Maps.earth – free and open-source web maps • Hacker News Board

Maps.earth – free and open-source web maps

#1

Post by ellenhp » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 1:45 PM UTC

Hey everyone, a while back I posted about an open-source maps project I was working on called Headway. I just wanted to share an exciting update. I made a few architectural improvements with the help of some really awesome contributors and Headway can now run full-planet instances. I'm really excited with what we've managed to come up with.

Right now the full-planet demo server is in Germany and lives at [1]. A brief explanation is at [2]. I'm hopeful that the project will continue to improve with time and eventually end up being a real contender in the web maps space. I'm talking with folks about the potential for getting some more robust hosting options too which is very exciting.

For the moment though, Headway has some usability issues. It's missing ETAs, has no steps list for directions, or proper geocoding search results page, etc. I'm going to get to these issues with time, but please drop me a line if you're interested in helping out. Especially interested in help with web frontend, design, or internationalization. Development takes place on GitHub [3] and discussions tend to happen in the matrix room [4].

[1] https://maps.earth/

[2] https://about.maps.earth/

[3] https://github.com/headwaymaps/headway

[4] https://matrix.to/#/#headway:matrix.org

Maps.earth – free and open-source web maps
about.maps.earth

Re: Maps.earth – free and open-source web maps

#2

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 1:45 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Maps.earth – free and open-source web maps

#3

Post by abetusk » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 3:05 PM UTC

I'm a little confused as to what this actually is.

Is this a route planning built on top of OSM? Does this bundle OSM data "all in one" so that you can more easily host an OSM server?

Re: Maps.earth – free and open-source web maps

#4

Post by antman » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 3:18 PM UTC

Is it a web app? A web service?

Re: Maps.earth – free and open-source web maps

#5

Post by DonnyV » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 3:24 PM UTC

Didn't have my address in NJ.

Re: Maps.earth – free and open-source web maps

#6

Post by paxys » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 3:26 PM UTC

I tried the hosted app at https://maps.earth but it isn't really usable at present. How do you actually search for and navigate to places?

Re: Maps.earth – free and open-source web maps

#7

Post by lambda_dn » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 3:31 PM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: Maps.earth – free and open-source web maps

#8

Post by ElCheapo » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 3:34 PM UTC

I just asked for directions from my home to the railway station and the navigator told me to enter a roundabout in the opposite direction :/

Re: Maps.earth – free and open-source web maps

#9

Post by soheil » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 3:34 PM UTC

Can you tell us what this even is before telling us how sorry you are that it’s not perfect?

Re: Maps.earth – free and open-source web maps

#10

Post by ellenhp » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 3:37 PM UTC

abetusk wrote: post #3

I'm a little confused as to what this actually is. Is this a route planning built on top of OSM? Does this bundle OSM data "all in one" so that you can more easily host an OSM server?

OSM doesn't have a server per se (other than the OSM API server). It's a dataset for the most part. Headway lets you bring up a server that will render maps tiles, allows you to search for places and get routes between places. It's trying to be a user-friendly UI for various pieces of the OSM ecosystem. There are a lot of amazing pieces of software out there that work with OSM data, but there isn't an easy way to bring them up, and there's no unified frontend for all of them other than Headway (that I know of).

Edit: To the comments telling me I'm wrong about this, remember that Headway has a geocoder and routing system, along with a transit trip planner (currently disabled on maps.earth though). These are not things you could get with off-the-shelf solutions that include a GUI until now. I also want to self-host my mapping software for privacy reasons, and Headway makes that easy too. I probably need to be better about explaining what all Headway does that's different than just bringing up an OSM tileserver though. Thank you all for the feedback :)