[HN Gopher] StreetComplete: Easy to use editor of OpenStreetMap ... ___________________________________________________________________ StreetComplete: Easy to use editor of OpenStreetMap data Author : rjzzleep Score : 368 points Date : 2021-06-18 11:26 UTC (11 hours ago) (HTM) web link (github.com) (TXT) w3m dump (github.com) | SteveCoast wrote: | I find it puzzling how random OSM things go to the top of HN on a | seemingly monthly basis. I imagine some vast conspiracy network | promoting these links and wonder who's in charge and what their | motivation is? | | :-) | BrandoElFollito wrote: | As an avid contributor to OSM I must say that I am impressed. | | It is an excellent tool for normal users, I would need to check | what it suggests in areas that are not well mapped (my | surroundings only miss some unimportant elements) | teknopaul wrote: | Like this lots. Best thing is the can't answer buttons. Need a | name for that feature. The number of times I have aborted a form | because some incompletable entry is "required" is almost | certainly an unreported stat :) | | Hats off, top tool. | streamofdigits wrote: | I think anybody developing open source / collaborative commons | software that targets non-technical users could learn some tricks | from streetcomplete. It has managed to lower barriers to entry | and seems to get many people engaged in what is quite a technical | area. Some UI expert might be better able break it down but here | is my braindump of some key factors: | | * at a basic level, generally smooth handling of drawing of a | legible map and basic UI functions (esp. compared with some other | foss openstreetmap apps, no need to name names :-) | | * considerably narrows down the map editing options. by | presenting controlled choice lists the novice editor feels "safe" | | * uses simple and innocent gamification (scoreboards, "unlocking" | websites etc) | | There are ofcourse glitches and indeed a keen openstreetmap | enthousiast may "outgrow" it relatively quickly but assuming the | devs get further support and build on the initial success it | could be a reference point for highly usable open source apps | targeting larger audiences | matkoniecz wrote: | > There are ofcourse glitches | | If you notice something not covered by existing | https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/issues - feel | free to report it. | | Some glitches in map rendering are | https://github.com/tangrams/tangram-es/ bugs, but in the worst | case issue will be transferred/closed. | progbits wrote: | I can recommend installing this and opening it while you are | bored on a walk somewhere through your city. The questions are | very well phrased, come with intuitive pictures to help you | answer. | | I'm not sure how useful the edits are in practice but I've | contributed hundreds of questions about wheelchair-accessible | sidewalks, street lighting etc and hope that this is helping some | people make better navigation decisions. | blargpls wrote: | Amazon uses it for deliveries and also contributes to OSM. | matkoniecz wrote: | > I'm not sure how useful the edits are in practice | | Heavily depends on a question, some are quite niche. | | But even backrest quest has some use - thanks to it I detected | and deleted some no longer existing benches. | | See comments in | https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/blob/master... | and below for some additional context. | | And note that some not-yet-used data will be more likely to | become used as OSM coverage improves! | mtmail wrote: | StreetComplete can create Notes, too. [edit] I think that's | default when a question cannot be answered. | | For those not aware: On https://www.openstreetmap.org/ you can | leave comments on the map, so called Notes | (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Notes). It's like bug | reports but on a map, with comment thread. Local mappers look | at those. Or that is the idea, I've seen notes open years and | others resolved within hours. | | The answers with new information are useful for local mappers, | even "this shop no longer exists" answer (examples | https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2659780 , | https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2641050) when asked about | opening times. Many notes need a local mapper to verify (visit | the place, find secondary information). | easyKL wrote: | Notes also come from other services that make use of OSM | data, like MapsMe. There are lots of them. | andrewshadura wrote: | Correction: MapsMe - Organic Maps | windthrown wrote: | I prefer Organic Maps too, but it isn't incorrect to | state that MapsMe "makes use of OSM Data". | Mediterraneo10 wrote: | No need for that correction. The issue is that while | MapsMe got sold to a dodgy company and now has some | respectable FOSS forks, the Notes layer on OSM is still | full of notes that were created from Maps.me over the | last several years and clearly state that. | Aachen wrote: | > I'm not sure how useful the edits are in practice | | It depends on who you ask! | | For me, things like opening hours or paid parking indications | are very helpful. | | My girlfriend was doing some running training a while ago and | in summer during the day it can be quite hot. But at night, how | do you know which roads are lit if you want to plan your route | ahead of time to have the right distance? Easy: OSM has the | data, OsmAnd and others can display it... except our area had | almost no coverage at all. StreetComplete made it super easy | for me to map that, so now it's there. She stopped running in | the meantime but... hopefully the next person can make use of | it, the data is there to stay :) | | For the wheelchair questions, there is of course another | audience that might like to plan routes without finding | inaccessible steps in the middle. | | I can also imagine if you drive trucks, having good | weight/width/height limit data is also useful. Right now I | think this data is quite incomplete (though I didn't do a | comprehensive study) and I have no idea what those companies | use instead (maybe they just drive a route before sending | trucks down it?), but at some point a free worldwide uniform | dataset is going to be easier than whatever they use now. | progbits wrote: | > She stopped running in the meantime | | Made me laugh! | | Thanks a lot for sharing. These are all great usecases and it | is good to hear people make use of that. I didn't have the | need for it, and while I can see the intrinsic value in | having this data widely available in OSM the fact people do | actually use it for something makes it more "real"!. | windthrown wrote: | In addition to the wheelchair ramp example, there are a few | navigation apps for people who are blind which use OSM data | - crucially features like tactile paving and crosswalks | with voice prompts: | | https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_for_the_blind | blendergeek wrote: | If you like Street Complete, please consider sponsoring it on | Libera Pay [0], Github Sponsors [1], or Patreon [2]. For the last | year, it was funded by OSMF by a grant to help develop | alternative OSM editors. This grant has come to an end so they no | longer have funding other than donations. | | [0] https://liberapay.com/westnordost | | [1] https://github.com/sponsors/westnordost | | [2] https://www.patreon.com/westnordost | matkoniecz wrote: | To be more exact, OSMF funding was 3000 euro ( | https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Microgrants/Microgrants_... | ) | | There was also funding from The German Federal Ministry of | Education and Research "between 09.2020 and 02.2021" | https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete#sponsors | | (I am one of contributors, and small part of my work was also | grant-supported by NLnet foundation - I also definitely | encourage to consider sponsoring the app author) | starsep wrote: | Great app :). I recommend it to my friends to introduce them to | OpenStreetMap. Ease of use, good UX/UI is a game changer. | | Those things matter a lot but most OSM Editors/Maps suck in this | area. Usually it's caused by a design made by developers for | other superusers. | mdip wrote: | Very cool; I don't work with OSM in my "day job" but took an | interest early last spring. | | It's amazing how far things have progressed in the mapping space. | I think back to my first "serial-port attached" Magellin GPS | device that only worked plugged into a laptop and stored | seriously outdated maps on a CD-ROM. Taking just the advances | since the first time I saw a "Google Earth-like Product" (called | Microsoft TerraServer[1]) to Earth, Maps, and OpenStreetMap and | it really is mind-blowing how far the geo-* space has come. | | I was (inappropriately) disappointed when I saw that it was a | mobile app. Of course it is. It's a mapping app. I'd still want a | laptop version, but then I dug into what they were trying to | solve and the details of how their app works and, I'm genuinely | impressed. It appears you identified a real problem: lack of | current, complete metadata on OSM[2] and gave me a way to update | it semi-passively, or at least with the "thing I have available | to me right now" while standing "near the thing I'm trying to | capture information about". Since map data is relied upon for | anything from leisure to outright safety, accuracy is really | important, and the design[3] seems to nail ensuring that accuracy | can be easily accomplished. | | My interest stems from my purchasing of a OneWheel. I put more | miles on that than I did my car last year and I noticed that | neither OSM, nor Google do very good with sidewalks. They'll get | the ones that showed up well in the last satellite pass, provided | there's a road next to them, and they'll get a lot of trails. | They miss a few _really_ helpful things. Where I live, most | elementary /middle schools are located within a cluster of | subdivisions (often 1-2 miles from a main road). In my | neighborhood, the school is on the far side, and our subdivision | borders two other neighborhoods, a large apartment complex and a | trailer park. To get from my home to a home in one of the three | bordering subdivisions -- by car -- I will drive at least one | mile and have to make a couple of ugly turns onto main roads -- | our subdivision does not connect to the trailer park, apartment | complex or the other bordering subdivision. | | On foot, because of the elementary school, there are paved, | fenced side-walks, meaning I can roll 1/4 mile and reach any home | in the other subdivisions. Similarly, our neighborhood does not | have a road leading out to one of the main streets that it | borders because the residents feared it would be used as a bypass | during high-traffic times to get from one popular main road to | another _ridiculously busy_ main road. To solve this, they | brought the road all the way to the parking lot of a McDonald 's | and then built a large, brick, wall covering that whole side of | the neighborhood. McDonald's takes the same amount of time to get | to _by car_ as it does _by onewheel_ because at the end of that | street, if you look really closely, there 's a second fence, and | the home-owner bordering it put pavers down and knocked part of | the wall out, so you ride right through to the parking lot, | avoiding lights/busy roads/anything else -- and that main road | has many retail businesses. | | This pattern exists in almost every subdivision in my township, | and the schools as side-walk nexus points connecting | neighborhoods is state-wide (it allows for more students to walk, | less busing [mandatory through most of my state]), but I've had | to add each one to OSM, myself -- and I'm happy to do it, except | that the online map editor, as amazing as it is, lands in on the | "intimidating" side, resource-heavy [expected] and just generally | not as pleasant as I wish it were. I run Linux and last I looked, | that was the best options of the choices I could get working | (easily, anyway) with my current configuration. | | Does anyone have any _non-Android_ OSM map editor | recommendations? Or even any mobile versions that are | particularly pleasant for adding the kinds of paths I 've | described? And hey, if you know of any good source data for | discovering those paths? For instance, I have a link bookmarked | around here that takes me to a heatmap produced using the phones | of people who have a particular biking app installed and have | enabled public logging. It was super-useful in finding trails | that are seasonal/hidden/otherwise not well mapped. | | [0] I've done a mess of things with Google Maps API a while back, | but even in those cases it was _really simplistic sorts of | things_. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraserver.com | | [2] Not a knock to OSM; to clarify, considering their largest | alternative is ... Gooble ... it's pretty amazing that even on | the metadata side, OSM is more complete in many categories than | Guh'Maps. | | [3] I'm going on screen shots, I will be installing this in the | afternoon but have not installed it, yet so if some of the things | I like (or dislike) aren't actually the way I think they are "in | the app", my apologies. | blargpls wrote: | > For instance, I have a link bookmarked around here that takes | me to a heatmap produced using the phones of people who have a | particular biking app installed and have enabled public logging | | Could you post this link, please? | | > Does anyone have any non-Android OSM map editor | recommendations? | | JOSM. It's no beautiful and the UX is clunky, but it's java | based and therefor works on a lot of operating systems. | | https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/JOSM | | https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Editors | c0nsumer wrote: | It's Strava's Global Heatmap, and here's a writeup I did on | how to use it as a layer in JOSM: | https://nuxx.net/blog/2020/05/24/high-resolution-strava- | glob... | | Note, you need a paid account to access the high-res data. | troccu wrote: | Ok | kawsper wrote: | I've considered asking if any of my friends have an old Android | so I could use StreetComplete, I hope we will one day see an iOS | version. | emaro wrote: | Does anything similar exist for iOS? | blargpls wrote: | The project is looking for help porting it to iOS: | https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/issues/1892 | | Some preparations and refactorings were already done in | anticipation, but there's still a lot left to do. | ygra wrote: | It doesn't seem like it, no. The sheer number of custom UI | things (basically a well-designed custom UI for each and every | question that can be answered) is probably the most challenging | aspect to redo on another platform. And that's precisely the | part that makes StreetComplete so good. I often edit with | Vespucci as well when outside, but for the things that SC | covers, I don't even bother fiddling with the tags, as long as | I know the feature will generate a SC quest. | jmkb wrote: | Not really. I'm a very happy user of Go Map!! for iOS, which is | a much more full-featured map editor but doesn't have the | streamlined workflow of StreetComplete. | leokennis wrote: | That's interesting. Go Map!! is the only OSM editor for iOS I | know about, but even moving an existing street a few yards | left or right is an almost impossible chore in it... | jmkb wrote: | When it comes to that sort of fine tuning, there's no | substitute for JOSM, which is the all-powerful java-based | desktop editor with a hundred plugins and a somewhat | inscrutable UI. But it's great because it can load several | sources of aerial imagery at the same time, and quickly | cycle between them or set transparency levels. This gives | good perspective when it comes to precise alignment of map | features to imagery, and to each other. | TuringTest wrote: | Is there a way to _add_ elements to the map, such as a missing | store, a one-way road, a construction work blocking the | street...? Basically, to create new bubbles from a limited | subset; or to classify notes by (a limited subset of) its | possible type of street elements. | | This would make this app a perfect entry-level editor to | contribute on poorly mapped areas. Other editor apps are too | complex for that, but this one feels somewhat limited without a | possibility to add freeform content, not just following exisitng | prompts. | morsch wrote: | You can't do those things with StreetComplete, but you can add | notes which other editors can -- and in my own experience, will | -- address. | donalhunt wrote: | OSM Contributor (android) is quite good for the set of POIs it | supports. I believe Go map! is the go-to on iOS. | | There are also imagery capture apps (Mapillary, Kartaview, etc) | which allow you capture a lot of data on the ground and then | process it later (either yourself or by utilising other members | of the community). | edwcross wrote: | OSM Go! (Android app) allows adding point-based POIs, so mostly | stores (if you point to the entrance) and fixtures, not so much | path-based things (e.g. crosswalks, which are bound to a path). | But it's quite easy in my opinion, and offers several | templates. It's open source (on GitHub) even though not on | F-Droid, so you have to use Google Play to install it. | pwg wrote: | If you want the ability to do full editing on the go, then | Vespucci (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.blau.android/) | provides the ability to edit, on Android devices, everything | you can edit with the desktop OSM editors. | xyzelement wrote: | Oh man the power of branding. The first few times I saw the | headline I assumed it was about StreetEasy because that's how my | brain is conditioned to recognize the word Street followed by | another word in CamelCase I guess! | aaronax wrote: | The recent update which re-architected the internal systems was a | great improvement for my uses of the app, based on a few minutes | of testing at least. Very nice to be able to immediately put in | the house number after choosing that a building is a house. | | - 7876 contributions over the last few years, #19 rank in USA and | #248 globally | ygra wrote: | Just out of curiosity, how quest-less is your vicinity? Because | for the village I live in there's almost nothing left by now | and I had to resort to micro-mapping street lights, hedges, | fences, walls, trees, entrances, building/roof colors and | materials, etc. when outside, instead of using StreetComplete. | | (I'm only #263 in Germany and #714 globally, though.) | | It's a really great gateway into OSM, I have to admit. Even | though my previous work had to do with maps and I've had an OSM | account since then, I've never mapped gain after the first few | changesets until I found StreetComplete this winter. | qwertox wrote: | I once added a bench to OSM just to see how the process | works, and it all feels pretty tedious, specially when you | want to update it in order to add some properties. | edwcross wrote: | There's the Android app OSM Go! nowadays | (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osm_Go!), made by a | French developer so it might have some local bias, but it's | the easiest app I've seen to add point-based POIs, like | trash cans, shops, playgrounds, billboards, etc. It's not | perfect (some templates miss optional properties), but it | enables adding POIs in a few seconds, so you can do it | while walking. | matkoniecz wrote: | > Just out of curiosity, how quest-less is your vicinity? | | I have still thousands, maybe tens of thousands quests within | walking range. Despite systematic use of StreetComplete for a | long time. | | But I live in a city that is well mapped in OpenStreetMap - | Krakow, Poland | https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/50.0621/19.9431 | aaronax wrote: | I have lived in a lot of different places over the past three | years so have improved each area as I pass through. Now where | I am settled down most of the city's buildings aren't even | traced so there is a lot to do. I'm busy with substantial | home improvement projects for probably the rest of the year | but I will get to it eventually. | dockd wrote: | How did you find your ranking? | progbits wrote: | Shows up in [Hamburger menu] > [My profile]. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-06-18 23:00 UTC)