OSM in Our Commercial Products

At @spatialnetworks, we work a lot with OpenStreetMap data, and I myself started the @osmtampabay mapping group to map our area. This talk discussed how and why we use OSM in building commercial mapping products.

Presented at State of the Map 2011 in Denver, CO.

Transcript

1. osm in our commercial products adding value with open data
2. my name is Coleman geographer & software developer
3. OSM is not just for “free” or “casual” products anymore it’s suitable for commercial applications the basic point
4. spatial networks a brief history • founded in 2000 • commercial & business intelligence data collection • building GIS data & map products • developing mapping software
5. we make software iOS Android web applications
6. open source, open data
7. products fulcrum maptual maptual:kabul
8. a data source for apps commercial v. open
9. what we need low cost flexible current localized
10. problems with commercial data quality & depth low detail in non-urban areas developing countries restrictive licensing expensive
11. OSM
12. Google Maps
13. so how does OSM help us? why use it?
14. i <3 osm osm.org/user/coleman
15. it’s customizable i can make pretty maps!
18. flexibility commercial sources have rigid usage restrictions OSM lets us do what we need primarily: take map data offline
19. beautiful cartography #borders::line[zoom>=3] { line-width: 0.5; line-color: #cdcbc5; [zoom>3] { line-color: #8d8b8d; } [zoom>6] { line-width: 1; } }
20. dataset is humongous nodes = 1.2 bil ways = 107 mil relations = 1 mil !!
21. we can contribute
22. it’s accurate enough!
23. validation commercial usage of osm proves it’s valuable
24. challenges? surely it’s not that simple...
25. nodes ways relations changesets tags
26. it’s a learning experience working with OSM data is not trivial learning the data model getting familiar with databases integrating with your own apps
27. thanks for listening! @colemanm @spatialnetworks