Oakland mappers improve the downtown map
June 26, 2009 June 30, 2009
This past weekend’s Oakland Mapping Party showed what a difference a weekend of mapping can make!
On June 27th and 28th, OSM experts and newbies joined together at the Rock, Paper, Scissors Art Collective, to work together to improve the Oakland map. Mappers concentrated on adding details to the downtown map, showcasing where restaurants, galleries, bike parking are located, as well as many other amenities. A couple of mappers focused on improving the cycle map, helping to ensure OpenCycleMap of Oakland is a reliable resource for Oakland cyclists.
A group of mappers also took up the challenge of mapping the local parks, including Lakeside Park (which is almost complete), Washington Park (in Alameda), and the Jack London Square district. There is still more detail needed in the Oakland park system, but our efforts have made a lot of headway.
New mappers learned how to use GPS units, as well as Paper Maps with the Walking-Papers.org project. You can check out some of the paper maps scans here. Paper maps are helpful in mapping dense urban environments, such as downtown Oakland, where there are lots of points-of-interest and addresses to collect.
Between the attendees, there was lively discussion about ways to grow the OSM community, with ideas on sharing GPS units, potential collaborators and new event activities, locations and partners. Overall, the Oakland Mapping community is alive and growing, so please join us for an upcoming event!
A big thank you to the RPS Collective, who were great hosts! We highly recommend attending one of their upcoming events (as well as making a donation) !
June 30th, 2009 - Posted by Sarah Manley | 0 Comments
Presentation to Stanford’s GISSIG
This past Monday I presented an OpenStreetMap introduction to the Stanford’s GIS Special Interest Group. GISSIG attendees are cross-disciplinary, and include people from the social sciences, humanities, natural sciences, engineering and many more. Members included Stanford staff, sucha GIS professionals, as well as professors and grad students.
During the meeting we discussed ways OpenStreetMap is being used, and how it can be adapted. Questions centered around privacy issues, technical formatting, and ways to get more students involved. So far the OSM Stanford Map looks pretty good, but discussions arose around making it even more complete!
Stay tuned for a Stanford mapping party sometime next semester.
April 21st, 2009 - Posted by Sarah Manley | 0 Comments
Bay Area Mapping Fun!
Last week I co-hosted the first Bay Area Mappy Hour with Josh Livni of Baugos. The event started out at Urban Mapping (Thanks Tim!), where we met for introduction and mini-presentations. Simon I. presented his work on Project Volcun, which overlays CO2 emissions data on Google Maps. It allows you to set different filters, and see emissions by state, population, fuel type and much more. We then headed over to 21st Amendment, for drinks and conversation. Approximately 30 people attended, and there was great discussion about the current state of mapping, the geospatial field, as well as new ideas, developments and projects. The mix of backgrounds and interests from the attendees, allowed for great conversation and networking. The next mapping hour will most likely be on April 1st (location TBA). Please contact me, Sarah Manley (sarah@cloudmade.com) with suggestions and check wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mappy_Hour_Bay_Area for more details.
Also, the Berkeley Mapping party render is done! You can check it out on youtube here. This animation is the combination of 15 traces from the Berkeley event. Join us for the next Bay Area Mapping Party this weekend in San Francisco at the Noe Valley Public Library. All the details can be found here.
March 10th, 2009 - Posted by Sarah Manley | 0 Comments
OSM Education Pilot Project at SFSU
Over the past two weeks I piloted the first OpenStreetMap educational program with students in Professor Paula Levine of San Francisco State University Locative Studio course. During the three day program, students focused on mastering the OSM editors, mapping their campus, and brainstorming unique ways to use OSM in their art projects. You can find our wiki page for the project here.
The students also had the opportunity to work with the CloudMade Style Editor. During this session, students were able to create their own styles of the Cloudmade OSM tiles. If you are interested in learning more about our education project, please contact me, Sarah Manley, at Sarah@cloudmade.com.
February 25th, 2009 - Posted by Sarah Manley | 0 Comments
