[Talk-GB] Idea - OSMUK walkers' map application -- -& server

[Nick Whitelegg]

>Hi


Hello Tony,


>I like the idea.

>Can it be extended to be a UK based map which is has greater prominence to aspects such as the >recent discussion about cyclists and paths?


Potentially, yes - I don't see why not.

I have to admit I personally haven't had much experience in recent years with creating mapnik stylesheets (I've been working with client-side renderers such as Kothic and have played with Tangram), hence my suggestion earlier of starting with Andy Townsend's style.


>Does anyone have an idea of how it could be made to happen - could we (OSM UK) fund and >maintain it with commitment for say 2 years? Using volunteers or donated equipment or personal >funding commitments? Do we know the size of server required to support a given load? Can we >manage the required operations and security?

In the early stages I think we could run it on cheap hosting hardware, like most projects in the OSM ecosystem. I suspect for a while usage would be light and limited to those in the OSM community. I use Hetzner for my hosting (OpenTrailView, Hikar, MapThePaths) - I pay around EUR 19/month but that is for a larger system that has to deal with the whole of Europe rather than just the UK.

 https://www.hetzner.com/cloud?country=gb

The second-lowest spec of these, the CPX11 is giving you 2GB RAM and 40GB disc space for EUR 4.19 a month. OK we'd need more than that long term, but I suspect that would get us going in the early stages.

I'm quite happy to create the server and pay the initial costs, but it would be good if funds could be found from OSMUK longer term if possible.

I'm also happy to do some dev work (client and server side). I can tweak the cartography and add contours (I have experience doing this) but I'll leave it up to others to do serious cartography work, and of course web design.

Or, we could even use client-side rendering, Tangram is pretty powerful, have had a play with it.

Would be a great project for the community to work on.

Nick


________________________________
From: Tony Shield <tonyosm9 at gmail.com>
Sent: 10 December 2020 17:36
To: talk-gb at openstreetmap.org <talk-gb at openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Idea - OSMUK walkers' map application -- -& server


Hi

I like the idea.

Can it be extended to be a UK based map which is has greater prominence to aspects such as the recent discussion about cyclists and paths?


Does anyone have an idea of how it could be made to happen - could we (OSM UK) fund and maintain it with commitment for say 2 years? Using volunteers or donated equipment or personal funding commitments? Do we know the size of server required to support a given load? Can we manage the required operations and security?


Tony Shield - TonyS999




On 04/12/2020 15:40, Nick Whitelegg via Talk-GB wrote:
Hi,

Just floating an idea for a possible OSMUK site, namely an OSMUK 'semi-official'  web application for walkers and hikers.

This could provide similar functionality to sites such as the Ramblers' Pathwatch (https://www.ramblers.org.uk/advice/pathwatch-report-path-features-and-problems.aspx) allowing users to report path problems as well as nice views, historical sites and so on. It could also provide info such as train or bus times (by clicking on a rail station), beers served (for a pub), routing via public transport to a given countryside location, and so on.

Reported path problems could be then made available via an API, which could be used by councils - and, given we have the council ROW data available to us via rowmaps.com  - the right of way reference could be sourced from this if it's not in OSM already.

For rendering, we could perhaps use Andy Townsend's SomeoneElse-style, maybe tweaked a little, as it appears to be the most actively maintained of all the England and Wales renderings. This could be setup on our own server, I seem to remember experimenting with this a couple of years ago when the OSMUK idea was first floated, on a server which had been loaned to the community (I need to re-check my emails, and indeed check if this server is still open for us to use!)

I've done similar things to this in the past on a small scale, e.g. Freemap (free-map.org.uk) once had the facility to add path problems, but now we have the OSMUK organisation in existence, maybe a semi-official OSMUK walkers' map with added functionality would have greater traction and it's something that could be launched as a project on GitHub?

Thanks,
Nick



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