birmingham.io

Looking for local volunteers for OpenStreetMap

#1

Hi there

We have an active local group - you can see more about us here. We’d love to have more people contibute to our map - it might look complete but there’s loads missing and an urban built environment is quite dynamic so we have a lotof change to cope with. There are also loads of geospatial coding and development challenges.
AND IT’S FUN! We’re part of a global volunteer project so it’s a large community to access. For the summer our monthly meeting travel around the region improving the map ( last night we were in Tamworth). Next month we’re meeting in Pershore on a Saturday (date TBA - it’s our 10th anniversary so we want to map as much of postcode WR10 in a day as we can). For the winter we meet in a pub in Birmingham - usually the Bull on Price Street.

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#2

I don’t live in Brum but I went OSMing with Wolves LUG once. It was great fun. It’s one of those activities that makes you see things you’ve never noticed before. You’ve made me feel guilty that I haven’t filled in some of the gaps around me.

#3

I wonder if there’s any chance for cross-collaboration here? Maybe birmingham.io could have a tech map, which shows all the businesses and services which might be of interest to the members here. I’m wondering if this might then encourage people to add their own data to the map as a result.

I know little about OSM, but I get the impression it had support for stuff like this?

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#4

Brum has quite a few maps, the JQ, the Art Map, the Tolkein and Putin trails, I picked up a ‘Capability Brown in the Midlands’ map at NT Croome last week. Wouldn’t it be great if they were all ‘layers’? on top of OSM so tourists could find them? Mapping seems a place where tech overlaps with art too.

I feel all the digital artists and musicians are currently missing from our community. I think if we’re going to get this New Midland Enlightenment Network going, we need them involved. :smiley:

‘New MEN’ & ‘NME net’ are both troublesome abbreviations though :frowning:

Oooooh! NewME.net? Darn, it’s gone.

I’ve just loaded OSMAnd. It looks about a million times better than last time I tried it. Navigation with off-line maps for my tablet. So useful for when I’m lost on Cannock Chase. Where I am and a compass bearing would be a huge improvement on my normal situation :slight_smile:

#5

Crossing the Map / Pi streams, in the name of intertwingularity:

a today’s Meetups blinken-map. I guess it could be on the web, if you insist.

#6

This is part of where I was going with FndOut (which uses OSM for maps), but with communications on top. (I’m planning to rebuild a bunch of it now on elixir + phoenix, which makes real time comms far, far simpler.) All part of my discovery > search approach.

#7

It sounds to have great capability Mr. Cooper.

#8

OSM gives you full access to our data, so using a wide range of toolsets
you can create any map you like, combining it with any other data you want
to show. The type of maps you can make are only limited by your imagination
( and tech skills and data quality). Happy to arrive at a meeting to
explain all this

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#9

Demonstrably not, unfortunately. But I’ll keep trying.

#10

That’s what ‘Capability’ Brown always said, when shown a new patch of swamp that a member of the aristocracy wanted turned into beautiful parkland.

I suspect it was closely followed by ‘air sucked through teeth’ and “But that’s gonna cost you, mate”.

#11

I went for a walk with my tablet today. I’m really impressed by OSMand and map completeness. I’ve just worked out how to toggle pubs on. it doesn’t have all the local ones. Now there’s a challenge!

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