[OSM-talk] Introducing SwiftAddress, an highly efficient way of collecting housenumbers

[Nick Whitelegg]

That's the thing. Remember that while in some cases people might be being paid to develop software by an employer - and in that case, the most efficient way of getting the job done properly is key - many people will be developing software in their own time as a hobby and will receive no financial benefit.

No-one is paying ipswichmapper for their time in developing this software, and wishing to fill a niche that interests you is a highly motivating process in getting the software developed. Many software is not completely original in concept, but might (as in this case) be more closely targeted towards a specific use-case than a more generalised application, or be open-source when all similar apps are proprietary.

Also developing your own app or other software is a great way to learn a language or framework (though I have no idea whether ipswichmapper knows Kotlin or Android development already, so not sure if this comment is relevant here!)

As others have said OpenStreetMap itself was arguably reinventing the wheel - but unlike some other wheels, it's an open-source wheel.

Nick


________________________________
From: Rory McCann <rory at technomancy.org>
Sent: 23 January 2021 14:19
To: Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch>; OSM Talk <talk at openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Introducing SwiftAddress, an highly efficient way of collecting housenumbers

Oh there's nothing wrong with someone having fun. If you don't like it, I'm sure you can get a refund for what you paid for the software 😉

I do keep hearing about these Vespucci features, have you considered making screencasts or videos demonstrating it? There's a good chance that people aren't using these features because they don't know how.

On Sat, 23 Jan 2021 11:19, Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch> wrote:
> I don't quite understand why, outside of a specialized keyboard, you
> are reinventing the wheel (and fragmenting available development
> resources, OK, I suppose that is one of the hallmarks of OSM
> development which unluckily get rewarded time and time again). Vespucci:
>
> - allows you to directly enter address for upload, aka enter once, no
> 2nd pass needed at home
>
> - automatically will download existing data (so that you don't
> accidentally duplicate existing data)
>
> - can highlight missing tags, for example addresses
>
> - has all the background and overlay layers from ELI available
>
> - has address prediction that will automatically detect odd / even
> address schemes and increment and is street side aware
>
> - allows you to configure which address tags should be set on addresses
> (this tends to be a question of national preference)
>
> - handles addr:street and addr:place
>
> - seeds address tags values from existing data
>
> - and many other things like conflict resolution and so on.
>
> All since more than half a decade (actually 7 years).
>
> Yes, as said, it is true that it doesn't have a specialized keyboard,
> but as you typically only have to type in a small number of numbers per
> street, if any at all, the pain isn't really large enough to offset the
> complexity caused by i18n support that would be required. But we even
> have an issue for that
> https://github.com/MarcusWolschon/osmeditor4android/issues/574 and if
> somebody wants to put the effort (see i18n problems) a PR would be
> gladly accepted.
>
> Simon
>
>
>
> Am 22.01.2021 um 12:25 schrieb ipswichmapper--- via talk:
> > Hello openstreetmap community,
> >
> > I have been writing an android application that should make it significantly easier to collect housenumbers.
> >
> > Now, finally, I have released an apk on Github (you'll find it under the "assets" tab):
> >
> > https://github.com/IpswichMapper/SwiftAddress/releases
> >
> > Make sure you check the releases page because I'll be releasing updates that improve functionality and fix bugs.
> >
> > I have written about the app in more detail in my diary entry:
> >
> > https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/IpswichMapper/diary/395413
> >
> > The app starts up as a simple OSMdroid map. The way you place housenumbers is by moving the crosshair (which is in the middle of the screen) above the building outline of the housenumber you are trying to map. You then add the housenumber using the keypad.
> >
> > The advantage of this is that the housenumbers are already in the right place when surveying. There is no need to clean up the messy data (like with Keypad Mapper 3) or draw housenumbers (like with Streetcomplete). All that needs to be done is to load the data into JOSM and then upload. (In the future direct upload might be supported).
> >
> > Of course, most times building outlines aren't drawn in OSM, so you can't tell from OSM imagery where the postition of the building/house is. For this I plan on implementing satellite background imageries into the app, so that you can use that to find the position of the house. (I need to know how to implement that first, however, and what imagery/tms I can use)
> >
> > You can also has a few more features, for example, auto-incrementing, and the ability to take notes. I have described the app in more detail in the diary entry.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > IpswichMapper
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> > talk at openstreetmap.org
> > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
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