That would be great ! We're starting closer collaboration with Comaps this month. What are these questions on your side ? A text more friendly than ID ? Or a selection of inputs based on the place type ?
I make https://mapcomplete.org which also serves as easy-to-use data consumer and editor. I sidestep most of the complexity by having a lot of thematic maps, each focussing on just a single topic (e.g. mapcomplete.org/shops, https://mapcomplete.org/toilets, ...)
OpenStreetMap is a great ecosystem - I'm a long term contributor.
Some pointers:
- CoMaps is a fork of Organic Maps, which forked long time ago from Maps.me
- OsmAnd is similar. It has more features but is slower and clunkier
- If you see errors/missing stuff on OpenStreetMap, fix them. You need a free account for this. There are various tools to help out, such as the editor on Osm.org. Beginner-friendly editors are https://MapComplete.org (which has thematic maps; disclaimer: I'm the main dev) and https://streetcomplete.app
Just to clarify: OsmAnd has more features, CoMaps and Organic Maps are much faster.
(Aside: I'm using CoMaps myself. The main missing features are tracking (I use OpenTracks for that) and public transportation (I use a website for that). End of aside.)
OsmAnd is not that much slower nowadays since they added the new OpenGL renderer. It is, however, less convenient and pretty. I think OsmAnd really shines for things like hiking, whereas for regular urban navigation CoMaps works just as well.
Exactly my experience as well. OSMAnd is a lot better for hiking as it has 3d views, hiking routes, topo maps and better routing in general. Comaps is great for city navigation or casual usage
I also really like the star chart they added recently. Seems like a minor thing but it's just really handy to have it available for the few occasions you need it.
I gave CoMaps a shot this morning, but it doesn't support public transit in my city (Minneapolis/Saint Paul area) which is an instant deal killer. Bummer.
Wait, I just used the tracking the other day and generated a GPX from it. It also drew me an elevation map and gave me some other info about the trip. Is there some other tracking that it can't do?
I stand corrected, CoMaps can do tracking. It was introduced in Organic Maps a couple of years ago, but I was already using OpenTracks, so I never switched away from it.
I was recently recommended https://api.transitous.org (it's a webapp despite the domain). It can do things like "someone can pick me up on the far side and I don't mind walking 30 minutes at the start at 6 km/h, what's the optimal route to take?"
Revolutionary! Finally I don't have to look on a map to find all stations in walking/cycling/driving distance and then route to/from every possible combination of start and end station manually to see what busses and trains run there. And repeat the process with each schedule change in each involved country. Every other transport app that I know of will try to keep you within a few hundred metres of a bus stop or train station at all times and say "there exists no route" before telling you to cycle 10 minutes or from which station you have the shortest remaining distance by taxi or whatever
There is actually work being done to integrate exactly this API into Comaps! Although it will certainly take some more time, especially until these more niche routing features are available
Hey, a simple question : I would like to contribute not features nor POIs but actual paths. In my region the maps lack a lot of forest paths, and others that are on the map are long gone due to nature closing them. Something like the strava heatmap is a lot more accurate because hikers and trail runners make the actual paths appear. I often use https://onthegomap.com (which uses OSM) to plan routes and find that the hiking paths do not match reality. What is a straightforward way for me to contribute ? I have GPX traces of all those not-on-maps well-trodden paths if that helps.
There is an upload GPX track function on the website. You then draw your paths with the online editor, above those tracks. Edit: you do this because GPS is not clean enough and you need to choose which paths connects where.
You will often forget the details if your GPX are old. E.g. was it really possible to use a bicycle on that path, did those two actually connect or was it me running 150m through the Forrest as a short cut.
On mobile, Vespucci is the full-featured OSM editor that lets you edit whatever you want. On desktop, JOSM is the main one, though it takes a bit of figuring out.
Unfortunately (but logically I think) the OSM-ecosystem is very Android leaning - so missing out on a large % of street walking smartphone wielding would-be mappers.
Also, to get "basic non-tech regular people" involved in improving the maps, it's too complicated (i.e. even the simplest street or sidewalk has a lot of tags with arcane names, which need to be set to exact values according to very deeply buried and confusing documentation).
For street level small maintenance level enhancements, I would envision (and need) an app that would consist of:
- See the point/lines/area that make up the map at the place where I stand
- Add a new point/line/area or drag existing ones to change their shape
- Answer some simple questions about what you added or edited (i.e. for an area: "is this grass?" or "is this parking space?", for a line "is this paved?" or "can a car drive here?")
- Optionally, either directly publish the changes or add them to some review queue where an expert can asynchronously review and catch the most basic mistakes or abuse
Although I do need to say that despite this app not existing, OSM is often the most detailed and up to date map in my area. I think it heavily depends on if your neighborhood has an OSM enthusiast or not.
Note that there are lots of OSM editors, but sadly not a single one as simple as Google Maps for end-users.
I'm working on cartes.app, we've designed a very simple opening hours editor, but we're missing lots of other edition features.
We should also mention Everydoor or of course osm.org, the main one.
In the end, you can modify way more things yourself on OSM than Google Maps, but through a complexe ecosystem that you have to understand first, and most are missing place reviews and simple image uploading.
Both cartes.app and mapcomplete enable these, through two different databases. Mapcomplete enable Mangrove reviews and Panoramax image uploads.
Cartes enables ATProto place reviews, with pictures, and soon Panoramax upload too.
Yeah! CoMaps was actually what I used for my very first contribution to OSM! Nice lil gateway to an awesome ecosystem. Mega kudos to the CoMaps devs for doing such a great job with it.
First of all, I assume you are from the Netherlands (based on the .nl)
The Dutch OSM-community indeed is very conservative, a bit too much IMHO. We Belgians are more relaxed :)
Such a dataset would still be useful, but perhaps in a quality assurance tool, not as map notes that would clog the map. Can you link more information?
This was international. And it was a long while ago, so I don't have anything online to point to anymore. Sorry.
If "Map Notes clog the map" then there still is something needed in OSM to allow data that's not directly geographical, to be kept up to date, the POI data.
Aside from technicalities: if we want a free, open, etc etc alternative to Google Maps, we need to ensure POI data is of high quality, up to date, and comprehensive.
While it's very useful for many to have all traffic-lights, bike-lanes or waterways mapped, in practice, osmand, maps.me, organic-maps etc etc aren't used when Google maps shows accurate list of Bakeries (or campsites, or anything really) but the OSM-sourced ones don't.
Users, like me, only accept driving to e.g. a campsite that's been closed for over a year a very few times before grabbing Google Maps again. I'll edit OSM in these cases. Open Openingstijden was one of a few experiments where I researched "improving and maintaining POI data".
If we consider the amount of "alternatives to Google Maps" that now don't contribute back to OSM, because of technicalities, legal things etc etc, we miss a lot of good POI data that makes these alternatives viable in areas where Google Maps is the one and only king atm.
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