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CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

comaps.app

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Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#81

Post by pilina »

dopidopHN2 wrote: post #27

Great for hiking and sharing path. So nice to be able to do that locally and just send a .gpx file

Mapy.com does that really well [0] (not affiliated). Not open source though. It uses mix of sources - OSM included - to render map (best render imo - especially the "outdoor" layer) and they are pretty large contributor to OSM in Europe. In free tier you can have one country downloaded for offline use. Sharing .gpx is no problem. Traffic data only in Central Europe.

[0]: https://mapy.com

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#82

Post by pbmonster »

gonzalohm wrote: post #41
Cider9986 wrote: post #12

I use CoMaps, it works great. You get notified in the app to download the updated maps you selected every 2 weeks or so. Could be wildly different than that, just what I notice. It's timing estimates are often 5-15 minutes off Apple Maps, which I find accurate, on ~two hour drives, but I imagine it depends on the traffic. To improve OpenStreetMap, which CoMaps uses as the data source, I use StreetComplete[1]–it puts…

Do you know if you can add hiking trails using StreetComplete? I noticed some trails are missing in my area and I would like to contribute

You can edit existing trails, but directly adding new ones is not intended. What you can do is create a GPS track, and then upload it with a note describing the problem.

I use the app Vesspucci for actual editing, it works well (but larger changes to OSM is a "full PC" kind of task). Notes from StreetComplete (from all users) show up on a TODO list in the app, so the more advanced users can decided on whether they want to create a node on the map from the note.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#83

Post by wraptile »

What FOSS maps need is user generated content. For example, having "swimming spot" on my map is not really that useful - it needs photos, some description, additional information of what it actually is and how to reach it as bare minimum to be actually competitive.

OSM argues that it's a "map database" but it stores labels like "opening hours" and "social media links" - why stop there? The UGC vs non-UGC debate has been the biggest crutch of all open map projects and no one managed to solve it yet.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#84

Post by szszrk »

wraptile wrote: post #83

What FOSS maps need is user generated content. For example, having "swimming spot" on my map is not really that useful - it needs photos, some description, additional information of what it actually is and how to reach it as bare minimum to be actually competitive. OSM argues that it's a "map database" but it stores labels like "opening hours" and "social media links" - why stop there? The UGC vs non-UGC debate has b…

I strongly disagree. Open maps don't have to compete in this space and it would make them worse.

Yes, that is something google maps excels in. Absolutely. But trying to compete here would mean they have to shift into being a social media and their biggest effort would be content moderation.

There are some intermediate options here. Osmand integrates Mapilary images (I'm not a fan personally), they have travel guides built in (they became usable now, even small cities have decent descriptions where I live) and tiny things like that.

On the other hand, OSM-based tools are crushing commercial maps in... being a map ;)

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#85

Post by habi »

upupupupup wrote: post #44

perfect timing. i was using OpenStreetMap for my ios running app and I found out that there is a cap so I ended up switching to a paid solution and have been trying to build something like comaps by downloading all the tiles

> I found out that there is a cap

A cap for downloading rendered tiles from osm.org? That exists, but is quite generous.

Other (free) options are https://openfreemap.org/ or https://versatiles.org/ to generate your own tiles.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#86

Post by zbycz »

wraptile wrote: post #83

What FOSS maps need is user generated content. For example, having "swimming spot" on my map is not really that useful - it needs photos, some description, additional information of what it actually is and how to reach it as bare minimum to be actually competitive. OSM argues that it's a "map database" but it stores labels like "opening hours" and "social media links" - why stop there? The UGC vs non-UGC debate has b…

You can already add photos to OSM database. Eg. via wikimedia_commons tag.

There is already plenty of apps which show them, like OsmAnd or https://cartes.app , https://osmapp.org or https://openclimbing.org where you can even upload the photos from the map UI

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#87

Post by wraptile »

szszrk wrote: post #84
wraptile wrote: post #83

What FOSS maps need is user generated content. For example, having "swimming spot" on my map is not really that useful - it needs photos, some description, additional information of what it actually is and how to reach it as bare minimum to be actually competitive. OSM argues that it's a "map database" but it stores labels like "opening hours" and "social media links" - why stop there? The UGC vs non-UGC debate has b…

I strongly disagree. Open maps don't have to compete in this space and it would make them worse. Yes, that is something google maps excels in. Absolutely. But trying to compete here would mean they have to shift into being a social media and their biggest effort would be content moderation. There are some intermediate options here. Osmand integrates Mapilary images (I'm not a fan personally), they have travel guides…

> shift into being a social media and their biggest effort would be content moderation.

I really don't buy this argument. You already have to moderate submissions - what's an extra field? Sure, UGC is more opinionated but just don't add star ratings and anything that promotes gaming of system. Just let users expand the dataset with more information, it's almost never a bad idea - isn't that entire point of crowdsourcing datasets?

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#88

Post by WinstonSmith84 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #37
TheLNL wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comaps and organic maps are very similar (they forked very recently). The only difference I can think of from the top of my mind is that organic maps is not fully open source (map files and generator are proprietary) and has some kayak sponsored suggestions/reviews

> organic maps is not fully open source Organic Maps is a for-profit venture that accepts donations. That's sketchy. Management also seems to have prior Kremlin links. Which is sketchy.

> Management also seems to have prior Kremlin links

You mind sharing links / sources / etc. ?

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#89

Post by wraptile »

zbycz wrote: post #86
wraptile wrote: post #83

What FOSS maps need is user generated content. For example, having "swimming spot" on my map is not really that useful - it needs photos, some description, additional information of what it actually is and how to reach it as bare minimum to be actually competitive. OSM argues that it's a "map database" but it stores labels like "opening hours" and "social media links" - why stop there? The UGC vs non-UGC debate has b…

You can already add photos to OSM database. Eg. via wikimedia_commons tag. There is already plenty of apps which show them, like OsmAnd or https://cartes.app , https://osmapp.org or https://openclimbing.org where you can even upload the photos from the map UI

Thanks! The wikimedia_commons tag is very useful - I'll start contributing there. Though my point still stands that UGC integration could and should be much better.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#90

Post by spaqin »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #18
himata4113 wrote: post #17

This is the only app that allows you to easily add stops and permanently save paths for biking. Honestly a life changer.

As great as Waze and Google Maps are for dynamic routing and responsive path-finding, I am using rental scooters now, and at this point I really need to design some bicycle routes with intention and purpose, and Maps simply refuses to save any "dragged" or "pinned" route in any meaningful way, and I suppose this is deliberate, because A.I. knows best, kids!

That was incredibly frustrating when I had some driving restrictions on a learner's license - not every road was available for me and after planning it all out in detail, I realized there's no way for me to move it over to my phone.

Similarly, on a motorbike I'd choose some particular roads for more fun, but that also requires committing the route to memory.

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