This is nice to see. I've been a long-time contributor to OpenStreetMap and a long-time user of applications in the ecosystem. I recently tried the CoMaps fork of Organic Maps and was surprised by a few quality of life improvements. For example, the one named in the article about being able to receive periodic map updates outside of the monthly application update cycle. Another subtle example is the color scheme in CoMaps being slightly more pleasant.
CoMaps: The Offline App That Guided Rescuers Without a Signal in Venezuela
51–60 of 91 posts
Re: CoMaps: The Offline App That Guided Rescuers Without a Signal in Venezuela
#52This is very cool and inspiring.
Re: CoMaps: The Offline App That Guided Rescuers Without a Signal in Venezuela
#53I use this regularly when I go on long walks out of the city (including the couple of times I've done stretches of the Camino de Santiago). The offline map support and being able to load and display GPX tracks are really helpful there. Not only because you can sometimes find yourself with spotty reception in remote areas, but also because if you are out all day and your phone battery is not the best, you can just sti…
> OSM as "Google Maps but worse" but IMO it is clearly superior for this use case (at least, for reasonably popular routes). for less popular areas it may be worse, but Google Maps often will be degraded even more I have yet to find case where for hiking/cycling Google was better (I am kind of cheating as I edit on OpenStreetMap and fix problems if found)
I've been visiting some parts that are new to me on a rental car and my partner used Google maps with android auto to set the routes. In a week gmaps tried to send me twice against traffic into one-way streets and once in one that didn't even exist
Re: CoMaps: The Offline App That Guided Rescuers Without a Signal in Venezuela
#54OpenStreetMap is a great ecosystem - I'm a long term contributor. Some pointers: - CoMaps is a fork of Organic Maps, which forked long time ago from Maps.me - OsmAnd is similar. It has more features but is slower and clunkier - If you see errors/missing stuff on OpenStreetMap, fix them. You need a free account for this. There are various tools to help out, such as the editor on Osm.org. Beginner-friendly editors are…
Hey, a simple question : I would like to contribute not features nor POIs but actual paths. In my region the maps lack a lot of forest paths, and others that are on the map are long gone due to nature closing them. Something like the strava heatmap is a lot more accurate because hikers and trail runners make the actual paths appear. I often use https://onthegomap.com (which uses OSM) to plan routes and find that the hiking paths do not match reality. What is a straightforward way for me to contribute ? I have GPX traces of all those not-on-maps well-trodden paths if that helps.
Re: CoMaps: The Offline App That Guided Rescuers Without a Signal in Venezuela
#55OpenStreetMap is a great ecosystem - I'm a long term contributor. Some pointers: - CoMaps is a fork of Organic Maps, which forked long time ago from Maps.me - OsmAnd is similar. It has more features but is slower and clunkier - If you see errors/missing stuff on OpenStreetMap, fix them. You need a free account for this. There are various tools to help out, such as the editor on Osm.org. Beginner-friendly editors are…
Hey, a simple question : I would like to contribute not features nor POIs but actual paths. In my region the maps lack a lot of forest paths, and others that are on the map are long gone due to nature closing them. Something like the strava heatmap is a lot more accurate because hikers and trail runners make the actual paths appear. I often use https://onthegomap.com (which uses OSM) to plan routes and find that the…
There is an upload GPX track function on the website. You then draw your paths with the online editor, above those tracks. Edit: you do this because GPS is not clean enough and you need to choose which paths connects where.
You will often forget the details if your GPX are old. E.g. was it really possible to use a bicycle on that path, did those two actually connect or was it me running 150m through the Forrest as a short cut.
So it takes work to get right.
Re: CoMaps: The Offline App That Guided Rescuers Without a Signal in Venezuela
#56I had a student in my class propose an "AI for emergency response" that leveraged local models. Not a far stretch from what we see here with CoMaps, plus a small Gemma or similar low-parameter model running on-device to help with anything required at the 'last-mile' (beyond just mapping/navigation) during an earthquake, fire, flood, etc.
Re: CoMaps: The Offline App That Guided Rescuers Without a Signal in Venezuela
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey, a simple question : I would like to contribute not features nor POIs but actual paths. In my region the maps lack a lot of forest paths, and others that are on the map are long gone due to nature closing them. Something like the strava heatmap is a lot more accurate because hikers and trail runners make the actual paths appear. I often use https://onthegomap.com (which uses OSM) to plan routes and find that the…
There is an upload GPX track function on the website. You then draw your paths with the online editor, above those tracks. Edit: you do this because GPS is not clean enough and you need to choose which paths connects where. You will often forget the details if your GPX are old. E.g. was it really possible to use a bicycle on that path, did those two actually connect or was it me running 150m through the Forrest as a…
Thanks, that was so simple ! Just contributed my first missing path.
Re: CoMaps: The Offline App That Guided Rescuers Without a Signal in Venezuela
#58Funny to see this app pop up on Hacker News. I recently started tinkering with CoMaps to make it more useful for bikepacking, since I do quite a bit of it. I don’t plan to turn this fork into a product, it’s mostly something I’m building for my own needs ; but I figured it might be interesting to share: https://github.com/r0xsh/CoBike
The surface feature is really a great add-on that is missing from the original app for bikepacking. Thank you for sharing this.
Re: CoMaps: The Offline App That Guided Rescuers Without a Signal in Venezuela
#59A potted history of mobile OSM-based mapping. First there was Osmand. AKA OSMAnd or officially OsmAnd. It was was powerful but complicated. Normies had never heard of it and preferred Maps.me, a user-friendly alternative with an opaque business model. Then something at Maps.me turned sour and the more privacy-minded normies turned to Organic Maps. Then something at Organic Maps turned sour and some of them moved to C…
We tell our users that OsmAnd is great if you want a mapping swiss army knife in your pocket: it does a little bit of everything, for power users. It has plugins and customizability. CoMaps' mission is to be an accessible usable privacy-first FOSS map app for the entire world (average people) and so we always have our eye on the typical expected user experience and what obstacles remain between them and uninstalling…
I haven't tried using osmand much yet, but one concerning thing is the info I encountered that long (as in, cross-country) trips could take minutes (or hours?) to provide a route for. I haven't actually tested it yet, but it definitely gave me pause
Re: CoMaps: The Offline App That Guided Rescuers Without a Signal in Venezuela
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It has more features but is slower and clunkier Just to clarify: OsmAnd has more features, CoMaps and Organic Maps are much faster. (Aside: I'm using CoMaps myself. The main missing features are tracking (I use OpenTracks for that) and public transportation (I use a website for that). End of aside.)
What website do you use for public transportation?
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