[OSM-newbies] [Talk-ca] Opendata group Analysis

john whelan jwhelan0112 at gmail.com
Sun Apr 25 17:26:42 BST 2010


I'd come across Thomas before and seen what he was doing.  I agree there
were a few interesting people there who had some in depth knowledge of the
subject but the issue I was trying to raise within OpenStreetMap was that
OSM doesn't appear to have the same mash up capabilities.

Gregory <nomoregrapes at googlemail.com> comments below sum up the challenge on
the OpenStreetMap side to make it easier to do this sort of thing.

@@@@@

It's easier/cleaner to do 'mashups' with the Google API. With the options
from OpenStreetMap you need to be brave looking at javascript, but it can be
just as quick to do. There are some helpful examples of using
OpenLayers(powers the 'slippy map' on osm.org) at
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Openlayers

I believe someone is working on making it easier to do lots of drawing
functions over the map, like you can with Google. They are doing it as a
Google Summer of Code project, but I'd wait and see what actually comes out
of it at the end of the summer.

Some people use the Google API(I've never looked at it myself) and you can
display OSM maps instead of the Google maps (it still has the powered by
Google logo, but displays an OSM copyright message instead of
TeleAtlas/NavTeq). I think this is usually for people that have built a
webpage/site and later decide to use OSM without rewriting their displaying
code. The page for that is here
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Google_Maps_Example


Note, I'm not on the Newbies list, so my message will have to be approved or
if it is helpful someone can forward it over.

@@@@

To me a separate issue are the concerns about getting a better foundation on
the Open Data Side.  The comment about Macs was more that they tend to be
used by people with an Arts background who are sensitive to presentation.
To make this stuff work you need both presentation and the technical side.
For example it is a lot easier to do a selection on multiple criteria if
they are all in the same database.  OSM has the tags so finding a playground
with a drinking fountain that is within 30 meters of a coffee shop has three
criteria all the information should be accessible via OSM tags.  To build
this sort of query from three or more separate data sources is much more
complex.

We can't do it easily today but using a local OSM store and something
likeMaperitive it should be possible to do it with local processing so
no
Internet access required at the point of query.

I also have some reservations about using OSM for Ottawa City stuff.  They
have a lot of GIS information that would work better together internally if
it could be consolidated.  For example Travel Planner doesn't appear to know
about footpaths but most people walk to their bus stop.  I'd prefer to see
the city host an OSM format server which would allow it to retain control
over the road network etc and ensure people couldn't decide to remove a
road.  For non Canadians practically all federal government GIS information
is available for us to import, which is quite different than the case in
Europe.

Cheerio John


On 25 April 2010 11:52, John Gill <swfiua at gmail.com> wrote:

> I was there too.   There were several laptops running Ubuntu, as well as
> the plethora of macs.
>
> There was one guy working on openstreetmap, he has created this rather neat
> site + I spent some time chatting to him:
>
> http://opendatamap.ca/
>
> More information on the project is here:
>
> http://opendataapps.org/apps/5-open-data-ottawa-points-of-interest
>
> John
>
> On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 7:44 PM, john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> They had a meeting in our city hall today.  What they appear to be doing
>> is taking a list of locations in a spreadsheet format such as drinking
>> fountains then overlaying them on top of Google maps using an icon.
>> Moderately lightweight stuff that needs little understanding of the data but
>> can be done rapidly.
>>
>> For example one "application" was playing back the buses passing a bus
>> stop, the application used the data file speeded up and went ping or beep
>> and to play a small tune.
>>
>> The reason I've posted in both CA and Newbies is we don't appear to have
>> the same capabilities in OpenStreetMap unless I'm missing something and
>> their applications use Google Map as a background image and sticks the icons
>> in on top.  Anyone have any knowledge of what they are doing or how they are
>> doing it?
>>
>> I did notice that 9 out of 10 computers were mac notebooks of one type or
>> another so we probably aren't talking terribly technical stuff here, but if
>> it could be done using OpenStreetMap as a basis that might be worth
>> following up as they do seem to be good at hype.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Cheerio John
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Talk-ca mailing list
>> Talk-ca at openstreetmap.org
>> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/newbies/attachments/20100425/b4b7e14c/attachment.html>


More information about the newbies mailing list