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OpenStreetMap proven to be a highly accurate map in top US cities

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Re: OpenStreetMap proven to be a highly accurate map in top US cities

#31

Apparently, I'm not in the 30 cities that are accurate. Used Magic Earth on my phone which is based on OSM. The very first address I input was off by about a mile. Didn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence.

Address search (geocoding) isn’t what this article is about. OSM by common agreement has a long way to go on that.

Re: OpenStreetMap proven to be a highly accurate map in top US cities

#32
post #4

Good that OSM is accurate in cities as well, because in hiking, skiing, or even some ferry routes, OSM simply wins because that's often the only mapping provider to even have _any_ data. Some of my first hand experiences: - French GR-20 routes. Google maps are laughably empty, while OSM has you covered with almost the same information as the hiking maps you can buy on the trail. - Anapurna - similar to GR-20 situatio…

Is there an easy way to contribute from my phone? If I could just turn the GPS on and let it track my path I’d be able to contribute all of my random hikes that might not be on OSM.

[deleted]

Re: OpenStreetMap proven to be a highly accurate map in top US cities

#33
post #4

Good that OSM is accurate in cities as well, because in hiking, skiing, or even some ferry routes, OSM simply wins because that's often the only mapping provider to even have _any_ data. Some of my first hand experiences: - French GR-20 routes. Google maps are laughably empty, while OSM has you covered with almost the same information as the hiking maps you can buy on the trail. - Anapurna - similar to GR-20 situatio…

Is there an easy way to contribute from my phone? If I could just turn the GPS on and let it track my path I’d be able to contribute all of my random hikes that might not be on OSM.

You can directly upload GPS traces:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/traces

That won't get them into the OpenStreetMap database, but it makes them available (if you set them to public) for anyone looking to add the trails.

There's also apps like StreetComplete. It has 'challenges', where it prompts you for answers to questions and updates OpenStreetMap accordingly (so what is the surface type of a road, things like that).

Vespucci is a full featured editor for Android.

Re: OpenStreetMap proven to be a highly accurate map in top US cities

#35

Unfortunately, working in the Commercial Real Estate world, OSM is no where close when doing a forward geocode... around the block is not close enough. Only ones accurate enough are Google (won't use) and Mapbox.

I thought mapbox used openstreetmap data?

Re: OpenStreetMap proven to be a highly accurate map in top US cities

#36

Unfortunately, working in the Commercial Real Estate world, OSM is no where close when doing a forward geocode... around the block is not close enough. Only ones accurate enough are Google (won't use) and Mapbox.

I thought mapbox used openstreetmap data?

Not exclusively. They probably dump OpenAddresses data (or something similar) into their geocoder.

https://openaddresses.io/

Re: OpenStreetMap proven to be a highly accurate map in top US cities

#37
post #23

On the other hand, I wonder if OSM's accuracy in Europe has taken a hit in the last year. The lockdowns have led to a wave of bankruptcies of restaurants and fitness centers in several countries, but because mappers are forced to stay home and aren't circulating in the city doing their business, they aren't noticing so much what has changed and removing those POIs from the map. Also, the extremely strict lockdowns in…

This is an issue with all map services, really. I see the same thing happening on Google and Apple Maps, lots of places that are permanently closed haven't been updated yet.

Apple, Amazon, Facebook and MS have been lately contributing a lot to OSM, so what you see on Apple Maps might very well be OSM data.

https://joemorrison.medium.com/openstreetmap-is-having-a-mom...

Re: OpenStreetMap proven to be a highly accurate map in top US cities

#38
post #26

I've been looking to replace Google Maps with OSM on my smartphone. OSM itself is great, but I've been having a harder time finding a good app to use it with. Is anyone familiar with a good option? I mostly use a maps app for location searches and real-time GPS navigation, but offline maps and location sharing are nice-to-have features. I've been using OsmAnd and it's okay. The interface is pretty good. It supports o…

I think Gaia GPS has a free tier? The base map is OSM. I've seen changes that I've made in OSM pulled in within a couple of days. I've gotten a lot of use out of my subscription.

I can't speak as much to the location searching capability.

Re: OpenStreetMap proven to be a highly accurate map in top US cities

#39
post #26

I've been looking to replace Google Maps with OSM on my smartphone. OSM itself is great, but I've been having a harder time finding a good app to use it with. Is anyone familiar with a good option? I mostly use a maps app for location searches and real-time GPS navigation, but offline maps and location sharing are nice-to-have features. I've been using OsmAnd and it's okay. The interface is pretty good. It supports o…

I previously had good experience with Maps.me. OsmAnd is great with its myriad settings and such, but somehow is a huge battery drain on my phone. I use it just fine in the background though, because it still provides turn by turn navigation that way. I think OsmAnd doesn't use generated tiles, but rather generates the map on the fly, hence the slowness.
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