gosmore

I developed a similar program called osmunda, but it's more experimental. It compares checks a GPX tracklog for moves that will be illegal according to the OSM database. See http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/routing/2008-August/000415.html

Thank you, Skywave.

For testing the software. The second one costed only GBP60.

Fortunately these devices came with brackets (and sucktion cups) that I was able to fasten with cable ties. Very sturdy.

I use the 'layer' tag. See http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Layer
Most renderers understand it.

The only drawback is that some ways need to be split unnecessarily. But in many cases you will also want to split the way and tag it with 'bridge=yes' or 'tunnel=yes'.

OSM was smart because they discouraged abbreviations in the 'name' tag.

But we have all sorts of abbreviations and acronyms in the 'key's : 'tiger', 'AND' and 'sagns' are just 3 (4 if you count 'sangs'). Replacing them with strings like 'Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing' is impractical.

As OSM grows into an organization with tens of mailing lists, a central registry of 'key's may not be a bad idea, even if anyone can change it.

B.t.w. I'm OK with anarchy, it's chaos or entropy that I fear.

I'm with you !

The "tag how you wish" approach has already caused a lot of waste. Most of it is unintentional, e.g. spelling errors.

I have sympathy with people not wanting to wait for tags to be approved by the voting process. But I do find it annoying (if not selfish) that someone can start using a tag and not document it on the wiki.

And perhaps that it the answer : Disallow tags not documented on the wiki e.g. through code on the wiki server that generates meta data and code in each of the editors that download the meta data and enforces it. Only when a dispute arises on the wiki do we vote and lock that page.

Yes : Go to http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/tennet-ahertel and click on send message.

It's at http://groups.google.com/group/enhanced-os-maps-for-geocaching

This is sooo greeaat !

It's already showing. Just have to know where to look :

http://openstreetmap.org/?lat=-26.09166&lon=27.8213&zoom=17&layers=0BFT

The tah server is usually updated within a few hours. If you are being a transparent proxy (Telkom / IS), you may want to find a direct link to tah (e.g.
http://tah.openstreetmap.org/Browse/?x=75665&y=75381&z=17&layer=tile
) and then press Ctrl while you click on the reload button of your web browser.

Fixed it. Uploading now goes smoothly.

Last time I checked roughly 1 out of 100,000 British are active mappers and 1 out of a million South Africans are mappers. This is not nearly the 1:5000 ratio you want, but these maps are already quite useful.

Instead of targeting km^2, we should target km of roads. And then we should weigh it according to the amount of traffic those roads carry, it which case we are already halfway there !

My guess is that someone converted tracks to nodes instead of either (a) converting them to ways or (b) using them to improve the accuracy of existing ways. JOSM allows you to see which user edited them last (provided they are 'public') and if they have any tags. You can also try to download the GPS data from that area and see if it lines up.

IMHO, nodes without tags that are not part of ways contains to information and should be deleted. This will help prevent that annoying situation where 2 nodes are close to each other and JOSM pick the wrong one.