Category: Software

OpenStreetMap editing and two Chicago events in April

A mapping party! Photo by MapBox. 

I use OpenStreetMap (OSM) heavily since I learned how to edit the map. OSM is the Wikipedia of worldwide mapping: it allows anyone to edit and contribute and allows anyone to copy and extract the data.

I edit places that lack information, fix mistakes (like how roads are drawn, or typos), and add new places. This work is important to my app because what is shown on OpenStreetMap is what appears in my iOS app, the Chicago Bike Map app.

The Chicago Bike Map app map tiles currently look like the above screenshot. Before releasing the next version I will download the latest version of “planet”, which has 100% of buildings now, thanks to Ian Dees

When I locate a place that needs more detail and I want to add it, I open JOSM.app and then, on the OpenStreetMap.org website, I click “Edit>Edit with Remote Control”. JOSM pans over to that spot and downloads all of the OSM data. It works very much like a GIS application and AutoCAD: it has points and polygons that you can move or resize. When you’re done adding features or editing the geometry or metadata of existing ones, click “Upload data”, add a message summarizing the changes you made, and hit the “Upload” button.

Screencast showing how I locate places to which to add detail and then add them with JOSM.

Your changes will be integrated in the OSM database almost immediately. The changes will appear on the live OpenStreetMap.org map tiles in minutes. The “extract services”, which take the data out and send to you as a compressed file or even ESRI shapefile, will read the “planet” file (complete OSM database) soon; some update nightly while others update weekly.

Here are the extract services I use (each one for different reasons):

  • BBBike.org – nightly; allows you to select any area with a self-drawn polygon; exports in ESRI shapefile and other formats; extracts take 15-30 minutes.
  • Michal Migurski’s Metro Extracts – monthly; has ~100 cities pre-extracted; this is now hosted on Smart Chicago Collaborative’s resources alongside my Crash Browser.
  • GEOFABRIK – nightly; all continents, many countries and all fifty states are pre-extracted;

Events!

These are copied straight from the Smart Chicago Collaborative website. I will be at the Map-a-Thon. I’m still thinking about the Hackathon. While I can’t program in the languages required, I can write decent documentation.

OpenStreetMap Map-a-Thon

Beginning mappers are invited to be a part of a national OpenStreetMap Map-a-thon by learning how to use our tools to improve the map in your area. You can add your favorite restaurant or comic book store, a local school or hospital. During the map-a-thon we’ll walk you through the process of finding your area, creating an account, and making your first edit. With that foundation, you can go on to make an impact by adding tons of information relevant to you and your community!

Attend the Map-a-thon April 20th and 21st at 1871 on the 12th floor of the Merchandise Mart, 222 Merchandise Mart Plaza from 12 PM to 6 PM. Participants will enjoy food and drinks thanks to Smart Chicago Collaborative.

For more information about the map-a-thon and to RSVP, please visit the Meetup page for the event.

OpenStreetMap Hack Weekend

If you know your way around a compiler, feel comfortable with JSON and XML, or know the difference between an ellipsoid and a geoid, then the Hack Weekend is for you. We’re looking for those with technical know-how to help make a difference in OpenStreetMap’s core software by writing patches and new software to help make mapping faster and easier. Special thanks to Knight-Mozilla OpenNews for their support and sponsorship.

The hack weekend will be held April 27th and 28th at 1871 from 9 AM to dinner time each day.

For more information about the hack weekend, please visit the OSM wiki page for the event. Two MapBox staffers will be here. MapBox is awesome; they make TileMill which makes my iOS app possible.

Get out of Googleville: my presentation on web mapping

Alternate headlines: Google Maps versus OpenStreetMap; why OpenStreetMap is better than Google Maps

I presented to the Chicago GIS Network Meetup group on February 5,2013, about alternatives to Google when it comes to mapping on the web. I created the presentation and outline a couple hours before giving it and came up with this slideshow with three frames.

Googleville 1 of 3

Google Maps and its data is a one-way street (or many one-way streets). Google will take data but won’t give it back.

Googleville 2 of 3

Google Maps has all of these features, but they’re easier to manipulate when you use an alternative. Alternatives like: MapBox, TileMill, OpenLayers, OpenStreetMap (made easy with JOSM), GeoCommons – I’m sure there are plenty more.

Googleville 3 of 3

OpenStreetMap is the Wikipedia of online mapping and geographic data. Considering switching to OSM.

Customer reviews for my bike map app

Only reviews left for the current version are displayed on the iTunes Preview page, and the default view of the iTunes Store. 

I’m appreciative of the two reviews people have left for my app – it’s a bike map for Chicago stored in your phone, download in iTunes. Their positivity and the slight increase in sales this past week has increased the ranking of my app. I don’t know what the ranking means.

When my app first ranked, in its Reference category, it was 385, then 289, and now stands at 315. I’m not sure on what factors the ranking is based, but I’ve gathered some clues from other bloggers:

[In addition to the number of downloads, other] factors play into the ranking equation such as how long the app is opened as the active app and how often the app is opened.

There’s no mention of reviews on that page, but I found another article that mentions more ways to improve your app, which includes having positive reviews. (Another factor it mentions is frequently updating the app.)

I’d like to hear from my app’s users what their feedback is before they leave a review in the iTunes Store. I can address issues directly with users and discuss how they can (or cannot) be incorporated in a future update to the app. You can send your feedback to me, and your love to the app store. (A major downside of the customer reviews process in the iTunes Store is the inability for the developer to respond.)

My app’s received two reviews (both 5 stars!) so far:

Saw this app being discussed on Twitter and thought I’d check it out. So, on the hottest day of 2012, I jumped on my bike and rode around my area checking out the apps features. Color me impressed! I rode to a few areas that I was not over familiar with and activated the app to peruse my options via my bike (or CTA). I look forward to using this on my far south/far north bikiing adventures soon!

The first reviews about the first version:

Would be great if it could locate on the map with GPS. Also if it could zoom out more. These bike lanes have come a long way recently. There are some really nice new places to ride like the cycle track on Kinzie. But there are also some old routes out there that are great biking such as the Boulevard System (Humboldt, Logan, Palmer Sq) that you could show on your map. And it says it supports German, but it is in English 🙂

The part about my app being available in German was true for v0.1, but I’ve fixed that for v0.2. If you’re going to leave a review, I’d like to leave you with this advice, for I feel it makes for a constructive review:

  1. Describe what is good about the app, and what you like about the app.
  2. Describe how you’ve used the app.
  3. Suggest ways the app could improve.

This was what the first version looked like. It wasn’t very good. 

How to split a bike lane in two and copy features with QGIS

A screenshot of the splash image seen on users with iPad retina displays in landscape mode. 

To make the Chicago Offline Bike Map, I need bikeways data. I got this from the City of Chicago’s data portal, in GIS shapefile format. It has a good attribute table listing the name of the street the bikeway is on and the bikeway’s class (see below). After several bike lanes had been installed, I asked the City’s data portal operators for an updated shapefile. I got it a month later and found that it wasn’t up-to-date. I probably could have received a shapefile with the current bikeway installations marked, but I didn’t have time to wait: every day delayed was one more day I couldn’t promote my app; I make 70 cents per sale.

Since the bikeway lines were already there, I could simply reclassify the sections that had been changed to an upgraded form of bikeway (for example, Wabash Avenue went from a door zone-style bike lane to a buffered bike lane in 2011). I tried to do this but ran into trouble when the line segment was longer than the bikeway segment that needed to be reclassified (for example, Elston Avenue has varying classifications from Milwaukee Avenue to North Avenue that didn’t match the line segments for that street). I had to divide the bikeway into shorter segments and reclassify them individually.

Enter the Split Features tool. QGIS is short on documentation and I had trouble using this feature. I eventually found the trick after a search that took more time than I expected. Here’s how to cut a line:

  1. Select the line using one of the selection tools. I prefer the default one, Select Features, where you have to click on the feature one-by-one. (It’s not required that you select the line, but doing so will ensure you only cut the selected line. If you don’t select the line, you can cut many lines in one go.)
  2. Toggle editing on the layer that contains the line you want to cut.
  3. Click Edit>Split Features to activate that tool, or find its icon in one the toolbars (which may or may not be shown).
  4. Click once near where you want to split the line.
  5. Move the cursor across the line you want to split, in the desired split location.
  6. When the red line indicating your split is where you desire, press the right-click mouse button.

Your line segment has now been split. A new entry has been added to the attribute table. There are now two entries with duplicate attributes representing that together make up the original line segment, before you split it.

This screenshot shows a red line across a road. The red line indicates where the road will be split. Press the right-click mouse button to tell QGIS to “split now”.

After splitting, open the attribute table to see that you now have two features with identical attributes. 

Copying features in QGIS

A second issue I had when creating new bikeways data was when a bikeway didn’t exist and I couldn’t reclassify it. This was the case on Franklin Boulevard: no bikeway had ever been installed there. I solved this problem by copying the relevant street segments from the Transportation (roads) shapefile and pasted them into the bikeways shapefile. New entries were created in the attribute table but with blank attributes. It was simple to fill in the street name, class, and extents.

Chicago bikeways GIS description

Bikeway classes (TYPE in the dataset) in the City of Chicago data portal are:

  1. Existing bike lane
  2. Existing marked shared lane
  3. Proposed on-street bikeway
  4. Recommended bike route
  5. Existing trail
  6. Proposed off-street trail
  7. Access path (to existing trail)
  8. Existing cycle track (also known as protected bike lane)
  9. Existing buffered bike lane

It remains to be seen if the City will identify the “enhanced marked shared lane” on Wells Street between Wacker Drive and Van Buren street differently than “existing marked shared lane” in the data.

I’m on the home stretch for first update to Chicago Offline Bike Map app

Splash screen of the app. 

Since making the first version of the Chicago Offline Bike Map app, a bike map stored in your iOS device and doesn’t need an Internet connection, I’ve made several important changes and added new features. I’ve upgraded twice how train stations will be appearing. I’ve completely changed the way it looks by using jQueryMobile. Also with v0.2 you’ll find more points of interest, locate yourself using the iOS device hardware (results will vary on a variety of hardware and location factors), and zoom to any neighborhood.

I want your help. I want to make a list of at least 20 points of interest. I’ve no qualifications, but this is who I think my target audience is: people who have cycled in Chicago for a while, people who have just started cycling, people who have iOS devices (I will expand to Android eventually), and who know how to use a map.

Current points of interest are:

  • All CTA and Metra stations
  • All neighborhoods
  • Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum
  • Field Museum of Natural History
  • Museum of Science and Industry
  • DuSable Museum
  • Harold Washington Cultural Center
  • Chicago Cultural Center
  • Holography Museum
  • Museum of Contemporary Art
  • Chicago City Hall
  • Chicago Velo Campus
  • Millennium Park Bike Station
  • SAIC Bike Fixit Station

Train stations on the map. 

Excluding train stations and neighborhoods, there are 12 points of interest. What else should I add? (Since posting this I’ve added the three largest libraries: Harold Washington Library Center, Woodson Regional, and Sulzer Regional.)

P.S. I plan to make an Android version of this app, but I have no timeline on that. Follow app development at the app’s Tumblr.