Autopopulating fields for new places from OvertureMaps data?

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Hey,

I ran into a case today where it would be very useful to add a new place into OSM based on the places data in https://overturemaps.org.

I started a discussion on their end here: Is it allowed to use OvertureMaps places data to add restaurants to OpenStreetMap? · OvertureMaps · Discussion #418 · GitHub

But I thought that I will also ask for the same information here too.

What do you think about this? How should I proceed with this if they give greenlight?

I read Automated Edits code of conduct - OpenStreetMap Wiki but I don’t want to mass edit anything. I would only want to use this if given place doesn’t exist yet to avoid manual steps.

I haven’t yet done this and I don’t want to offend anyone. This just feels like win-win for both parties.

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I haven’t kept up to date with the current state of the Overture Maps dataset, but IIRC the initial impressions here were that their places dataset had serious quality issues. In my spot checks POIs frequently appear in the wrong part of town etc. in a way that would be completely useless for navigation.

If that remains the case then it’s probably a non-starter whether there are license issues or not.

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It seems that you probably didnt read through all of this and it’s okay.

I was physically in the restaurant I would want to Add to OSM. I verified that the data from Meta is perfectly fine and I just wished to ”autocomplete” it instead of manually adding it.

For example in Finland lot of places are missing from OSM which do exist in OvertureMaps.

I would solely want to use this in a situation where I’m near a place and can see that yes this is it.

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In that case I have a different set of concerns.

New users don’t tend to treat suggested tags as suggestions, they tend to treat them as authoritative and apply them blindly across the board. Even when the match is clearly a false positive.

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Please read through everything I’ve written about this and once you have tell me if you still think so.

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I know @Mateusz_Konieczny is making a StreetComplete quest for alltheplaces.xyz

I guess in theory someone could make an OvertureMaps quest

The data can be used with OSM, and it seems like you can access it with the Rapid editor: Places | Overture Maps Documentation

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I read your initial post and your single issue entry github discussion before my second reply.

I’m not going to read your actual source code, but the presence of it in a public repo with a FLOSS license suggests that you intend it to be used and incorporated by others.

Which again leads to the problem we’ve seen with loose NSI matches, Mapcomplete challenges with inadequate warning text and with some other QA tools:

If this is to be done it needs to be done very carefully to ensure it doesn’t become a bulk import by patsy. You may be very careful, but the others using the same or derivative tools may not be.

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I am curious about what you mean by “It’s not possible to tag information like wheelchair entrances or toilets directly to OvertureMaps so this should be win win for both ecosystems”? This would have no impact on the Overture ecosystem that I can see?

I am not expert on the legalities/licensing, but in general terms I think this would be OK if it is just something that you personally will use to speed up data entry that you would do anyway as a result of an on the ground survey. That implies that you verify that the location is just as accurate as you would have mapped manually, and that all the tags including contact fields are accurate and up to date. (My experience with Overture has been that none of those things can be relied on, so I’d probably spend more time overall sorting out those issues than simply adding the data as normal).

Of course you would need to respect OSM tagging standards and local practice as you would when surveying. On that note, I see you use addr:full in your example. Typically that is used for non-standard address formats, and it seems to be hardly used in Finland. This seems to be a standard addr:street and addr:housenumber so your script should reflect that.

An important aspect would be to ensure that the Overture category is correctly mapped to OSM tags. Restaurants are probably fairly straightforward but other types of business may not map one-to-one.

Of course if the idea is to encourage other people to use this on a wide scale then the issues mentioned by @InsertUser come into play.

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Overture has publicly said Places can be used as a source for OSM as CDLAv2 is compatible with the ODbL.

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This would have no impact on the Overture ecosystem that I can see?

Well I intend to add multiple places eventually and I can do it in a way which is harder for Overture to conflate. Or I can add the exact same coordinates and maybe even a tag which refers to their GERS id.

I assume (and hope) that eventually for example the wheelchair access will be useful for Amazon & Meta & Microsoft too so I hope that I can do it in a way which maximizes compatibility. By using slightly different location and different name I can make it harder to conflate.

if it is just something that you personally will use to speed up data entry that you would do anyway as a result of an on the ground survey. That implies that you verify that the location is just as accurate as you would have mapped manually, and that all the tags including contact fields are accurate and up to date.

Yeah this is my intention too :+1:

Of course you would need to respect OSM tagging standards and local practice as you would when surveying. On that note, I see you use addr:full in your example. Typically that is used for non-standard address formats, and it seems to be hardly used in Finland. This seems to be a standard addr:street and addr:housenumber so your script should reflect that.

This is very good point :ok_hand:. The current demo was just a very quick proof of concept which needs to be enhanced. Do you know how Streetcomplete or Go Map handle this? Do they have different schema around the world?

An important aspect would be to ensure that the Overture category is correctly mapped to OSM tags. Restaurants are probably fairly straightforward but other types of business may not map one-to-one.

Yeah agreed but the intention is to anyway manually update the rest of the fields. I will need to check the how to match the amenities.

Overture has publicly said Places can be used as a source for OSM as CDLAv2 is compatible with the ODbL.

This is great :heart:

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As far as I know, Overture does not use OSM data in their Places dataset (unlike other datasets) and does not plan to do so, so I’m not sure your OSM additional tags will ever feed back into Overture. At least the Github discussion linked in the post above suggests the flow will only be one way (Overture data can be used in OSM but they don’t intend to use OSM data in Overture).

I’m not sure but addr:street and addr:housenumber is very standard so wouldn’t require special treatment, it is your choice of addr:full that seems odd.

Some work has been done on that, e.g. here:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Overture_categories

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Please don’t add the Overture coords to OSM, they are… not good. Positional accuracy is the best part of OSM, and OSM has the best positional accuracy of any map.

There is some usage of ref:gers but I wouldn’t recommend it. I’ve taken part in many ref tagging attempts in my years here, it’s a waste of time. OSM will never have a large % of coverage so consumers wanting to conflate the data will still need to do it programmatically, and of the % OSM does do, it wont be perfect. And specifically for GERS, the format has changed 3 times now, and the content isn’t stable anyway.

In theory OSM could be used to create a bridge file for Overture so that Overture consumes could get deep details that Overture doesn’t want, eg opening hours or wheelchair access. However again, it’s probably a waste of time. AFAIK Overture doesn’t really have any customers that want more attributes, we’re better spending our time packaging OSM POIs for easier use.

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Why not just map it like a normal person?

There are a wide variety of map editing apps that make it very easy & quick to edit OSM on the go, e.g. Every Door.

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yes

though I seen addr:full mostly in OSM-alike datasets where they were unable to handle address properly and typically it is not usable as-is

do we have confirmation of that from say LWG? Overture made some copyright claims that were simply wrong (and fixed some of them, like failing to attribute OpenStreetMap)

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In Finland the address from OvertureMaps can be parsed pretty easily from the format street name 1-2 but I don’t know if this is the case elsewhere. I modified the script so that it tries to check this but if you feel it’s better to just leave the address away I can do that as well.

I imagine it’s more useful to have the restaurant in OSM with correct location and without the full address and to know if they allow dogs and have wheelchair entrance than no data at all.

Why not just map it like a normal person?

Because I’m a software engineer and I can. Especially in Finland there are so many missing restaurants so I feel that this can be done A: faster B: with better quality.

With Every Door it would take ages for me.

Just to help me understand can everyone who are doubting this check few restaurants near you and give me examples where Overture is completely wrong?

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And I have tried to use many of them recently. I’m very eager to contribute and I definitely love OSM.

For example searching for the correct address, websites, facebook pages takes a lot of time.

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Every Door can now take plugins as well, so you could write a plugin for Overture Maps?

Would be much easier to walk down an unmapped street and only have to confirm and move POIs, instead of the current slow approach where you have to manually type in the name. I would definitely start using it!

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This is from Oslo. Green are correct. Red are wrong and non-existing / defunct / replaced with new stores. Unmarked I don’t quite remember

Notice also some POIs that don’t have labels, those are likely majority wrong too.

So you need to survey or cross-check with other sources (e.g., their own website that lists an address, if the address is already mapped in OSM) before mapping

Screenshot 2025-08-20 at 19.51.11
Screenshot 2025-08-20 at 19.51.111726×1494 171 KB

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When this topic comes up again I am reminded to check whether York Minster still has a car care business in the north transcept. According to Overture, it does.

I guess someone could use that as a prompt for survey (they’d obviously not find it), and any other details would presumably have to be individually checked too

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I’m not sure if there is an easy way to link to specific places on Overture, but here goes:
El Mesoncito del Limonar
Supposedly has 95% confidence but… it closed about a year ago. Another restaurant has now opened, but with different cuisine, name, and contact details.

El Tentadero and Taperia Abrebocas
These are duplicates - El Tentadero seems to have been its name 8 or 10 years ago. Abrebocas is a better match for the current situation, but the name is clearly displayed as Abreboca without an s, and El Tentadero is the only one with a working facebook link. So combining the two gets you something almost but not quite correct. All of which would take much longer than mapping it from scratch.

Restaurante Cafe de Paris
No idea what this is. Looking at the website it seems to have been closed for some time. But more importantly it appears to have been located about 3km away even when it was open.

Group of adjoining restaurants / cafes
Sabor a Fuego is no longer an Argentinean meat restaurant, it has been replaced by a pizza restaurant so all details are obsolete.
Keyzen is the closest I have found so far to a properly mapped restaurant. But it is not actually in the middle of the street. As mentioned above by @CjMalone, this is where OSM tends to do well - most POIs are in the right place, not just vaguely in the general area.
Paseo de Sancha is poorly located, it should be at the eastern end of the block and the house number is 30 not 28 (so the row of restaurants is in the wrong order). An even better example of where OSM positional accuracy is valuable.
Again, if these weren’t already in OSM, I feel it would be quicker to map these from scratch using one of the apps already mentioned (or by taking a photo and mapping it later at home) than to sort out which Overture POI is meant to match which real world restaurant.

I should stress that I found these quickly by looking at all the restaurants in a small area, I didn’t have to go out of my way to find badly mapped examples.

Also, other types of business than restaurants tend to be even worse. There isn’t actually an airport in this residential street.

Well, yes, but… the address is a pretty basic detail, it is often essential to be sure you are navigating to the right place (especially if the restaurant name is a brand), and the best opportunity to confirm the address is when you are surveying it in the first place. If you think that is slow and tedious, it is even slower and more tedious to identify, survey, and add/update/correct details of POIs that have been partly mapped. And the other details like websites are easier to investigate if the address is already mapped (searching for name + street address is far more likely to find a website than just name + city). I don’t mind mappers adding skeleton details sometimes if they are in a hurry, and I’ve done that myself. But I would find it frustrating if I had to repeatedly add address details that a particular local mapper was systematically leaving out.

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