What is open street map?

Dancey · 2011-08-26T04:31:17.000Z

I don’t understand what this Open street Map is.

Do you just make you own maps or does whatever you do to a map change it forever?

I just want a simple street map of a town so can I delete all the stuff on the map that I don’t want? Or, if I delete stuff is it gone forever?

If the latter, there should be a way better explanation of what this open street map is, and there should be a way to stop people like me from screwing things up, because I don’t mean to screw things up.

There should be a way to make maps just for yourself with only the stuff on it that you want, so you don’t screw up what other people have loaded.

And there should be layers.

I think I did an oopsy. I sincerely regret if I have and apologize to those whose data I may have erased.

There really should be a better explanation of it all and a way for that to not happen.

Richard · 2011-08-26T07:48:49.000Z

Lots of "should"s in there. How about helping to make these things happen?

chris66 · 2011-08-26T07:56:13.000Z

You SHOULD read the Beginners Guide:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Beginners%27_guide

Or, if I delete stuff is it gone forever?

Yes but we have some reverting tools.

ToeBee · 2011-08-26T08:02:29.000Z

First of all, welcome to OpenStreetMap. Yes, what you do in the editor available at osm.org goes into the OSM database immediately for all the world to see and use. Feel free to make changes that improve the map!

Is someone already working on reverting this? If no one else is, I can do it. Wouldn’t be my first time.

As for your original intentions, there ARE ways of making your own maps. That’s what OSM is all about! I recently wrote a blog post about how to render your own map that you might be interested in:
http://ksmapper.blogspot.com/2011/08/simple-openstreetmap-tile-rendering.html

It does not cover deleting data you don’t want though. One way to achieve this is to load the data into JOSM (the Java OpenStreetMap editor) and do what you want with it then save the data out to a file on your hard drive (don’t upload or it will go into the database!) and then render your map from that file.

PHerison · 2011-08-26T08:03:01.000Z

Dancey:

I don’t understand what this Open street Map is.

OSM is a database. One thing you can do with the data is generate maps.

Dancey:

Do you just make you own maps or does whatever you do to a map change it forever?

If you delete something with an editor (which hast a map as a background image) then youo delete it from the database.

Dancey:

I just want a simple street map of a town so can I delete all the stuff on the map that I don’t want? Or, if I delete stuff is it gone forever?

We keep everithing ion the DB. If you “delete” something from the main DB it is marked as “invisible” but it’s not gone forever.

Dancey:

There should be a way to make maps just for yourself with only the stuff on it that you want, so you don’t screw up what other people have loaded.

We are happy to see your program / solution for this problem.

Dancey:

I think I did an oopsy. I sincerely regret if I have and apologize to those whose data I may have erased.

If you post the number of the changeset where you erased the data, we have tools to revert everything. Was it http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/changeset/9126204 ?

Dancey:

There really should be a better explanation of it all and a way for that to not happen.

Please tell us, where we should improve our documentation.

ToeBee · 2011-08-26T08:23:14.000Z

Since no one else spoke up and I didn’t see any more changes happening in the area, I went ahead and reverted this change:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/changeset/9127311

Mark_lester · 2011-09-07T16:35:44.000Z

Dancey:

There should be a way to make maps just for yourself with only the stuff on it that you want, …

actually, that’s what I want, but this is such an obvious requirement, tied in with the whole unholy rows you guys must have about what should be in or out as far as information layers, that I’m sure you all know this all too well.
I can think of dozens of social aps, (well, several anyway) where ideally the stuff that belongs in the map goes off to the map, and a local layer of stuff is edited on the native system.

Is there a way in yet for any of this, or do I just start by trying to make my own OSM-like instance, make up my own set pf objects, and then figure out how to get the renderer to use the map proper as a backdrop, and we’ll take it from there ? .
The kind of layers I am thinking about would/should be open, e.g. travel data, routes etc, especially in places where you’d be lucky to get a timetable let alone a route map. but there are probably also legitimate private applications, and where an aspect or portion of their data is legitimate content for the map proper and which they wish to keep there.

Anyway, layers, how do you do them ?, is there any point me having a go at his ?.

Mark_lester · 2011-09-08T13:11:02.000Z

the short answer to my query is “read up on Mapnik”, which I am now doing.