[HN Gopher] OpenStreetMap proven to be a highly accurate map in ...
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OpenStreetMap proven to be a highly accurate map in top US cities
Author : clarecorthell
Score : 201 points
Date : 2021-02-09 21:11 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (eng.lyft.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (eng.lyft.com)
| exabrial wrote:
| Except my street. No matter how many times I email Lyft support,
| it always sends them the wrong place. Most Lyft drivers don't
| read the directions on pickup either explaining the problem.
|
| /sigh #FirstWorldProblems
| randoramax wrote:
| Have you tried fixing the map yourself? It's easy, just like
| Wikipedia.
| clarecorthell wrote:
| No bothersome problem is too small! If you'd like to share, we
| would be eager to look into this. Reach us through the app or
| at osm-questions [a] lyft.com.
| Acrobatic_Road wrote:
| And I helped with that. :)
| npteljes wrote:
| Me too :) feels great to see the changes online, and then as
| they propagate to different providers.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| On the other hand, I wonder if OSM's accuracy in Europe has taken
| a hit in the last year. The lockdowns have led to a wave of
| bankruptcies of restaurants and fitness centers in several
| countries, but because mappers are forced to stay home and aren't
| circulating in the city doing their business, they aren't
| noticing so much what has changed and removing those POIs from
| the map. Also, the extremely strict lockdowns in some countries
| have prevented people from going out for mapping expeditions in
| the surrounding regions to add missing infrastructure.
| angott wrote:
| This is an issue with all map services, really. I see the same
| thing happening on Google and Apple Maps, lots of places that
| are permanently closed haven't been updated yet.
| petre wrote:
| Apple, Amazon, Facebook and MS have been lately contributing
| a lot to OSM, so what you see on Apple Maps might very well
| be OSM data.
|
| https://joemorrison.medium.com/openstreetmap-is-having-a-
| mom...
| guntars wrote:
| Lyft has access to some pretty good data on where the roads
| actually are and if there are any closures. Looks like they are
| already contributing back, which is awesome. Something I've never
| heard being done, but could be very helpful for cities, is
| tracking the bumpiness of roads as a metric for road quality. The
| city could have near real time access to information on where the
| potholes are. I'd think they'd be willing to pay for it.
| dewitt wrote:
| "Road directionality" being only 98.9% accurate seems to be a
| huge problem for a navigation app!
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| Road directionality is variable over time. I'm not sure at what
| rate it changes but I bet it's a lot more than 1.1% per year.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I've just checked (some years have passes since the last time)
| and it seems improved a lot for Europe too.
|
| I personally am not really interested in geospatial precision, I
| mostly use public transport so I need all the bus/tram/etc stops
| placed and named accurately.
| advisedwang wrote:
| I'd be really interested in a comparison to other mapping
| providers. 95% doesn't sound that great in the abstract, but
| perhaps that's better than the competition?
| clarecorthell wrote:
| Lyft study shows crucial OpenStreetMap road attributes are fresh
| and high quality in 30 North American cities, as compared to
| groundtruth. Blog post and paper detail the process, methodology,
| and results.
| Ayesh wrote:
| Good that OSM is accurate in cities as well, because in hiking,
| skiing, or even some ferry routes, OSM simply wins because that's
| often the only mapping provider to even have _any_ data. Some of
| my first hand experiences:
|
| - French GR-20 routes. Google maps are laughably empty, while OSM
| has you covered with almost the same information as the hiking
| maps you can buy on the trail.
|
| - Anapurna - similar to GR-20 situation. This route gets changed
| often due to landslides, but there is always some person doing a
| great job updating information not too late after.
|
| - Volcanoes - OSM maps often contain camping grounds, water
| sources, etc. This is something I actively contribute too. The
| level of detail is amazing. Some guides in fact lose potential
| clients because of this.
|
| OSM is a wonderful feat by all its contributors, and isn't
| appreciated as much as it deserves.
| thitcanh wrote:
| Is there an easy way to contribute from my phone? If I could
| just turn the GPS on and let it track my path I'd be able to
| contribute all of my random hikes that might not be on OSM.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| OSM discourages adding raw GPS tracks to the map, rather they
| should only be uploaded to a sort of waiting room hosted on
| OSM's infrastructure. A GPS track from a phone or unit is
| something that needs to be carefully examined, compared to
| other GPS tracks from the region or aerial imagery, and then
| tweaked and refined. You need to be able to use specialized
| mapping software properly in order to contribute tracks to
| OSM. The good news is that the barrier to entry is fairly low
| for people like you and me on this "news for nerds" site.
| diggan wrote:
| There is bunch of suggestions on how to contribute to OSM
| with your mobile here: https://learnosm.org/en/mobile-
| mapping/
|
| On the left side you have a list of apps/devices with guides
| and summaries
| nichos wrote:
| Street complete (fdroid/playstore or GH) is a very easy way
| to use your phone to quickly to edits or validate data.
| https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete
| [deleted]
| maxerickson wrote:
| You can directly upload GPS traces:
|
| https://www.openstreetmap.org/traces
|
| That won't get them into the OpenStreetMap database, but it
| makes them available (if you set them to public) for anyone
| looking to add the trails.
|
| There's also apps like StreetComplete. It has 'challenges',
| where it prompts you for answers to questions and updates
| OpenStreetMap accordingly (so what is the surface type of a
| road, things like that).
|
| Vespucci is a full featured editor for Android.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Interesting thought.
|
| I have GPS traces for a number of Amtrak routes across
| America. I wonder if those would be useful.
| npteljes wrote:
| After registering, it took me only like an hour to have my
| track up and mapping it with their brilliant online editing
| tool. There are some gotchas, but the interface is really
| friendly and their wiki is vast with info, references and
| tutorials alike.
| benjaminclark wrote:
| These experiences are interesting, but I think Annapurna might
| not be the right benchmark to evaluate against. One of the
| least climbed and most deadly mountains on Earth seems rather
| far from OSM's core use case.
|
| It is cool that OSM has the data, but I hope anyone attempting
| the summit is getting information more directly from other
| climbers.
| [deleted]
| dharmab wrote:
| The other great mapping resource is CalTopo
| (https://caltopo.com). Outside did an article on how CalTopo is
| used by people who work and play outside:
| https://www.outsideonline.com/2229756/your-navigation-outdat...
| seism wrote:
| That story (from 2017) is fantastic. CalTopo - and OSM, at
| best of times - a project of passion. Thanks for sharing!
| ghaff wrote:
| OSM isn't perfect--especially on trails that aren't official in
| any way. (Although there are some totally informal trails
| literally out my door that are far better than you could
| reasonably expect. And the missing sections are probably on
| private land which is one reason I haven't filled them in.) But
| Google seems to have pretty much zero interest in mapping even
| popular official trails in many cases.
| CivBase wrote:
| I've been looking to replace Google Maps with OSM on my
| smartphone. OSM itself is great, but I've been having a harder
| time finding a good app to use it with. Is anyone familiar with a
| good option? I mostly use a maps app for location searches and
| real-time GPS navigation, but offline maps and location sharing
| are nice-to-have features.
|
| I've been using OsmAnd and it's okay. The interface is pretty
| good. It supports offline maps, but not location sharing. Map
| tiles are kind of slow to load compared to Google Maps, which is
| odd since the tiles have to be downloaded to local storage. The
| location search often includes redundant results and whatever
| database they use to store place data is sparse on details like
| pictures, hours, or reviews. I'll keep using it to stay de-
| platformed from Google as much as possible, but I'd be willing to
| pay a bit for something more responsive and polished.
| ashtonbaker wrote:
| I think Gaia GPS has a free tier? The base map is OSM. I've
| seen changes that I've made in OSM pulled in within a couple of
| days. I've gotten a lot of use out of my subscription.
|
| I can't speak as much to the location searching capability.
| npteljes wrote:
| I previously had good experience with Maps.me. OsmAnd is great
| with its myriad settings and such, but somehow is a huge
| battery drain on my phone. I use it just fine in the background
| though, because it still provides turn by turn navigation that
| way. I think OsmAnd doesn't use generated tiles, but rather
| generates the map on the fly, hence the slowness.
| blendergeek wrote:
| > It supports offline maps, but not location sharing.
|
| Are you on iOS or Android?
|
| On Android there is the OsmAnd Online GPS Tracker [0].
|
| [0]
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.osmand.tel...
| Nrbelex wrote:
| Check out mapy.cz [1] or an ad-free version from Windy [2].
|
| [1]
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.seznam.mapy...
|
| [2]
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.seznam.wind...
| einpoklum wrote:
| I'm using an app called Maps.Me, which seems to be OSM-based.
| It's kind of commercialized, which I don't like, but it's
| usable.
|
| I'd be interested in something more FOSSy, myself.
| spurgu wrote:
| Maps.me was on HN a couple of weeks back.
|
| MAPS.ME is gone. We must bring it back:
| https://telegra.ph/What-happened-to-the-old-MAPSME-12-20
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25515004
| xorcist wrote:
| There used to be a free fork of Maps.me called simply Maps on
| F-Droid here:
| https://f-droid.org/packages/com.github.axet.maps
|
| Very nicely designed. It seems to be gone now however, maybe
| someone else knows why.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| I love MapOut (iOS only). It's an outdoor-focused mapping app
| with easy offline downloads and really beautiful cartography.
| nbar wrote:
| What is the barrier to adding more data? Do they need funds to
| purchase it from satellite providers?
| Acrobatic_Road wrote:
| they need more contributors...
| sneeuwpopsneeuw wrote:
| My experience with OSM is limited I only contributed a few
| times to the data in a local city in the Netherlands. I also
| used the xml data export only a few times for small
| experiments a long time ago. but from my experience is see
| the following:
|
| * If many people enjoying or live somewhere they will update
| it very fast and accurate. Way beyond google and apple will
| ever have. (If a bench is placed somewhere else on a school
| campus then it will most likely be update within a few days,
| from my experience at least)
|
| * Small structures are detectable on air and satellite images
| but it is really hard to know what kind of structure it is.
|
| * Data from the dutch local governments do, from what I see
| on OSM, often contain good updates on new buildings. But if
| something old is changed. (Like a temporary school building
| is removed then that change is not reflected by a data update
| from the goverment, and it is often removed by a user after a
| while) So getting better data from the governments is
| probably a thing.
|
| * A lot of layers are build on top of OSM. For example if a
| building is easy to use as a person who uses a wheelchair and
| if there toilet is wheelchair friendly. My ex-girlfriend was
| in a wheelchair so I used a app for that a lot. But she never
| used It. They app was very slow and had a strange UI. So
| changing the data of custom layer on top of OSM with better
| tools is hopefully going to be a thing.
|
| * Users use is mostly because they like to contribute. Google
| has the power to send many people notification questions
| about places where they have been. OSM does not have this
| power.
|
| * I would dare to say that OSM is already way more precise
| then google or apple maps. But users do not always care about
| that. The big driver for me to keep using google maps is that
| I often just want to go somewhere, and to go somewhere means
| that I want to travel by using the train or bus (after
| covid). In the case i'm in the city I want to know how long
| it takes to go somewhere by bike or by foot. In the case i'm
| going to a new city I often want to see how something looks
| and Google streetview or general images are better then a
| map. Google prioritizes all that information above having a
| more accurate map.
|
| So no I do not think i't about getting more people involved.
| I think it's more about what kind of user does the platform
| want to have.
| 1-6 wrote:
| Satellite probably won't give you highly detailed models.
| There'd be some ML going on to detect features. Plus, your
| image will lack ortho-rectification. Imaging is still primarily
| a ground-based/very low orbit operation with photogrammetry and
| lidar.
| sneeuwpopsneeuw wrote:
| knowing what kind of structure a rectangle on your satellite
| image is, is also a big problem. A shed or car looks roughly
| the same. So I would say it's more about getting better
| Satellite and plain images + combining that with knowledge
| about the area and government.
| Cshelton wrote:
| Unfortunately, working in the Commercial Real Estate world, OSM
| is no where close when doing a forward geocode... around the
| block is not close enough.
|
| Only ones accurate _enough_ are Google (won 't use) and Mapbox.
| olejorgenb wrote:
| I thought mapbox used openstreetmap data?
| maxerickson wrote:
| Not exclusively. They probably dump OpenAddresses data (or
| something similar) into their geocoder.
|
| https://openaddresses.io/
| juliansimioni wrote:
| Hi, founder of Geocode Earth (https://geocode.earth),
| another geocoding service that _does_ use OpenAddresses and
| only other open data sets.
|
| Mapbox purchases data from, I believe, TomTom, and other
| proprietary sources. That's why they have cheap(er) pricing
| if you want to get results without the legal ability to
| store them, and much more expensive pricing if you do want
| to store it. I'm sure negotiating that arrangement with the
| proprietary address data vendors was...fun.
| maxerickson wrote:
| That seems like it could just be an up charge.
|
| (or a discount for the ephemeral results if you want to
| look at it that way)
| Cshelton wrote:
| Yup, we pay them quite a bit to be able to store it.
| grecy wrote:
| I used OSM as turn-by turn loaded into my Garmin [1] for my three
| year drive around Africa, and then to cross North America six
| times in 2019.
|
| I have been utterly _staggered_ how accurate and complete it is
| in every conceivable scenario - dirt street villages in Sudan and
| Mali, capital cities in same, capital cities in South Africa and
| all over the US and Canada.
|
| I also used it to drive down through Southern Europe, to cross
| parts of the Sahara and Namib deserts and even in the mighty
| Congo it had more detail and info than any other mapping source
| I've ever seen.
|
| My hat is off to the OSM team.
|
| [1] loading OSM into a Garmin is a nice easy way to get free
| routable maps on your dashboard for the entire world -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZRQrG6bC3k
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| I am glad to hear that you found it accurate and complete. I
| know a lot of mapping of sub-Saharan Africa has been done by
| foreign armchair mappers working from aerial imagery for e.g. a
| HOT effort. I myself did a great deal of aerial mapping West
| African villages in preparation for a trip through the region
| that I ultimately had to cancel, and I was nervous that without
| being able to actually verify my edits firsthand, I was
| introducing some errors.
| not2b wrote:
| I used an OSM-based map on my Garmin on trips to India; did
| five trips to Bangalore and often played tourists on
| weekends; I had a particular interest in the ancient temples
| of Karnataka. I used a driver who knew the sites well, but
| not always perfectly, and the map was a huge help; coverage
| of roads in rural areas was quite good, not perfect but
| several times got us around closed roads the driver was
| familiar with and onto good alternate routes.
|
| Not sure how much of the mapping was done from aerial imagery
| and how much was actual GPS tracking, but it was better than
| I expected. And this was about 5 years ago.
| Acrobatic_Road wrote:
| There's a lot of humanitarian groups contributing to OSM.
| Usually they get to work after natural disasters, so that
| emergency workers can get around easier.
| nix23 wrote:
| A friend and i where once on a mission, making bike-tours in the
| swiss mountains every weekend, and map every forgotten water-
| fountain in villages we crossed, great fun!
| dawnerd wrote:
| Now if only there was a sensible way to self-host OSM data. From
| what I've found you either have to build a dedicated server to
| continuously building the tiles (which takes a ton of storage and
| processing power) or pay for it at an insane monthly price. I
| wish OSM would directly make their tiles available to mirror.
| (Maybe they do, but I haven't found it yet)
| simonw wrote:
| I built a tool for downloading tiles last week - but with a
| warning in the README to make sure you are following the
| OpenStreetMap tile downloading policies.
|
| https://simonwillison.net/2021/Feb/4/datasette-tiles/
| npteljes wrote:
| I just looked it up and apparently, all tiles would take up 54
| TB[0], and even just the important tiles are around 1TB. I now
| understand why just downloading them isn't an option.
|
| [0] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tile_disk_usage
| n4r9 wrote:
| You can download tiles directly from openstreetmap.org,
| although bulk requests are obviously discouraged.
|
| Running your own tile server isn't too bad. The tiles are
| cached so that not much processing power is needed after a
| while of usage. Yes it requires storage but so would any self-
| hosting solution.
| flukus wrote:
| It really depends on your requirements, but if you only need
| one city then you're hardware requirements are in the raspberry
| pi territory: https://switch2osm.org/serving-tiles/
|
| The site linked already provides docker images, I'm tempted to
| build a pi one.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Apparently, I'm not in the 30 cities that are accurate.
|
| Used Magic Earth on my phone which is based on OSM. The very
| first address I input was off by about a mile. Didn't exactly
| inspire a lot of confidence.
| emj wrote:
| That is actually a good point, what happens is that many
| streets does not have any address points, and your search puts
| the marker on an arbitrary end of the street, so a mile off
| sounds about right. Address points are really cumbersome to
| crowd source, you really need either open data or buy a
| geocoder. Not easy to do if need to allow everyone to download
| the data and do what ever they want with it.
| ryandrake wrote:
| To be a little pedantic, converting an address to a location is
| more of a function of a geocoder, not a function of the map.
| Software could have a very accurate map, while at the same time
| using a poor geocoder, so addresses are located incorrectly.
| npteljes wrote:
| Not even pedantic, I think it's an important realization.
| Before knowing OSM, I though of Google Maps as a single
| service. Not realizing at all that mapping, addresses, POI
| entries, directions, navigation, etc are huge, separate
| problem domains. I think parent has the same perception.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Address search (geocoding) isn't what this article is about.
| OSM by common agreement has a long way to go on that.
| not2b wrote:
| Right, but if you're Lyft you have to find people and
| locations from their addresses.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Google Maps is funded by corporations who want to mine your data
| and sell you stuff, whether you need it or not.
|
| OpenStreetMaps is funded by... well, actually, it's complicated.
| There are lots of individual donations, but there is also money
| by Amazon, Facebook and Apple. And some other corporations.
|
| Regardless - consider making a donation:
|
| https://donate.openstreetmap.org/
|
| I would also entreat you to ask OSM to get off corporate funding.
| And of course, if you can, contribute map data about where you
| live.
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(page generated 2021-02-09 23:00 UTC)